What the Fish!

Jumping Tamales!

2011-06-13T04:56:00.000-07:00

Apologies to my blog readers for my inactivity lately. Life has been out of whack, but this is an episode that I cannot NOT blog about it. You see, I have taken half a decade to eventually live about it to write this post.

Some history lesson, for the uninitiated. In the early days, Kims (KBL, Seabass) were plentiful in singapore. They were known to be strong adversaries and a worthy prized catch, especially for the lurers with light tackles. Once they have taken the bait, they will perform arial acrobatic stunts that will even weaken the knees of the strongest man. At every leap, chances of losing the lure/hook is high, hence getting them is quite a challenge indeed. But due to overfishing and what nots, it is rare indeed to get such a catch. Everywhere else I fished, I have never get the chance to encounter them (even in Malaysia!), except for some sporadic visits to ponds.

It was quite by chance that I got wind of this incredible opportunity. I was wanting to invite a friend to a trip to JB for some light pond fishing when I was told about this place. He was actually there fishing and I received regular "live" updates about it through the night also so much that I had wanted to charter a boat and rush there immediately. But I had to run over to JB for some car matters and had to put it off to another day.

(*note, I had purposely left out name of the place....not wanting to make another stampede to clean up the fishes. But the news is spreading like wild fire, so it is likely that readers would already know the place)

Come sunday, I decided that I would visit it, even if I had to go it solo, even if it rain shine, earthquake or nuclear plant meltdown. All my friends were busy one way of the other making more $$, and I was already planning to bring A and D there just to accompany me. But ST agreed to reschedule his work plans and agreed to make the trip with me. For us semi-retired people, time is quite flexi. :) So hoping that were would be the only ones there, we set off.

But reaching there, already there was a sizable group dominating the area. We parked ourselves away from the area, thinking that if KIMs were around, they should be everywhere. After setting up and fishing for a while, my high spirits started to dive, as I wasn't getting any nudges or bites. As I feared, with the news of this spreading all over, the place would already be cleaned up by now. By that time, I had probably done a few hundred cast. After 7 or so, finally someone on the far end hit a leaping fish. Wow, indeed it was true, a KIM. With that we worked harder but still nothing for me.

By 8 and passed the high tide, I was getting fairly discouraged. Suddenly the 2 indian workers that were on handline pulled out quite silently a whopping KIM of 3 kilos. Wow...we took some pics, and then I suggested to ST why not just buy the fish from them. If we didn't hit anything, we still can bring some back something fresh for the table. The indians readily agreed and from then on, we were quite friendly with them.

By that time, 3 KIMs were landed by the luring group...and I noticed, all at the far end.

At 9, another big group turned up which were friends to the other group. So in total, there was a row of about 20 people fishing to the left of us. They were like in a forum group and all were decked out with HID headlights and snazzy luring sets. Wow, that was on a Sunday nite and the place was like a PAP rally before the election. In fact, the whole place in the morning looked like some aftermath of a football match with all the litter and the rubbish left behind. Ugly Singaporeans!

Wahooo! My very own "wild" kim

By then, some 10+ or so KIMs were landed, each adding to my pain of to even getting a nudge from them. By then, I must have done a few thousand cast on my "cannot cast so far" black rose. Was it my lure, my setup or my red underwear? I wondered. I decided then that I must somehow edge myself to the area to get a better chance. I walked to the far end, and found a little opening that was enough for me to squeeze in between them. As I was casting, someone else was fighting another KIM. I did about 3-4 cast and WHAM, a powerhouse of a fish took my lure and run off. The take of a KBL was unmistakable. There is no negotiation, no test test nibble.... it was a hit and run, ready or not. It fought hard and made numerous dives and runs and a couple of signature leaps. Someone from the group asked who was that that got the fish (it was dark), and the guy standing next to me said, "neighbour"....haha. My "neighbour" was quite friendly and encouraging and gave me tips on how to control the fish. He also helped me to bring the fish to the edge and then up the slope. Once fish is on the grass patch, it was mine! Wauhahaha!

