Parrot Fish Season is back
This time of year the Parrot Fish start coming in closer to our shores. The last informative article on the Parrot fish I wrote was around a year ago on how to fish for this species. It was about how to fish for this bottom feeding fish which could be very challenging to land due to the nice size due too it being a very strong fish & it also has its jaw especially it’s sharp teeth.
I can say that this year I started trying out new techniques to try & fool this fish as the older these fish get they are more suspicious & more difficult to land. Most importantly is what ground bait to use to attract the fish to your swim , can also tell you that the Parrot fish does not stop coming for the ground bait. On many occasions when I land this fish found that his mouth was full of ground bait whilst still going for the hooked bait. The best Ground Bait that we can use for this species is a well known Brand Ellevi Shrimp Mix & its texture is red in color especially if you are using shrimp as bait. On the other hand if you are using Korean Worm you can use another popular Ground bait same brand Ellevi Sardine Mix which has a brownish texture.
The best technique that I enjoyed using with good results this year was one that I do not usually use during the day but I tried it out & was satisfactory. I used this system due to the seas have been very clear lately & you could see that there was some descent size Parrot fish going for the ground bait but they were not biting when I was fishing with led weight on the bottom. The only ones that were going for the bait were the smaller sized parrot fish which I was releasing straight away to enable them to grow, this species tend to grow in a short space of time they can grow from 500 grams to a little bit more than 1 Kilo
The technique I used was by means of a 6mtr hand pole all depending on the depth of water you are fishing, in my case 6 mtrs was enough. Just adjust to whatever depth of water you are fishing at , importantly that you can have the lead touch the bottom , rocks or ledges. I used 0.16 Ellevi Top Knot Line from the tip all the way down to the bottom where I used a size 9 Hook long shank & quite robust quality. Using a good branded line is important as the Parrot fish has sharp teeth & is very easy to cut the line also when it takes the bait it can easily cut your line on a snag hence the quality of the line is important. All that is required is a roughly 1 gram shot lead about a meter away from the hook to enable the bait to sink. At the same time not having too much weight enables the bait to sit better in the water. Bait wise I used Korean Worm as there was quite a lot of smaller fish & if I baited shrimp they will soon rip the shrimp of the hook easily. Once the lead was hitting the bottom I was just tightening up the line by moving the pole slightly , I can say that on occasions when I was going to start moving the pole to take the slack of the line I could feel the bait I presented in a different manner worked as the Parrot Fish was Hooked on.
I hope that you will have the same success rate as I did with this technique & always keep it mind to release the smaller fish to enable sustainability for future fishing & upcoming generations.
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Tight Lines
Peter Paul Azzopardi
