Sun-Moon Lake Taiwan August 16-17 Super Pretty Cichlids, etc.

[Natural Lefty]

We finally made it to Sun-Moon Lake August 16. This time Duo-Duo's brother Huang-Kai was driving, and he is pretty much the opposite of Duo-Duo -- a cautious driver, with wife and 2 little girls (5 and 3 YO) in the car, plus my wife Eunice and myself. I was glad that Huang-Kai was driving, believe me, on those windy, typhoon damaged roads. The government is busy redoing much of the highway, mostly to make it farther from the rivers. The mountain areas are like one gigantic high elevation tropical jungle, with all sorts of lush green vegetation and flowering plants, also. We even saw a couple of wild orchids. However, the streams have huge flood plains, about 1/3 to 1/2 mile wide, filled with boulders, plus, there are numerous areas where the floods have ripped away hillsides, or landslides have brought them down, especially from typhoon Morakot 2 years ago. The flood plains remind me of some of the ones in SoCal.

The weather was considerably cooler at Sun-Moon lake, even though it's not that high up at somewhere around 2,500-3,000 feet elevation. It was cool enough that Eunice didn't say it was "too hot." Sun-Moon Lake was actually two already large natural lakes connected by a marsh, but a dam was built at the outlet which turned it into one really large, beautiful lake with turquoise colored water. It is supposedly shaped like a the sun on the eastern side, and a crescent moon on the western side, but in reality, it has a very irregular shape with all sorts of bays. After doing a lot of touring as we circled the lake, winding through the mountainside mostly, we finally made it to an area labelled Shuishe Pier, I think, where Huang-Kai suggested i check the fishing. I went down the stairs to the walkway by the lake, and saw a guy fishing on the docks although the sign said not to fish on the floating docks (from the walkway was okay to fish). He was using a large treble hook for "bait." Maybe the fish there like to bite on large treble hooks. He was working it like a lure in jerks, but he wasn't catching anything. For all I know, snagging in freshwater may be legal in Taiwan. Anyway, I looked into the water, and saw a bunch of bright yellow fish, plus some other fish. Unfortunately, all of them were kind of small, but oh well...

I didn't have any bait to use, only artificials. Eunice came down and joined me, while Chiu-Ping supervised Grace and Gloria on their flower picking expedition. We only fished there about 1/2 hour, didn't catch anything, and it was raining by the time we left. We tried jigs and flies, enough to find out that the fish liked to look at our lures, but declined to actually bite them. I did see a couple of the yellow fish which were about 8 inches long, but those were the biggest I saw.

After a stay in a youth resort near the lake, I was determined the next morning (August 17) to find some sort of natural bait. As it turns out, there were worms in the soil around the resort. I got about 15 of them, plus a couple of slugs, mostly under the pots by the breakfast restaurant. I carefully put the pots back after looking for worms so the place wouldn't look disturbed. Most of the worms were what we call "Alabama Jumpers" in California, the really jumpy kind which fish love, but which cannot stand refrigeration. Huang-Kai did find a dead nightcrawler on the road by our cabin, and I put that in the bag too, since beggars can't be choosers. After taking a ride on aerial tramway near the resort the next morning, we went fishing for about an hour by the tramway terminal. Eunice asked an employee if it was okay to fish there, and he said yes, you could fish all around there, including the docks.

I headed to the walkway to the left, which actually went above the lake a few feet from shore, and stopped at a little alcove. Those same yellow fish were there, plus a few other kinds. Chiu-Ping and the girls came along to check out the action and take pictures. I put on an Alabama Jumper, dropped it in the water, and watched the yellow fish swarm it. I ulled up the line, and lo and behold, there was a beautiful... a beautiful... yellow cichlid of some sort. It had a particularly pointy mouth, and big lips. It reminded me of the Red Devil Cichlid I had in one of my aquariums as I was growing up, but I don't think that is what it is. It is probably a related species. Well, I continued to catch those worm-loving little critters one after another, to the great amusement of Grace (Yi-Hao) and Gloria (Yi-Wei), and Chiu-Ping, who was taking a photo about every 2 seconds. I think I caught about 10 of them, but the biggest was only about 6 inches long, so i put all of them back. (I am pretty sure they would taste about like Tilapia, being Cichlids, but I thought they were too small.) I did see a couple of larger yellow fish, about a pound each, cruising around, but they appeared to be carp, probably Koi.

