Thurs was a relaxing trip with Pat, Clarence and Jes. A fish was landed at every spot we went to. But the most notable were the boat's first Grunter, first Red Emperor, and first Garoupa (really good-sized) ... all landed by me.
HOT ACTION! Putting the pressure on a deepwater fighter while it takes drag in powerful bursts
Landed! Table sized garoupa... You know what they say... behind every successful angler, is an understanding lady
Check out what years of anchor pulling have done to the biceps! My wife pointed it out to me. GROSS! With a baby fish here
On Saturday, Felip, Reuben, Jeevan, Ling, Wee Boon and Francis came along. We actually landed a good mix of fish. I opened accounts with a nice Barra at Good Feeling on the first bait. Reuben opened with a garoupa. Then the Balloon Gang turned up and we moved to a spot near the boatel to wait for Wee Boon and Francis, and Jeevan caught the first Golden Snapper of the boat.
Then we moved to the Snagpile where Wee Boon, Jeevan and me added to the baitwell with more Snappers and Garoupas. Ended with a tally of 1 Barra, 3 Snaps and 4 or 5 Garoupas (not counting other rubbish fish).
Barra Tally = 5
6 Sep 2004 - Went on a full day trip with Wee Boon, Francis and Sengkang Sam today. Lost at least 3 good fish, probably barra.
First, I lost a fish immediately after letting down my line. A big one, going by the sound of the drag. The hooks pulled. Shucks. I was just not prepared because the fish struck hard when I was trying to put the rod into the rod holder and I had no angle to strike in time.
Then Francis lost a good fish he had pumped up to the surface. And on the final pump, his rangong flew out of the water. Hooks pulled too.
Then I landed a Barra around a kilo, and everyone was encouraged again. After a while, I landed another barra on handline and Wee Boon got a huge pull. Double hookup.
But when Wee Boon got the Barra to the surface, they all saw the fish. It was quite big. But the fish pulled its way to the anchor rope, which snagged the hook and the fish pulled free before I could get to the anchor rope.
Then the storm hit, and we spent the rest of the day running from the storm, going to the leeward side of Ubin when the wind came from the northeast, and then going into Ketam when the wind blew from the Southeast. Basically, the storm cloud seemed as though it had a homing device, and we just couldn't escape it to get to the good fishing grounds.
Talk about Murphy's Law, just when we had to go back to the boatel, the weather cleared. But two barras are still better than none. Still the same number of fish as yesterday.
Barra tally for Treva Berkley stands at 4.
5 Sep 2004 - Today was the first fishing trip on Treva Berkley. It was also family day. The aim was to set off at 9am, see who could land the first good fish on the boat, and reach back to shore by 12 noon so that I could prepare for my badminton game.
After some delays at home, we finally reached the boatel about 9.30am. I had to fetch my dad, and I brought my wife and one of my daughters along. It was going to be Treva's first boat fishing trip.
After launching the boat at 10am, we went to the Aunty to get bait and bumped into Ah Bee, he was getting bait too. I had a few spots in mind but all were taken up by a few boats. First there was centro, a boat was parked directly over the structure, then there was the Queenie Plains, but there were 3 boats already there, and I went to the Outer Reef, but Ah Bee was there too, though he was over a different structure, so we tried for 10 minutes, but did not get any bites and my daughter was getting a bit restless. So I had to go to Good Feeling, and the feeling was good indeed.
After anchoring nicely over Good Feeling, we let down our lines and I said something about even a stargazer would be good, then my dad pulled in the first fish on the Treva Berkley... a stargazer. Then my wife got a good pull, but did not strike and the drag went for a while before the hooks pulled. Definitely a good fish.
Then my dad struck gold! The first Barra from the boat came, as expected, and put up a good struggle plus acrobatics, before I scooped it up with the landing net. The leader was all frayed and the line snapped just as the fish came into the boat.
Then it was my turn, with a handsome Barra, that fought all the way up and found itself in my baitwell. We all lost a few more fish, but my then I was already satisfied. The target was met, and I took out my precious iced lemon tea and slowly savoured it while watching the two Barras in the baitwell swimming around. Treva also enjoyed watching the fish in the baitwell and constantly gazed at them.
Soon, the sky turned dark with rain clouds, and since it was almost time, we also headed back to give the boat a good scrub. Two Barras for the boat's first trip. Not a bad start indeed! Tomorrow's trip will be a full day trip with Sengkang Sam, WeeBoon and Francis, let's see how that turns out.
3 Sep 2004 - Brought the new boat out yesterday for a spin after work. Didn't bring any fishing equipment, wasted, cos I found a really promising deepwater structure.
Tried to get a hang of the new boat. Took 90 bucks of petrol and 20 bucks of oil to get this baby going. Zoomed around to the fishfarms and old spots, and tried the anchor in 70 ft of water. That was a mistake I only realized when I wanted to lift the anchor.
Anyway, at anchor, I tried out the baitwell... a rather interesting concept, and played around with the fish finder and all the other electronic gadgets. Then, I tried lifting the anchor. At first, with the help of the winch, the anchor budged. Then I turned off the winch and tried to use raw muscle power... and by the time the anchor lay on the boat, I was totally exhausted and even slightly seasick from the strain. Almost fainted man!!! 70 ft with a heavy anchor is no joke. This isn't my small boat anymore, and I'm not getting any younger.
Zoomed the boat around a little more. Brought it to 5200 rpm for a while and this baby cuts across the water surface like a hot knife through butter. Didn't push her too hard cos gotta break in the engine first. Bringing up the boat was ok. Felt good driving from a flybridge, but I think it'll take many more trips for me to get a real hang of the boat. I think I might try night fishing this coming saturday or sunday with the family. But next monday's got a few friends coming along for a first proper fishing trip.
On the whole, minus the slight nausea from the strain of working the anchor in a choppy sea, I guess the maiden trip of Treva Berkley was a success. Now let's go get the fish!
20 Aug 2004 - FINALLY GOT A CHANCE TO UPDATE - GOODBYE RANGER HELLO TREVABERKLEY - This month I've been really busy doing lots of things like brushing up on my badminton and golf, and spending time with family. I also have to wave a sad goodbye to my faithful boat Ranger, having served me well for almost 8 years now. I've decided to focus on family outings so I changed my boat to a rather comfortable Bertram style cabin cruiser with a spacious cabin, toilet and flybridge so that there can be more space to relax.
Goodbye Ranger
and HELLO TREVABERKLEY
I also managed to upload a few poor quality pics of good quality fish caught during the times when I managed to wet a line since the last update.
Here's my dad with a decent Snapper.
Here's me with some fish like the usual Barra, Snapper and Garoupa. (Check out the biggie garoupa on the bottom left)
and here are some garoupas, snappers, grunters and GT
BUT I'VE GOT TO HAND THE TROPHY FOR THIS SEASON TO SENGKANG SAM! for this magnificent 6 kilo Barra!
Well that's all for this update. Got more pics of other fish in the cam, but that will have to wait till the next update. Will be busy trying my new boat out, finding relaxing fishing spots to just anchor and sip some iced lemon tea or have some Tiger with buddies.
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