New Year Fishing

Kok kok head for the year


Fishing for us started fairly well for the new year. KT was free to join me for a recce on the first morning of the year. But the night before, we had a countdown at the Asian Civilisation Museum and by the time I hit the bed, it was already pretty late. But through some superhuman effort, I managed to wake up in time. To my surprise, KT brought along a friend who was a newbie in fishing. The fishing this morning was not the easy type and probably fall into the "hardcore" category. But friend was the sporty and cheerful type and gamely tagged along the morning reverie and trying his hands at fishing. His company did indeed cheered up the first day of the year.

As this was a new place, I wasn't quite sure where the exact location was. But we tried a few openings in the tall lalangs and managed to find a spot that was fishable. We were in our slippers and boy, did it got muddy. The fishing was also tough due to the terrain as there was some thick weedy growth in front of us before reaching the water. That meant that our lures would get snagged if we were not careful on the way up. I got a good strike a short while later but fish managed to
get away. Time was wasted as we had to retie a few times due to snagged lines. KT and friend wasn't doing well either and didn't even managed to get any strikes. But I was lucky to finally land one. Although a small one, this one was special as it had a Kok kok (a lump) head. First I ever caught. Unfortunately for KT and friend, they got nothing this time.

2 locals doing fishing, fly fishing style


While we were there, 2 groups came around. The first group consisted of 2 locals who went further down the banks, and to my amusement, waded into the water up to their waist level. They were doing luring and did have some catches. The second group turned out to be Alan buddies who frequent this area. Though I tried to chit chat with them, they were generally not that talkative, perhaps since we were encroaching on their regular fishing hole. But from their info, we realized that there was another place further up to do the fishing. Turned out that it was more comfy place.

One of the bags of fishes


But we saw the Thai workers on their bicycles hurling up bags of fishes that they had caught the night before. It was certainly alot alot of fishes.

Beautiful moon blessing ZW on his first catch


The second day, I took ZW to try out the place. Being a Sat, it was surprisingly quiet today. All the while we were there, there were no one else, not even the thai workers. That morning, it was productive. ZW quickly got his first catch for the day under the moonlit morning. And after that, we proceeded to have quite alot of fun catching PBs one after another. Although they were small, the PBs here do put up a good fight. I was having my fill of PBs and I decided to switch to lure to see if hard body lures were any better. Indeed it was and on my first cast, I was already catching one.

Beautiful tranquil waters (can't believe Singapore got such places)


Final moments before the leader broke


A few more cast later, I got a bite and hookup. At first, I thought it was a small one. But when my line suddenly started spooling out, we realized that I had a monster on my other end. The fish see-sawed with me for awhile as I tried to tire it out. But as it run from the left to the right, I could see that it was far from being tired. There was one moment that I almost caught a glimpse of it as my leader was already showing out from the water. But before I could do that, it ran again and this time shot to the right. It ran a few more times and I gingerly tried to hold on. But a sudden surge in force was too much for my 6lb leader to hold and it broke and took along with it my xrap. ZW mangaed to take some shots of the action but it was a waste that we couldn't ID the fellow. But from the fight, it felt like a big
Toman.

Anyway, fair is fair. The fish won this round. But I wished that I was able to have removed the lure as having it sticking in the mouth would probably be a death blow for it. After that, the sun came up and it got pretty hot. The fishes also all dispersed and and disappeared. But the fishing was enough and it certainly was a blessed start to the new year. A kick start for the all the good fishing to come.