I asked Grace to try fishing a couple of times, but she declined. Eunice eventually joined us, so i concentrated on her catching fish. By the way, I had a split shot and a salmon egg hook on 4 pound line for my set-up. I tried adding a bobber a couple of times and casting out farther, to no avail. Eunice quickly caught one of the yellow Cichlids, then managed to get Grace to try fishing while both of us coached her. We casted out, put the pole in her hands, and asked her to slowly reel in, then lift the rod to hook the fish when they bit. Fish kept biting her bait, but she didn't quite get the hooking the fish part of the equation. Anyway, she and the others all seemed to be having a good time. Before long, I was running out of worms. I tried the slugs, only to find out that the fish avoided them. They were even less interested in them than they were in the lures. I suspect those slugs were toxic. Eventually, i found that the only thing left for natural bait was the dead nightcrawler, and most of it had disintegrated, leaving only the "head" part intact. Now it was Eunice fishing karma time. I put the nightcrawer head on the hook and casted out as far as I could with the little split shot (about 25 feet). Just then, I looked down into the water and saw a humongous whatsit --- well, actually it was some sort of aquatic slug about a foot long, with fancy yellow and black colors. I was reminded of the strange creatures I had read inhabited this lake, and about island gigantism, the biological phenomenon by which animals and plants tend to evolve into larger forms on islands. This thing was at least as large as the Sea Cucumbers sold in the Chinese markets. I pointed it out to Eunice, who used her rod tip to point it out to Grace. Just as Eunice was trying to poke the thing with her rod tip, her pole developed a major lakeward bendo, and she reeled in a bigger fish. It was only about 9 inches long, but it was bigger than the other ones. It looked like some bass-like type of Cichlid, with large black blotches along its side. Eunice said it was a good kind to eat, but she couldn't remember the name. Anyway, we kept it and headed back to the car after taking a few photos since we were out of worms and our time was up anyway.

Attempts to identify these fish were unsuccessful. By the way, i had caught a smaller one of the bass-like fish earlier, which Chiu-Ping thought was a Chili Fish, but I think she was mistaken. The Yellow ones, I think are smaller relatives of Red Devil Cichlids, but probably not Red Devils. Not all of them were solid yellow, by the way, but all the ones we caught were, and the great majority of them were solid yellow. My best guess about the bass-like fish is that it is some sort of Pike Cichlid. Maybe somebody else can help with identification. I will add photos soon.

We stayed in a resort that night near Alishan National Park, at around 7,500 feet elevation. The mountains in Taiwan are no slouches, reaching up to about 13,000 feet. I think they are formed by earthquakes and by volcanoes in some places. There rugged, up and down shapes remind me of the local mountains in SoCal, except the ones in Taiwan are extremely rainy and lush. By the way, I think Sun-Moon Lake is an ancient caldera, but I am not sure about that. Anyway, it was actually cool in the Alishan area and I really liked the weather. However, there are very few lakes in the area, and the streams are steep and rugged. We were wondering what to do with Eunice's fish when we got to the resort. Eunice managed to scale and gut it with a razor blade. Then we took it in a plastic bag down to the restaurant, feeling pretty self-consicous. We took one look at the hot pot on our table, however, and a light bulb simultaneously went on in both of our minds. We tossed Eunice's fish into the hot pot, and a few minutes later, a delicious fish emerged. I would compare it to Redear, one of our favorite eating fishes. The meat had hardly any bones in it, either.

