Crabby Day

I had wanted to try ponggol again today, but the weather was rather hot. I only just recovered from the previous sun burn and didn't want to get myself chow tar again. It had been awhile since the last secret spot trip, and today seemed like a good time.

Unfortunately, driving up to the gate, it was blocked with a "no entry" sign displayed prominently. Gate was also closed. Haiz. Not sure if this was just temporary, else another good spot gone. I drove up to tanah merah canel and found that there was a small space to park the car. Happily, I turned right into the canel amidst all the construction. But just as I was taking out my rod, a small lorry came over and horned at me. The man in the car signalled about a no parking and no fishing combo. He kept an eagle eye until I packed everything and drove out of that place.

Next, I tried Safra resort. Luckily, the single lot there was unoccupied. I shared the space with another car belonging to the malay family around there. They seemed to have camped overnight here evident from the extensive tentage and number of rods around the area. Few more people came over to fish and the place was really getting quite crowded.

I rigged up and managed to score a little fish within the minute. Unfortunately, it was a puffer. I was to pull up another 2. They were quite irritating as their strong beak would destroy the rig if they swallowed the hook deeply. I had to change one of the rig due to this.



The tide by then was dropping and my lemax rod with big hooks and prawn got no action. I lost one live prawn one time and I hooked up a dead prawn to replace that hook. I thought due to that, a crab came to steal the bait. Seeing the rod tip dipping, I gave a yank and pull it in. At first, it felt like a rubbish bag as there was no fight. But I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a decent size crab out of the water. It tried to right itself on the land to run off but I managed to subdue it and flipped it over again. A came over and got some strings to tie its powerful claws. A chinese guy came over to help us to tie it up. He seemed to know a thing or two, teaching us how to "deactivate" the claws and the proper way of tying it up.



Around 2+pm, there was totally no action even on my small rod. Tide had went down and all the fishes had gone. I packed up to go. Quite an uninspiring fishing day, but then again, at least got a decent crab meal tonight.