These guys are fun to hang out with. Too bad there were quite a number of losses on pulled hooks and a snapped line. Still can't forget the HUGE U shaped bend in my rod and the screaming drag from the last spot of the day... what a waste !!! Nevermind, I'll be back next week!
Here's Glen the champ with a Snapper
And here's how we keep the Snappers fresh - alive or on ice
17 Sep 2005 Saturday Family Outing and Pond Fishing - So the wife's like,'You're always going fishing!' And I say,'Only Saturdays what!' And then I think, since most of my kakis are busy today, I announce,'Let's go Sentosa.' (My daughter had been bugging me to bring her to the Butterfly Park the last few days.) And everyone shouts,'YAY!!!'
And we're driving along, with the morning sun burning brightly, when I decided that it's too early for Sentosa, so we take a detour to see the Pet Farms along Pasir Ris Farmway near my reservist camp. Playing with the animals there sure beats buying a dog or some other pet home for the kids.
Driving along the farmway, a small sign 'FISHING' catches my eye and I JAM BRAKE!! Made a U turn and turned into this particular farm that sounded so promising. After parking the car, the family was immediately caught up with the wide array of marine life on display, while I went in search of the FISHING that the signboard promised. Then I saw it. A pond. $5 per hour, minimum 2 hours. So that's $10, I tell myself, equipment provided. Good deal.
That's how I spent the morning, catching lots of freshwater fish for the kids to play with. Pink Tilapias, black Tilapias, Tilapias in all shapes and sizes... both kids had fun trying to catch them and playing with the caught fish.
At the end of 2 hours, we threw back all the fish alive. Didn't intend to eat freshwater fish anyway. Then, with my weekly fishing trip done, we drove to Sentosa to experience the new LUGE ride attraction (QUITE FUN) and the insect park. Then hung around the beach for a further tan. Gotta go out on the boat next week then.
9 Sep 2005 (Friday day trip with my friend, the pro Dave), and 10 Sep 2005 (Saturday day trip with Colin, Choon Kin, Theodore, Kings and Guek)- FUN TRIPS ALL THE WAY!
On Friday I went with a fishing expert Dave and caught a few fish. The weather was fine, Dave had just caught and released a Giant Catfish (Jahan), and I had just caught and released a large Queenfish when Dave's rod took a good bend. After a brief fight, the fish that surfaced gave both of us a HUGE shock!!! When we looked into the water, a HUGE object was moving towards the boat. GAFF! GAFF! cried Dave and when a monster mouth surfaced (large enough to swallow my head), I slid the OS GAFF nicely into its thick lower jaw. Then I realized I could hardly lift the fish into the boat. But, with adrenaline flowing, and using my bodyweight, I leaned in and the fish slid over the side of the boat and plonked onto the floorboard of the boat.
'WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!!!' Never seen such a huge Garoupa before! Easily in excess of 20kg, Dave and me took multiple photos of the fish before heading to the Snapper grounds for a few food fish before returning to shore. Here's me trying to lift Dave's fish.
GAROUPA MAMA!!
Delicious Malabar Red Snappers and a Goldie
Saturday's trip is not too bad too. Almost everyone catches good stuff, with Kings turning out CHAMP with the largest Snapper and a few Grunters. Total good fish: 4 Snappers, 4 Grunters, 2 Garoupas. Lots of nonsense fish chewed up the rest of the $70bucks worth of bait, haha! But there was good action today! Dropped a few fish, including a possible Barra by Colin, what a waste!
A decent haul from Ubin waters
7 Sep 2005 - Beach Road and Arab Street - A trip down memory lane. After spending the day with my kids at the shopping centre and at a favourite Koi pond feeding fish, I finally found some time to go to the driving range in the evening. So I was driving along Bukit Timah, on my way to Marina South Driving Range, and was about to go up the Sheares Bridge when I changed my mind. The reasons were simple, there was a slight ache in the biceps from some heavy lifting the day before (which could affect the golf swing), and I needed some weights for the next few trips, and the Beach Rd tackle shops were just on my left after the traffic lights. So instead of going straight up the expressway, I turned off into Beach Rd, found some free parking (it was after 5pm) and started on my trip down memory lane.
