Hong Kong - Only a Pony

On the way back home from Melbourne, I had a three day stop over in Hong Kong. I stayed in the Tsim Sha Tsui area so it was pretty good access to the East Promenade near the Avenue of Stars where I fished previously. Bait wasn’t very easy to get as I didn’t know where the nearest wet fish market was and ended up buying some fresh prawns at Yau Ma Tei fish market which was about a 2 mile return trek from the hotel. I’m sure I could have got it somewhere closer. I found that a nearby supermarket had frozen prawns and fish, but I preferred fresh anyway.

Day 1 - East Promenade

I had only brought a single rod to Hong Kong, and set up a paternoster of quite small hooks and a small bit of prawn. I had many small bites but wasn’t able to convert them into fish. After a little while I landed a small silver fish with a black spot on the nape and front of the dorsal fin, various yellow stripes and spots, an extremely protrusible mouth and very slimy skin. I knew it was a ponyfish, but wasn’t able to identify it as a Spotnape Ponyfish [#139] until I got home.



Spotnape Ponyfish - Nuchequula nuchalis #139



Spotnape Ponyfish - Nuchequula nuchalis

I little while later, I had a different type of bite, it was more of a snatch than a nibble and out came a little goby. I could tell that it was a Tridentiger goby beause of the yellow band on the pectoral fins but was hopeful that it might be a species other than the Chameleon Goby. Well, hopes of a new species faded as I discovered that the only other Tridentiger species in Hong Kong, Tridentiger bifasciatus was an estuarine species that never enters 100% sea water. Like its cousin, it has also travelled the wolrd in cargo ship ballast water. In San Francisco Bay, both species occur but live at the different salinity levels.

I did catch a few more ponyfish and gobies, but not much else for the rest of the session. Just to point out, the Chameleon Gobies here seem to look a little different to the ones I have caught in Australia (see previous post). I'm not sure what it is but the jizz is slightly different somehow and the colouration, especially the darker patterns seem different to me as well.



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus

Day 2 – Hong Kong Ferry Pier

On the way back from Lamma Island, I decided to fish between Pier 7 (the star ferry pier) and Central Pier 8 which was being renovated. It was quite deep water here, but I fished using the same tactics as on the other side of the bay. Again, it was quite hard to hook any of the fish but felt a lot of bites. When I did hook up, I caught a Marbled Rockfish, a species I had caught on the previous trip. These little scorpionfish are called False Kelpfish in Australia because they do look a little like Kelpfish. I noticed that there were a few businessmen fishing with handlines catching small rockfish. They seemed to really enjoy catching them, enthusiastically placing their tiny morsels in a bucket for the pot later. I was only able to catch another tiny rockfish before heading back to the hotel.




Marbled Rockfish - Sebastiscus marmoratus




Marbled Rockfish - Sebastiscus marmoratus

Day 3 - East Promenade

I wanted to fish again at the Promenade to try and catch something different, but only more caught gobies and ponyfish again. They trip was quite disappointing, I had only caught 3 species even though one of them was new. The previous trip got me 7 species and was only 3 week later in the year than this time with only 1 overlapping species. Well better luck next time.

Triple Goby and a Pinky at the Warmies

The last fishing trip on my holiday to Melbourne was to the Warmies in Newport. I hadn’t mentioned in the previous blogs but I did go fishing here a few days earlier on an evening trip but completely blanked. On my last full day in Melbourne, I didn’t want to be defeated by this venue so I needed to give it another go.

The idea was to try and catch as many species as possibly so what I did was to fish a tiny hook with pippies about a rod length out. This would surely get my a few Chameleon (Japanese) Gobies or baby Bream, and sure thing, I caught a few Chameleon Gobies. They to change colours like Chameleons and I've hardly every caught them striped, but this time I caught a couple of them in the striped colouration.



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus

Next came a Yellow-fin Goby. I had actually never caught these guys in the Warmies but just around the corner in Greenwich bay in about a foot of water, not about 6’ down.



Yellowfin Goby - Acanthogobius flavimanus



Yellowfin Goby - Acanthogobius flavimanus



Yellowfin Goby - Acanthogobius flavimanus

Then finally a new species, the first (and only) new saltwater species on the holiday. It was a Half-bridled Goby [#138]. These are quite similar to the Bridled Gobies I caught decades ago in the Maribyrnong, but have yet to recapture to photograph. Their fins aren’t as long, and have some spots instead of full stripes ('bridles') around their head. They still have beautiful iridescent blue spots all along its body and head.



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus #138



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus

After about half a dozen Half-bridled Gobies, I decided to move out of the Warmies and fish directly into the Yarra River. It was weird that I hadn't caught any baby Bream so I thought I would have better luck in the River. My plan was to fish the little jetty but it was already full, so I fished between that and the power station wall. I used the same rig but I upsized the hooks. After several dropped takes, I managed to land a lovely pinky snapper. I put up a really decent fight, but I kind of wished it was a Bream. The colours on the fish were awesome especially when I released it.



Snapper - Pagrus auratus




Snapper - Pagrus auratus

After a little while, I gave up on catching a bream, and targeted the yellow-eye mullet that were hanging around the shallows but I couldn’t land any, although I did hook a few of them. For me this wasn’t such a bad day’s fish, but others may disagree. I caught three species of goby with one of them being a new species and a nice snapper.

The Warmies, Newport, Melbourne

Im not sure when I first started fishing here, but I think it must be sometime in the late 1990's. The Warmies is the hotwater outlet of the Newport Powerstation. On very hot and very cold days, the Powerstation is switched on and warm water flows out. This is the best time to fish here.


Southern Black Bream - Acanthopagrus butcheri


Snapper - Pagrus auratus


Tailor - Pomatomus saltatrix #32

The main target species here was the Southern Black Bream, but I had an occassional Tailor or Silver Trevally. The best way to get Black Bream is the fish a small live crab and wait for a take. For Tailor or Trevally I found the best bait was pipis. This also caught a whole host of other species as well including Zebrafish, Weedfish, Blue Weed Whiting, Yellow-eye Mullet, Tasmanian Blennies, Pinky Snapper and Small Bream. At night, it is plagued with Soldierfish so you need to be careful not to get spiked as it has very venomous spines. I've heard of smaller Mulloway caught from here but I have never seen one.


Zebra Fish - Girella zebra


Common Weedfish - Heteroclinus perspicillatus #33


Soldierfish - Gymnapistes marmoratus


Tasmanian Blenny - Parablennius tasmanianus #34


Two species of introduced goby can be found in the area as well. They've probably both been introduced from Japan through the ballast water in container ships. The Chameleon Goby, called the Japanese Goby in Australia can change into several colour forms. I've seen them completely black, brownish with spots and white with a lengthwise black stripe. The second species is called the Yellowfin Goby. In Japan its is called Ma-Haze [マハゼ（真鯊）] and is a delicacy, usually eaten battered and fried. This is actually not caught at the Warmies but a location quite nearby.


Chameleon / Japanese Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus #35


Chameleon / Japanese Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus


Yellowfin Goby / Ma-Haze [マハゼ（真鯊）] - Acanthogobius flavimanus #36