Hi everyone,

I just want to say thanks to the members who posted warm welcomes and some info regarding Hillarys on my original post here. 

And to DieHard, I'm sorry I didn't meet up with you that Saturday. I was supposed to meet up with my sister at 4pm at Hillarys after fishing on BlueJuice. She didn't end up coming at 6pm. Since it's a big marina, I thought she got lost so I spent 2 hours just walking around looking for her. By the time I met my sister, I was too tired to fish. Hope I have a chance in the future to visit Perth again and meet up with you. Thanks for the invite!  

I just want to check in again to say thanks and give a report of my trip. I remember the Faulkner Family said this:

"hope the trip over will be one to remember for you. would be great to see you with a big sambo in your arms."

Thanks for the kind words...because it happened!!!  You can see the pictures below. 

Anyways, I thought I would share with you some of the fishing I did during my travels between Nov 25, 2010 to Dec 30, 2010. I visited Thailand, Australia, Malaysia and Hong Kong in that order. I would have liked to have spent more time fishing...but this was a sightseeing trip and a family trip with a wedding (my cousin's) thrown in for good measure. So actual fishing time was very limited. Total fishing hours was 57 hours between the 13 days. 

All the fish were released except for 2 of them (one queenfish and one seabass). Most fish, especially the smaller ones, only received less than 30 seconds of "handling time"...although some appeared to be in worse shape than others.  I do try to keep fish handling to as little as possible...but some fish just would not stop jumping around! 

Fish from Phuket, Thailand 

6” Scisortail Sergeant

5” Yellow and Redbelly Fusilier

7” Bluefin Trevally

6” Whitespotted Rabbitfish

6” A species of wrasse

Fish from Khao Sok National Park, Thailand 

9” Giant Kissing Gourami

11” Tinfoil Barb

9” Grey Featherback

13” Hampala Barb

9” A species of Leaffish

Fish from Koh Samui, Thailand 

25lb Giant Barb (aka Siamese Carp)

70lb Giant Mekong Catfish

Bait for Mekong Catfish and Siamese Carp

Fish on!

60lb Mekong Catfish

Last cast…I’ve been waiting for this fish all day…

40kg Redtail Catfish

Fish from Perth, Australia

5-foot Bronze Whaler Shark…cut the line before we got it to the surface :(

Samsonfish!!!

Smallest adult on the boat caught the biggest fish! All 40kg worth and they made me hold it up.

Annoying pufferfish…the harbour was full of them and there was no way to get way from them. They even chewed up soft plastic lures and they were so thick I even snagged them using crankbaits and Kastmasters :roll:

7” Sand whiting

Fish from Langkawi, Malaysia 

5” Russell's snapper

7” Spottail Needlefish

5” A species of goby

7” Indo-Pacific Tarpon (on the fly rod no less!)

6” A species of grunter

13” Great Barracuda

13” Talang Queenfish (TASTY!!!)

7” Five Banded Archerfish (These fish were so picky…but I finally fooled them using a hopper pattern on the fly rod :twisted:)

Fish from Hong Kong, China 

13" Crescent Sweetlips

5lb Japanese Seabass

6" A species of mojarra

3" A species of ponyfish

4" A species of rockfish

If I counted accurately, that was 30 species of fish caught...of which 28 were new to me!

Thanks for reading everyone!