I remember I started coming here as a schoolboy in Primary School. That's more than 20 years ago. My favourite shops then were Siow Chiang, where I used to buy Silstar products (the only ones I could afford then), Hock Ann (where I would buy my Berkley Trilene line, and stare at the expensive Fenwicks while enjoying the aircon, and of course the old Hock Heng, where a young Raymond would entertain me and my classmates (all fishing buddies) with his funny jokes.
This time, in 2005, some things have changed. The first shop I came across was the new Hock Heng, (which was sold off by Raymond and family several years ago). What struck me was the array of lures! Now I really know what it means when they say lures are meant to catch anglers, not fish. Even though I wasn't looking for a lure, and wanted to get weights only, I really felt tempted to buy a few of those life-like soft rubber lures. The store didn't carry the weights I was looking for, so I reluctantly pulled myself out of the shop, and walked down the road to the next few shops.
What amazed me next was the number of 'new' shops that had emerged in the area. I say 'new' only because these shops had been existing for a long time, but only recently (less than 5-10 years ago) moved to beach road. A few of these are Hong Guan (moved from the Lavender area, and before that, another older place further up Beach Rd.) Looks like Seng Choy's marketing ideas and his Pioneer brand is starting to attain results. Wish him luck! I remember buying a few rods, Sufix line and maybe a reel or two from his dad about 10 years ago...
Then I saw another familiar face, Joshua of Deepsea, and Janice was seated way back in the shop. I used to buy my live prawns from him when he was still at Changi Village, sometimes even waking them up in the middle of the night to buy bait for last minute late night fishing trips. His shop held the weights I was looking for, but I moved on.
There were so many other new shops I popped in and out of, until finally I came to my old friend's shop, Born2Fish. Raymond was at the back of the shop and immediately came up to greet me when I stepped into the shop. He has mellowed down greatly since his younger joking days, and opened this shop to occupy himself after selling Hock Heng away. Unlike his brothers, Ricky and co, who have happily retired, Raymond stays in touch with the tackle business and we do some catching up. His shop is a modest setup, displaying some interesting old Abu reels as collectors' items. Couldn't find my weights there though, cos his stock of weights looked totally depleted. He explained that there was a lead shortage cos of China... interesting fact. Maybe I should stock up on more lead weights.
It was nice to see Raymond again. We talked about our families and the past, and even about the rising brand of Siow Chiang (SureCatch) - SC, about how affordable they were. I myself buy Surecatch rods in huge numbers nowadays and keep them in my storeroom just in case they stop making such practical, affordable rods. I use the 5 ft Exceed rod and really like it.
Soon, I had to go fetch my wife from work and bid farewell to Raymond, promising another visit in the future. Walked down to Siow Chiang to get the weights, but the shop was closed, so it was back to Deepsea for the weights.
Noticed many new shops, even in the small sideroads. But couldn't spend much time in those shops cos the wife was waiting. This trip down Beach Rd really showed me how time has passed so quickly. Some things have changed greatly, but some things never change! Like friendly shopowners you'll remember for a long time.
3 Sep 2005 - Saturday full day with Sam, Isaac, Vil and Jac. WET AND WILD DAY!!! Stormy weather was the treat of the day. Had good company on board though. The day started off fine, with a sunken kelong producing a nice sea bream, but things were quiet at the usual spots until we reached Tekong and Isaac struck a Golden Snapper, then almost immediately Sam pulled in a Garoupa.
So I rigged up and again pulled in a bigger Garoupa and then another Golden Snapper came up. Then, when we were all fired up, Mr Storm came blowing from the South... and we RAN!!! At 25 knots to a sheltered region around Ubin.
Strong wind and rain lashed us, so we hid in the cabin, turned on the radio and the fan, and listened to music while the bilge kept pumping out water. Visibility was down to a few metres for a while.
The rain never fully stopped after that, coming off and on, and we played around the sheltered waters off Changi before I landed a nice-sized Grunter. Sadly, our special bait had all died in the rain, so, out of bait, drenched and dried and drenched and dried again a few times over, we headed home.
Here's the decent catch. We threw back the nonsense fish but kept some for the boatel staff of course. Loved the Garoupa!!!
