A curious case of humpbacks and samsons.

A few weeks earlier, while on a holiday trip to Perth, I managed to hook up with a friend of a friend's who owns a boat and he was super kind to bring us out for a quick half a day's jigging in the shallows. Weeks prior to the trip, we kept a tight watch over the seasonal change that resulted in unpredictable weather. Just few days before the trip, I was visiting down south and experienced winds in excess of 140kph, ripping trees off the ground taking down power lines and a gas station.

Fortunately, the weather calmed down a bit and 2 days prior to the day trip, wind and tide forecast indicates conditions that are OK, not ideal, to head out to the shallow reefs and drop a couple of jigs in the hopes that the samson's still there. The swells were quite pronounced up to 4-5 meters at times with winds up to 12 knots with a forecast of picking up to 15 knots later in the morning. A small window of opportunity and we took it.

With his speed boat, we were at our first spot just under 30 minutes, the sounder was quite bare with occasional schools of baits as we cruise around a bit looking for bigger blotches. We decided to drop some jigs regardless and aimed at demersals at the bottom instead.

Upon several jig drops and knocking on the bottom, we managed to hook up a couple of pesky scorpion fish and a small dhufish, not the legal size basically. It was rather difficult to snap any pix as it was very rocky and not the smartest thing to mess with a scorpion fish.

With a GoPro latched on the other side of the boat, I managed to capture some decent fights of my mate using my pimped out Shimano Stradic 6000FJ paired with a Giant Killing PE3 rod.

The best part about this short trip out? A pair of humpbacks came to check out our pimped out tackle!

Tiny Samson but BIG on fight to the end. The pimped out Stradic didn't break a sweat.

Feisty sambo was no match for the pimped out tackle.

Hook in mouth, jig slapping the cheeks, surrendered.

There was no big Sambos to be found, skipper took pity and gave us his pink snapper instead.

Another small Sambo with BIG fight all the way to the tip of my pimped out Ocea Jigger & Giant Killing Long Fall. No contest, didn't even take any drag but sure as hell worth more than its weight.

 

Short but strong fight all the way to the top.

While jigging, we heard puffs and big splashes not far from where we were jigging and we saw a pair of humpbacks swimming around us. Never would we imagine to be able to witness any whales and they were UP CLOSE! We were awestruck and gaped at the sheer size of these gentle giants and forgot about our jigging.

The humpbacks decided to come even closer to check us out, occasionally peeking out of the water with a curious stare keeping the calf at bay. The video above shows how close they were to the boat, iPhone video with no zoom and no post processing, as it is. With so many years of OZ offshore fishing, never have my mates seen any this close.

The curious whale experience alone was worth the short and unfruitful jigging trip. I'll surely be back to hunt these famous big sambos when the time is right.

Gettin Jiggin with it at Pulau Jarak

Pulau Jarak, located close to the center of the Straits of Malacca, famous for its deep waters and strong currents inhabited by hard charging pelagics and notoriously brash demersals. This challenging combo requires you to arm yourself with jigging gear of at least PE2-3 and sometimes up to PE4-5. Jigs ranging from 100g-200g depending on the current and depths.

The Shimano Stradic 6000FJ is ideal for the job as it is reasonably priced/built, spool ready for 300m of PE3 lines, and packed with sprinkles of hand me down tech from the Stellas. We live on board the 'GT Chaser' for 3 days and 2 nights of intense jigging and possibly popping around the island depending on the current.

Ready but not quite. Needs some pimpin before it even catches a glimpse of sunlight.

The Shimano Stradic 6000FJ doesn't have seals to stop corrosive salt water intrusion. Therefore, some pimpin is needed to beef up it's internals for durability and also performance tuning with a combination of full ceramics as well as hybrid ceramic bearings.

The first set of bearings to be swapped to full ceramics, main gear supports. Shim fitted for proper gear mesh gap. Coated the body housing with teflon grease for that extra bit of protection.

Another view revealing all its balls in full glory!

Next up would be to pimp the pinion gear bearings (x-ship) and also the worm gear shaft's teflon bushings starting with the front bushing after removing the anti-reverse bearing assembly from the body.

Full ceramics for the pinion gear support, both x-ship bearings replaced, only one shown here. Note the worm gear teflon bushing on the right, it's about to get chopped!

Slides out smoothly.

It takes a bit of patience to trim the bushing as it is very tough. Best is to make the primary cut lesser than the desired removal length (similar thickness to the hybrid ceramic bearings) and fine tune it further by trimming off or filing it away bit by bit. Any accidental excess removal can easily be tuned using micro shims.

Here's a view of the hybrid ceramic bearings supporting the worm gear shaft in its housing before sliding the trimmed teflon bushing back into place.

Moving over to the rear worm gear shaft support bushing, it's a straight forward swap with additional micro shims to reduce free play and sliding for a more consistent line lay over the spool.

Rear teflon bushing for the worm gear is out, hybrid ceramic bearings in. Micro shims go between the bearings and worm gear shaft.

Onwards to the next bit, pawl bushing swapped out with a hybrid ceramic bearings and some modified Stella parts ordered from Japan. This modification is to predominantly increase durability of the reel but after the modification, there was a surprising improved smoothness to the worm gear to a point where I can pull the floating shaft forward/outward, the pawl is able to drive and rotate the worm gear! Previously not possible with the original teflon bushing.

Original teflon bushing shown below the pimped bits. Hybrid ceramic bearings sandwiched between the pawl and trimmed pawl bushing from the Stella. Micro shims sit between the hybrid ceramic bearings and the trimmed bushing for a glove like fit into the housing.

