National Day Diamond

Today, was our Nation 41st birthday. I had won 2 lucky tickets for the parade and so the plan for the day was to have A and D attend the birthday bash, while I would be fishing somewhere nearby.

We left the house early, around 11am, so that we could find a good lot to park and later walk to the stadium. Most of the roads round there would be close from 2pm, so we circled around to find the best location. After a while, we settled down with the Kallang river park, as from there, it was just a 10-15 minutes walk to the stadium. I noted that the area under the nicoll highway flyover looked interesting for some fishing. In fact, there were already some rods in that vicinity.

We walked there and found that there was another group of boys/uncles fishing already. I setup my light tackle, as usual to test out the water. While I was playing with the sabiki hooks, the other group caught some fishes, one of which was quite decent. From a distance, it looked like a good size Grunter. The man thought it was a KBL and shouted out, but realized his mistake soon after.

My light tackle was coming out of the water with baits taken, although there wasn't any catches. It was a good sign. Maybe it was just that I was using a bit larger hooks, hence no catches. I setup my Contender and my Rapala also, one on my apollo rig, and the other on my KBL floating rig. I was still hoping for my first KBL.

A man came on a bicycle and parked himself next to me. Later, he started chit chatting with me and I realized he is a china man, although didn't look like it. He was nice, and quite a good company. I tried hard to follow his strong "tsing tao" accent but only managed to understand him about 50%.



A brought D to the toilet and I had to guard the things. So, I was quite a distance away from the rods. All of a sudden, my rod rang out (the bells) and did a strong jump (almost dropped into the sea here). Something had taken the prawns and it felt like a biggie. Luckily, I had set the drag correctly and the rod didn't fall into the water. I ran over and did a strike and immediately, it was a hookup. The pull was quite strong and my reel was going ziip ziip....with lines pulling off. But it got tired after a while and I managed to bring it to the edge of the water. I was quite curious as to what fish this was, half expecting another catfish.

But to my surprise, it was a chermin. Wow, for the water here, I would never have expected a chermin (diamond trevally). I thought these fishes are out in the open sea. I lifted it out of the water and it was struggling. To my good luck, the hooks held firm and I did manage to lift it out and land it on the ground. The china man came over to help me and he did all the unhooking and putting the fish near my icebox. Haha, after that, he was quite chatty to me.

During the hookup, the fish ran round the other group lines and one of them came over to untangle the mess. For a while, we were not sure if it was my hook or his that got the fish. But it was later confirmed that the hookup was mine. Anyway, he told me that he also know that his rig would not be able to get a chermin, as he was using worms. He seemed quite a knowledgable fisho. Quite a nice chap actually. On the way back, we exchanged smiles.





A and D came back and was surprised to see my catch. But what a waste that they had missed the action. I re-baited the rod and went about with my other rods. About 15 minutes later, I got another strong pull on my rod. Wow, it was incredible. This one felt like a big fish too...like the first one. But I managed to subdue this fish quite quickly as it swim over to my right side where I had space to pull it in. I lifted it up and to my surprise again, it was another chermin! What luck. But this one is smaller as we can tell from the size. This time, A and D saw the action and came to help. D was very excited and wanted to take pics with it too. I let her hold on to the fish and we snapped a few pics for memories. The fish although looking quite spikely, is actually quite a tame fish. No sharp teeth and spines or anything.



Shortly after, A and D went to the stadium for the parade. By this time, the tide had already gone down quite a bit and you could already see the sandy floor. The action quieten down and there were no more bites. The china man rod did some bending but I felt that he struck too late. By the time he pulled back, the prawn was already eaten. (he was using dead prawns).





Seeing a crowd gathering to watch the fireworks from the stadium, I felt that I had enough for the day and packed. I put the things into the car and waited out for the parade to end. Back home, we cooked one of it and tasted real good.