Yesterday, we were supposed to go to some reservoir Eunice had gone to before, up in the mountains, only to find out it was no longer there. I guess it was dewatered due to earthquake concerns. And I had gone to the trouble of gathering another bunch of worms yesterday morning. Now they are dead -- oh well... After sightseeing, eating and shopping in the mountain village Fenqihu, we headed back for Kaohsiung. There were a couple of turnoffs for reservoirs to the north of Kaohsiung on our way back, but it turns out, they are domestic water use reservoirs, and all of the domestic water supply reservoirs in Taiwan are closed to fishing. That really restricts the fishing spots. I had been told that our trip would last for about a week, then I was told, 4 days, but actually, it was only 3 days. Anyway, Eunice and I agreed that we would like to fish Sun-Moon Lake at a more leisurely pace next time. The fishing and scenery there is fantastic in an exotic sort of way, even if most of the fish are small, and we could have a great time catching fish there all day. I had my eye on a set of docks a little farther down the trail. I would like to go there next time...

[M@M]

Hey, this is out of state section not out of the country LOL.......very cool Lefty, These reports from Taiwan are very interesting. Thanks for the pics and reports....and I wish I could type like you. lol

[Natural Lefty]

M@M, and this site is called "fishing in California." This is obviously not California. There is no foreign fishing section, so it has to go in out of state.

I think I am a fast typer. I keep out-typing my friends on Facebook when I chat with them.

These places are really interesting, but there is a minimum of information even though I try to check. We didn't even see a sporting goods store as far as I could tell on our trip. We are left to our own devices, which I like but I am sure we don't usually get the best results that way. It's just an adventure, every species we catch is a new one for us, and most of them I haven't even been able to positively identify.

[Natural Lefty]

So here is what happened today. Duo-Duo said the shrimp places would be crowded with smokers since today is a holiday in Taiwan. I asked what holiday, and he said "3 day weekend holiday so people can go shopping." Huh? Anyway, he said it would be better to go to Jinshih Lake (Golden Lion Lake). Well, we wound up at a pond near Golden Lion Lake which Duo-Duo said was recommended. This was around 3:30 p.m. Most of the people fishing there were teenagers practicing their fishing skills. Most were using baits but some used lures. The place was loaded with small Tilapia we noticed right away. Duo-Duo had managed to find a fishing shop and bought worms, which were also Alabama Jumpers, so we were prepared to catch fish. They little critters were somewhat difficult to hook, but I managed to catch 4 Tilapia before the worms ran out, and Eunice caught one. They were all like 4-5 inches only, though so we put them back as were other people. The most interesting thing is that a light went on when I caught the first fish. These looked just like the ones at Sun-Moon Lake except for the color. I believe these are Tilapia hybrids which are common in Taiwan, and come in various colors and appearance. The most common hybrids, often called Taiwan Tilapia, are between Nile Tilapia and Mozambique Tilapia (the kind in the Salton Sea). Aparently, several related types of Tilapia can interbreed freely and produce fertile offspring. They can also come in various colors including yellow, red or orange, and mixtures of colors as well, as I have been seeing in Taiwan, and they often have the large, pointy lips that I saw on the fish from Sun-Moon Lake. There were yellow ones in the pond where we fished, too. We didn't catch any of those, but we saw a few caught by other people. Of course, I am sure that people have been breeding the Tilapia for bright, attractive colors.

Other interesting observations were that I saw a couple of fish that might have been freshwater eels in a smaller pond, and they were decent size. At least, they were not Tilapia. I also saw a Peacock Bass in a small pond, but it was only about 6 inches long. At least I know that they are there. Then a guy caught a baby Peacock Bass in the main pond on a baby goldfish It was only about 4 inches long, but Eunice saw it too and commented on how pretty it was. I think that's what the guy using the Rapala type lure near us was fishing for. I did see one large fish in the larger pond, probably a couple of pounds, but I didn't see it well enough to identify it. Maybe it was a larger, mommy or daddy Peacock Bass that had gotten big enough to eat those little hybrid Tilapia. Let's hope so. Eunice asked the guy who caught the baby Peacock Bass what he was using for bait, and he gave her a baby Goldfish to use. She cast it out in the small pond where I saw the long thin fishies, and she promptly had it bitten, but missed the bite. Maybe that was a larger Peacock Bass, or something bigger anyway.

Just about that time, Duo-Duo showed up. It was sometime between 5:30 and 6 p.m., and we had an appointment at a restaurant at 6:30, so we packed up and left.