The pimped up Shimano Stradic 6000FJ's ready for battle with it's new innards and new found smoothness. The smoothness and low cranking resistance will help me quite a bit as I'll be jiggin for almost 3 days with little resting periods in between jiggin spots.

Jigs ranging from 100g to 200g, jerk baits, stick baits and poppers ready for battle.

Barracuda bites, but I-eat-choo! Tasty turmeric ginger paste over pan fried barracuda blocks!

Fish photos courtesy of Darren from Tackle Source.

The pimped up gear took on the bashing without breaking a sweat and it's well worth the pimpin as I'll be coming back to Pulau Jarak again soon. Upon quick inspection after the trip, there were no signs of any salt water intrusion or premature wear on any part of the reel. Just needed some fresh coat of teflon grease around it's gears and metal to metal contact bits.

Next test would be off shore Kuching in 2 weeks time, slightly shallower waters and I'll be testing a sweet new combo with pimped up bits as well. Stay tuned!

Balls buster GTs

Previously, 2 of the bearing sizes were slightly off the dimension I ordered, 0.5mm thinner, numbnut who took my order discovered that they didn't have stocks for the exact ones I wanted and decided to just dump in the closest one found and shipped it to me without notifying me. Just great!

 

Exotic pimping stuff. Full ceramic ZrO2 bearings.

Beyond the thickness issue which can easily be shimmed up to reach my desired thickness, the bearings weren't of any ABEC standards and the radial and axial free play was rather alarming and you can visibly see and feel it's wobble as I rotate them using my fingers.

I needed 2.5mm and 3mm thick bearings and this is what the numbnut sent me.

I know for sure with such ill fitting specifications, I'm threading dangerous waters field testing them on the main gears as it is the point where there will be heavy torque loading and twisting from the handles. Theory won't mean anything unless I try them out and push it beyond it's limit to develop products that suits angler's needs and application.

Hybrid Ceramic Bearings for the pinion shaft and more.

For this particular Shimano 4000 sized reel, due to the 'wrong' sized bearing sent to me, I've decided to test the slightly thinner bearings on isolation to see if it still works with the use of shim fitment. Only 2 full ceramics were used on the main gear support (handle crank shaft) and I didn't have sufficient shims to tune it like a glove fit, hence a bit more than usual free play. The remainder bearings were hybrid ceramics (pictured), which was previously pimped out, field tested and abused hauling giant cats & gars in Thailand (up coming posts to show case some of the giants).

There was wobble and free play while cranking, slightly more than the original condition, yet I've decided to give it a go even with an inkling that something might go wrong. The only way to find out is to field test it and give it the abuse it deserves.

We rented a GT pond for 3 hours, shared among 4 anglers, and all 4 of us started with top water lures. Weird thing is that the locals insists that all of us must cast at the same time as the GTs were very picky to take lures only at the beginning of any session. They insist that we get everything ready so much so that we have to cast upon stepping into the pond. We thought they were just kidding, we entered the pond and took our time to tie the lures while standing next to the pond. The locals waited and hurried us, some GTs were already doing a double take, flashing their colour at us while swimming past.

All 4 of us casted, popped and reeled without a hint of bite. After 2-3 tries, the locals figured they weren't getting any hook-ups and quickly switched to bait instead. My buddy and I stuck to lure, tried a variety of lures. Hours went by, not a single bite no matter how we work the lures, not that we are experts, but enough to get some desired action out of them. The baiters hook up one after another, told us to just switch to bait as the fish in the pond's too smart and seasoned. We caved in and became master baiters ourselves as we were running out of time.

Only after 2-3 casts, it was fish-on. A big fat juicy grouper made sure to give my pimped reel a few good power spurts to break in the ceramic bearings. Power cranks and moderate pace lifting landed this grouper without breaking a sweat. Tasty grouper goes back into the pond, catch and release.

On my next few casts, a juvenile GT snapped up my bait and made a run for it. The GT made my reel scream and was determined not to be landed without giving it all. Midway through several minutes of fight, high speed cranks and hard lifts, my reel started to scream to a different tune as I could feel there was more and more free play as I crank. It started to scream louder and I heard popping, crushing noise and felt it through the handles. The locals looked perplexed, what's with the alien noise that's coming out of my reel? Told them, testing new products and that's the not so sweet sound of busted bearings & exploded balls!

The GT was still out partying hard as I cranked slowly, nursing the reel as to not damage anything else. The only option I have left is to let the GT tire itself out. Damn GT was only half the size my buddy hooked up earlier and it busted my balls, metaphorically and literally for the ceramics.

Exploded outer races, crushed ceramic balls, crumpled shims!

The cause of this? Simple, wrong sized bearings loosely fit in with excessive radial and axial play that resulted in premature bearing failure. It was torque loaded from the handle to the gear at various cranking angles beyond it's operating parameters. Therefore the spectacular screaming explosion and crushed balls.

Tiny balls, busted tiny balls.

Crushed balls. Don't let this be yours!

Good thing is that this happened as I partly expected it to and not during a long off shore excursion. More tests needed to ensure that these bearings are spec'ed to be battle ready. I've completed several good field testing sessions of hybrid ceramics on this 4000 and 2500 sized reel. Next up would be to test using properly sized and fitment of ABEC 7 hybrid ceramics on a 6000 sized reel, watch this space!

It's time for me to bust some balls off the numbnut who sent me these wrong bearings!