1 Sep 2005 (Thursday short trip)- Brothers' trip. Due to some sad circumstance, my brother had to fly in from Australia for a short while. So after some days of watching and waiting, we decided that life has to go on, so we went fishing to clear our thoughts.
During a leisurely breakfast at Changi Village over some famous Nasi Lemak and Prata, I was telling Jason (my brother) that the Barras should be appearing since it's the last quarter. So we decided to target Barramundi.
After buying some hooks and leader line from Gina, we drove to the boat, topped up the fuel, and zoomed to the aunty for $20 of prawns. Then it was straight to Good Feeling. And I struck gold almost immediately after preparing my rod with a nice Barra, and Jason got a larger one. Then the fatboy gang moved in as expected and we spent some time running from a few small storm systems, with me landing a nice Golden Snapper, dad's favourite fish, in between.
Brought the boat up early after realizing I had hit the target of 3 good fish and with the weather turning bad, there was no need to be too gung ho today.
Below is Jason with two of the Barramundi.
22 Aug 2005 - After work Freshwater Escapade - Toman culling exercise
A good fishing friend had a lobang for fishing in a lake in Jurong, and we rounded up a few half-day workers, packed a few lures, bought some chicken liver, and went Toman Hunting!
Felt really great fishing on a Monday afternoon. Really great way to start the week. Straight after knocking off around 1 pm, all of us zoomed from various parts around the island and converged on a placid lake in Jurong that was supposedly teeming with Toman.
The action started almost immediately, with a nice big Toman whacking my Popper on a modified fly-rod transformed into a spinning rod. A huge U on the soft rod was the result! And soon we eased the Toman into the landing net and Des had some problems lifting the bugger with the net. Happy problems, happy problems!
Here's the fish.
Des took this pic as the fish tired itself out with some hard pulling
Handsome Toman! How's a nice freshwater fish for a change? Tremendous thrill when it whacked the surface popper!
Of course Desmond and Karen caught plenty of Toman too... lots of small ones on lures. Here are some of their pics.
Des with a nice pot-sized (according to Karen) Toman
Karen tries lifting a Toman
On the whole, it just felt great that we could soak a line on a Monday afternoon! The fish were, of course, the added bonus. No real monster fish that day, so we'll have to come back another time with monster bait ya? This place reminds me a little of one of my old Toman hotspots (it was a legal fishing spot in the past), see this lure caught toman in one of my past fishing adventures. (second pic from right)
20 Aug Saturday Trip with Foul Weather KPP Guek and Karen came along to target Chermin, but a Dugong came to entertain and spook away the fish.
It was a sad day of losses for me. Dumb new hooks I bought just won't keep the fish on during a fight. The hooks pulled on at least 4 good fish today, with one fish dropped at the side of the boat and another one lost after a run from right to left, making the line cut through the water...
Tekong was ok with a Parrot and some bites, but Karen landed a nice Grunter before a storm hit and the trip ended prematurely.
Here's the pre-storm Grunter.
6 Aug 2005, 9 Aug 2005, 13 Aug 2005 Made a trip on the 6th (Sat) with the family. Stayed in calm waters cos the kids came along. Got 2 small Garoupas for our efforts and went back early cos can't let the kids get sunburn.
National Day was celebrated at Tekong. Showed Roland and his friends a few spots there and left him there when the wind got a bit too strong for us to handle. He must have landed a lot of fish. Well, Ubin wasn't firing up so the catch wasn't very good. Sam's gang and Jeeves came along.
Jeeves was the champ with a fat Grunter. But the day could have been better. Spoilt by the weather and some netters...
Here's the catch.
But Saturday 13th was going to be slightly better. The Tekong spot didn't produce the expected Grunters but lots of action took place for Roy and the gang. The bite rate was about one fish every 10 to 15 minutes.
In terms of quality fish, 2 Golden Snappers were landed. And at Ubin, Aaron was applying suntan lotion when his drag started screaming and he got all excited. BIG FISH!
A beautiful Trevally was landed (Chermin) and soon two more Trevally came along to join the party. Of course, some nice fat cuttlefish were boated along the way, causing some laughter with their black ink antics. Here are the pics of the fish we kept. Gave a whole bagful of other small fish and rubbish fish like Sharks, etc away. This time the catch beat National Day's catch.