ST pose pose with kim

I left the lure on the fish and tried to quickly get back to ST location for photos but lure came off half way, so no more chance for "caught with pants down" photoset. So pic was just boga and me and Kim.

With that, our ice box was already 3/4 full. ST then had to go to the loo and left me to mend the station. Suddenly his rod tip took a bend and I reacted to grab his rod before it can fly into the waters. Whatever it was at the other end was strong and it crossed the line of the indians guys. But ST was no where in sight, and I can only fight the fish on his behalf. With some help from indian friends, fish was landed finally. Another 2 kilo Kim for the ice-box. By then, our ice chest was full...and no more space for anymore. ST came back to his disappontment that he missed all the action.

ST battle with a Kim that took his smelly prawns 1

2

3

But the action presented another opportunity when another KIM took his proven wire leader rig with tiny "not so fresh" prawn meat. This time, ST was there to take it on. He was astounded by how hard fighting the fish was and probably, his best fishing experience. But fish was hard to control and ST made the pertinent mistake of releasing his drag and gangster Kim dashed for the dam opening and made a GTR 3 point drift. ST braid got rubbed on the rocks and snapped. Argh!

The rubber lures that we picked up

An invention of mine to prevent the weights sangkot-ing on the rocks (Patent Pending..any investors?)

After that, his package of bait didn't work so well as it was turning bad and the tide started to change and the current got ready strong. It also got too rocky to fish and all the throws would end up getting snagged on the rocks. Tide was so low that we could scan the rocks and pick up stuck lures. We noticed that the people in the group were using the above yellow single hook rubber lures. That was their magic arsensal. But we noticed that big group had disappeared and went to the other side of the dam. From our station, we can see that they were still getting KIMs now and then. Every once a while, commotion in the water, headlights beaming here and there and all that.

In the morning, everyone else disappeared into thin air, except for some 3-4 guys at the other end. Maybe these people are staying at the chalet. KIMs were still around, as we can see them jumping out of the water every now and then. But they were not taking the lures. Somehow, it seems alot lesser.

This had been quite an experience for me. Leaping Kims out the water seem to be quite common and that is an oddity. Where the KIMS come from? According to the 2 indians, they told us the story of a group of 5 dolphins that came around and broke the fish farm nets. So the KIMs were all from the farm and were actually not "wild". That happened 2 weeks back. Another group said, "rubbish!, dolphins don't bite nets...in fact they are terrified of nets. it must be turtles, barracudas or even great white sharks!" But the escape from farm theory is very possible as all the KIMs are somehow standard size. You either get 2 kilos one, or 3 kilos one, and sometimes 4 kilos one. Like factory mold. I think in another 2 weeks, the stock would already be gone. It is fortunate that I still have the chance to experience this rare once in a lifetime opportunity.

A KBL on lure, that is quite a story. Sometimes, life is good and fair :)..if you wait long enough.

Ice chest of one of the platoon of lurers

Lures that I used to target kims. Ima gene no work :(

After a hard "nite" work...Relaxing!

Humphead PB

2010-10-10T05:34:00.000-07:00

After a long break, I am getting back to some simple morning fishing
for the ever obliging PBs. I needed the excerise and it felt good to be
out in the morning breathing fresh air. A kaki had kindly shared about this location and we just had to check it out.

Getting to the spot was easy and the terrain was easy walking without having to wade through muddy grounds.

On my first cast, I already felt a tap. Jokingly, I told KT that we should be
able to land at least 10. At the end, I was rather close. I landed 7 and lost 2.
I was using a small charlie, and hence, the fishes were all rather small in size.
But there was a rare catch of a male PB with a prominent hump. Probably my first for this year.

KT did manage one on his trusted rapala and got numerous bites. But since the PBs were small, his catch rate was poorer than mine. But we were all quite happy already. For the last couple of sessions, we were mostly zero.

I am Sailing...

2010-08-15T01:39:00.000-07:00

This was a trip that took years to materialize. After some missed trips, I decided to organize it on my own. It wasn't hard to track down the boatman contact and a call in March set the trip.

