Ocean Fishing at Sitio Balakbakan, Laiya, Laplaya, San Juan, Batangas
Me, my cousin and my 8 year old son were in Taysan, Batangas to visit a new customer who is into gamecock farming. After the visit it was getting late and I thought we were near enough to Laiya and decided it would be nice to sleep over. Since last year I had been dreaming to sleep over in Sitio Balakbakan, a tiny fishing village to buy fresh fish and rent a boat and do some ocean fishing the boat man calls trawling. It is when you drop your fishing line and keep the boat running so the fish will run after the bait.
So it finally happened. We got a room for rent for P 1,500. Rustic accommodations. Good enough for me. Fresh air, good bed, nice villagers, fresh fish. The boat cost P 2,500 and the fishing rod rental is 200 pesos. We spent 100 pesos on bait. Some squid and some tamban fish. We only had one rod. The fisherman brought his line with no rod.
We had a tiny motorboat. We had life vests. But there was only one monoblock chair. The boat man had his cell phone with him, just in case we encountered trouble.
On the the fishing. At 5:30 we walked to the wet market and bought our bait. By 6am we were off. We went to markers on the ocean. And then systematically lowered our lines. The waves were larger than normal. My son and my cousin were getting sea sick. But we needed to catch fish. First we got 2 fish one after the other. They were small. We wanted bigger fish. We moved on. Later we got 2 again. And finally before going back at 10 we got 2 more.
I wanted to stay longer if not for the complaints of my cousin and my son who were sea sick. But I guess 6 is good enough for a bad day. Another boat man last night told us of a good day he had with a customer last week where they got some 22 fish!
Oh, by the way, all the fish to be caught this way are DORADO fish. The fish we caught were 1 to 2 feet long. We got a total of 6 fish. Noticed these dorado fish were green colored when just caught and turn yellow – black after some time in the boat.
We got back on the beach and the boat man grilled the fish lightly. My 8 year old boy was really hungry and ate the whole fish by himself! Ha ha ha. We found out that the gills can be eaten when fish is freshly caught.
Packing the fish back home I bought a styrofoam container and some ice. Put the 5 remaining fish in and added sea water in the container. Sea water keeps the fish fresher longer. Remember that.
At home dinner time the whole family had some dorado fish. The most expensive dorado I ever got. It’s cheaper in Farmer’s market at 130 pesos per kilo. My in laws found the dorado fish deliciously fresh. It was worth it.
Next time I found out that me and the boatman can leave at 3am with the real fishermen who are in a separate fishing boat with nets. We will just be playing escort and probably have some fish jump into our own boat when they start dragging the net.
By the way, this is the Philippines, so any fish we catch is our own. We do not “buy” the fish we catch… okay? This is bounty from the ocean, free for the taking.
Here are a couple of pictures and a video.