Aaron with his Chermin (Diamond Trevally)
Fish in the Red Tub - see the tail sticking out? A sign that fishing is going to improve in the next few weeks...
30 July 2005 Went out a few times during the weekdays but the wind seems extremely strong this season. Finding it very difficult to anchor precisely over the fishing spots. Even then, we managed to raise a few nice garoupas.
Of course the most interesting thing happened on Saturday. Karen and Uncle Tan came along and we were hoping for a good catch of Garoupa. I did not intend to take the boat into open water because I knew the wind was going to be strong that day, but what happened was really beyond what anybody expected.
My buddy Lee was also launching his little yellow boat at the same time as me and he was willing to take the risk to head into open water. I wished him luck and zoomed off to the fish farm to get bait.
Strangely, all was quiet at the first few spots. It was as though the fish knew something was going to happen later in the day. Around 11am, we spotted the dark clouds forming over the southeast and started moving back to the spots just in from of the boatel to play safe. As the boat was being buffeted by the increasingly strong winds, Karen had a good pull on her rod but shortly after the strike, and a good bend on her rod(that's all I saw), her mainline snapped. Oh Man!!! Lost a 30kg Kurau... hahaha... that's what we all say when we lose a fish right?
That was also a signal that all hell was going to break lose in the sky above us. The water quickly turned white and frothy as we upped anchor and tried to take cover in Ketam, but I couldn't even reach there as we were heading straight into the storm system, so we made a quick consensus to head back to shore. Right call it was!!!
The moment the boat was safe on dry land in the boat shed, the wind and rain showed full fury and we were counting our lucky stars that we had a nice roof over our heads.
Of course many Singaporeans know the rest of the story. The next day in the papers we all read about the tanker that was blown off its anchorage point at Sentosa.
Closer to our context, though we did launch the boat after the storm passed for a feeble attempt at landing something (caught a few small buggers that are not worth mentioning), I felt more relieved than anything else that we were safe and nothing bad happened. At least I can get my revenge on the fish another day.
When Lee came backin his yellow boat, he and his wife looked totally bedraggled. He said it was really miserable and cold out in the storm and though he made it into a sheltered bay, that was one helluva storm. Heard over in the West Coast area that some boats got into trouble too. My friend Dave was out in his boat and he had to cut off his anchor rope when the storm hit because his boat was about to be capsized. Freezing cold and scary... that's what he said.
Well, the weather should be fine again in the later part of August, where the big Snappers rear their golden heads. That's when I'll be heading into open water to try my luck.
7 July 2005 Short afternoon trip after work ... I just needed to soak a line last Thursday afternoon and Brendon smsed me in the morning. Why not go on the boat for a try at a recently productive spot, I asked myself.
So we met at the boat at 2pm, me in my work clothes and Brendon all geared up and ready. Bought 10 bucks of prawns and $60 of fuel and zoomed to the main spot of the day. What a great feeling! Out at sea at a time when most Singaporeans my age are busy in some office clearing email and doing some boring stuff, shifting paper all day long..... I'm glad I took this break.
The wind was quite strong that day and anchoring was a little tricky, but we soon got over the spot, a sunken kelong, and started to soak our lines. Had a few small bites when I decided to relax on the front deck of my boat while Brendon busied himself at the back. I was in switch-off mode and didn't even bother to tie a proper rig for myself or bait up when I knew my bait had been stolen. Just sitting out there rocking in the waves gave pure pleasure.
Of course, it was to be a short trip and I was observing a storm passing to the North, wondering if it would hit us (probably not, I thought, cos the wind in July normally comes from the South)...
Then some brute fish decided to yank Brendon's rod into a U while he was busy with another sangkot rod. Cool, I thought, a big fish. Bren did not hesitate as he lifted the rod from the holder and gave it a good strike, FISH ON!!! Quite a heavy fish started playing tug of war and soon a really nice garoupa made its way into the landing net.
We then moved to monster fish land and tried our luck for 15 minutes to see if we could get spooled out... lost a few tentative takes, and had to go back to the boatel just in time for a boat wash.
How I just love being able to do this kind of weekday fishing!!! Hope my work schedule does not change after this year.
Here's Brendon cradling a nice table-sized Garoupa... YUMMY
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