A fly-fishing friend was supposed to have joined me but pulled out the last minute. To my surprise, it wasn't easy to find someone to take over. This was due to the "ghost month" and also the start of the malay Puasa month. Hence despite putting up some postings, there were no takers.

However upon arrival at Rompin, we were told that four pax to a boat was actually the most ideal. We found that to be true as the boat wasn't too big. It is smaller the size of the fishing boats at Changi.

We met up promptly at 3am under my block and soon got over the custom rather effortlessly. At that time, traffic was a breeze. Even throughout the drive, there were hardly any cars on the road. Might be due to the Puasa month, there was a reduction in the number of lorries plying up and down the east coast highway.

Arrived at meeting place with Ah Liang

We were indeed at Sailfish Central

Rompin also famous for this big Watermelon!

By 7am, we arrived at Rompin. The 7 eleven where we were to meet Ah Liang wasn't hard to find. Rompin is a small town. The 2 landmarks here are the giant Sailfish and the big watermelon in the middle of the town.

Breakfast here to keep us awake

I was quite sleepy at this point

Hmmm...it's my day

Since we all hardly slept, we needed some food to keep us awake. We had a hearty breakfast at the Rompin Restaurant Bahru just further down from the 7 eleven. Breakfast was only so so, but we later found out that this restaurant was the preferred choice of Singaporeans when they are over here to fish. The next evening,
we did have our dinner here and it was pretty decent.

Rompin River Chalet

Ah Liang telling us grandfather story at the Jetty

Ah Liang came over and brought us to the Rompin River Chalet where the Jetty is. He was much younger than I expected. I thought I was speaking to an old man over the phone, but he turned out to be just in the mid 30s.

Ah Liang getting our boat ready

Heroes from the past

At the Chalet, all the fishing folks were there getting ready. Interestingly, there was qutie a number of foreigners. Some of them were carrying specialized popping and jigging rods and some were outright professional looking all decked out in Columbia shirts and cool sunglasses.

Off to fish!

This is "Youngoat" (dunno how to spell. Malay for guy with beard)

However, Ah Liang couldn't take us out as he had to baby sit the japanese group. He introduced us to "youngot" who turned out to be an old hand in fishing. We were well serviced by him and his helper.

It was easy to spot them. Just follow the birds

A Sail leaping out of the water

We were indeed shock that the Sails were around in abundance. Everywhere we looked, the Sails were swimming around and occasionally will expose their fins in a shark like manner. I never would have believed that we have them in these kind of numbers and fairly near to Singapore. Also, they weren't spooky of humans and sometimes would even come quite close to the boat. Their majectic posture over the water was indeed an eye opener. It was some National Geographic moment for me.

Tan was first to get a nice gleaming sail

Tan's beautiful Sail with bluish stripes

Andrew was dressed approriately

Woot. Andrew was 2nd to get

Andrew's Sail

Andrew's Sail falling asleep

Arh...my Arthur's day came true

One more pose vertically

Tan's rod hit on another rocketing sail

ZW's sail on tan's rod

A bent hook from ZW's Sail

A Sail leaping out of my camera's frame

And by noon, all of us had landed at least 1 Sail. Due to the fishing method, we could only drift out 2 balloons at one time. Hence, there is a sort of a queueing before everyone will get their turn. But the hit rate was pretty good. The score at noon was 7 hits, 4 landed. Very decent I should say.

On the way back, tan's rod got a Barracuda on jig!

So for the afternoon, we all did more bottom fishing. However bottom didn't pull up anything promissing, mostly with groupers and smaller specimens. But we were all already satisfied and decided to go back to shore early to have an early rest. We were all rather tired by then and it had been a long day.

Dinner that evening with the sotongs and fishes we caught at Rompin River Chalet

The Groupers were delicious

Rompin Golden Village here!

That night, Ah Liang took us to his relative's tackleshop

The group of Japanese getting ready for Shabu Shabu

Japanese tourist preparing the Cobia for dinner. They cook it themselves!

