Deep Sea Fishing @ Charna Island

Had another exciting fishing trip with Shoaib Ahmed Paracha. He targeted Parrot or Popat and Yellow Fin Bream or Captain fishes this time and was well on target. We left early in the morning at 4:30 am, and after picking up some equipment from a friend and having a breakfast at Nasir Barohi Hotel, we reach Mubarak Village at around 8:00 am.

Shoaib bhai booked Mama’s boat which was the most spacious boat, of this kind (Horra in Urdu), I ever went on to. By 8:30 am we were in the sea heading towards Charna Island.

We used bait prepared from alive Rock Crabs. Shoaib bhai told the boatman to catch these Rock Crabs a day earlier so we can use them as a bait in our trip.

The technique to prepare the bait from Rock Crab is to hold it by its two claws so it can not do any harm to you. And then disjoint the two arms having claws right off the shoulder. Do the same for all remaining legs and remove the hardened top shell. What is left can be cut into sizable pieces good enough to be used as a bait.

We anchored close to Charna Island and the water was so clear that we were easily viewing fishes roaming beneath. There were captains and parrots. Also, there were two huge size parrots of fresh blue color, but we do not have any bait sizeable enough to lure them and ultimately catch them. So, they kept teasing us throughout our stunt

We caught 11 parrots. 2 of them were around 1.65 kg in weight, 5 were around 0.90 kg, and 4 were around 0.5 kg. We also caught 3 captains each weighing around 1.25kg. (And yes… these are not shikari weights otherwise I would’ve mentioned, 3 kg, 1.75kg and 0.75 kg )

What I noticed was that despite the fact that there were lots of parrots and captains underneath which we saw with our bare eyes, we did not end up having a lot of catches. In fact, the fishes were literally playing football with our baits, and most often eating it without getting hooked. Also, numerous times I end up hooking my tackle with the rock or may be the parrot fish drag it back to its coral

We also end up snapping a Shakespeare ® Rod just because of that

Besides that, after searching on how to catch Parrot fish on the internet, I felt we did one thing differently i.e. we placed the weight/sinker at the bottom of the hook, however people suggest that it should sit just above the hook

Also we didn’t used the Beak Hook to be specific.

Any how, our catch count and weight was good enough to cheer us up, after all we are in the process of learning the art

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