So it was rest early for the evening. It was arranged for us to stay at "youngoat" place which turn out to be 2 side rooms at this home renovated for this purpose. It was comfy and had all necessary amenities like air con and hot water bath. We turned in early and had a good nite rest. However Andrew and Tan seemed to have problems resting due to the super cold aircon. In face, he fell sick the next day.

Letting out a balloon for Sails

The next morning, another friend Andy came to join us. He was already waiting for us at the Jetty being not his first time here. We had chat often over SMS but it was the first time meeting him. He turned out to be an easy to get along chap.

Andy got the biggest Kelong Chi(s) I ever saw

Nope. Not a sail bending his rod, but a bottom dweller

Woot! A grouper on Jig

Nice beautiful blue fin

ZW's was first to get a Sail on the 2nd day

ZW's own personal sail on his expert graphite

Andrew was sick but still managed to booster his cow strength to beat this fiesty fellow

So Shack!

Landed after a back breaking fight

Sail looking sad

Andy got a good hit, but soon lost it due to too tight a tension

Tan's SureCatch lucky hat

Evidence of a Tenggiri slicing off the Kerisi's head

The 2nd day, we were taken out by Ah Liang's foreman. He looked Malay but could speak Chinese like any of us. We were at first quite confused but later learnt that he was an orang asli who was brought up by a Chinese family. He was good but the fishing that day was a little different. The Sails this time wasn't that prominent and the water as a little more choppy.

The Sails came in in smaller numbers and it took a while for each of us to hit on at least one Sail. The whole day in fact. But the Sails today fought rather hard, even making Andrew a little breathless. We were thinking that he might have gotten a Marlin, but it was a Sail alright.

Hmm...

My Tyrnos finally got action after all these years in the shelf

My turn for day 2. A bigger specimen this time

Our fishing boat

Tan and Andy were the only ones that didn't land any Sail on day 2. Tan lost a good one that went many times around the boat and finally snapping his braided mainline. For that, he was already satisfied. Andy lost one that only showed his presence when he started to retrieve his line and only then did he realized that he had a fish on the other end. It was a tough fight, but the tension was too high and the leader broke.

I lost a couple too but finally finally managed to land one that was bigger than the one yesterday. It started very fierce and run very far away. But after a while, it was totally worn out and I was only pulling back a dead weight.

Our sleeping quarters

End of mission rest and relax dinner

We had a good dinner with the fishes from bottom fishing at Rompin Restaurant Bahru at the recommendation of Andy. After that, we all retired back to the room and rested till the next morning before heading back home. Andrew by then was feeling pretty sick. Nevertheless, we were all contented that we had achieved what we arrived to do and more. A very decent trip overall.

We passed this Salted fish/Keropok factory on the way back to JB

Salted Queenies

Breakfast at Mersing at a place frequent by backpackers

Ho Yee See (South China Sea Deep Sea Fishing)

2010-05-10T23:44:00.000-07:00

This boat trip was planned as far back as last year. ZW had a colleague (Kenneth) who went on a trip with his fishing friends last year and even got himself some big catches despite being a fishing noobie. Seeing all his photos, we were all salivating and decided to book ourselves for the next trip.

So it was planned initially to do a 3D2N one. But at the last minute, they decided to head out to sea in the night so as to catch the morning there to start doing some fishing. Therefore, the entire trip turned out to be a 3D3N one. An exhausting experience but nevertheless, a first for me and ZW.

We all met up with the rest of the gang at Ponggol Marina. It seemed that for this trip, the departure was directly from Singapore itself. Along the way, we would clear custom in the sea! Fortunately, the parking wasn't expensive at $3+ per day. The gang comprises of Jimmy, Kenneth, Ah Chwee, Ah Oar, Patrick, Frankie, Sze Min, Siew, Ah Peng, ZW and I. All of them were veterans in this kind of fishing except for ZW and myself. Gears wise, all have super duper tackles from outer space. There was even 2 of those COMMAND motorized fishing reels that looks like it has a super fishy CPU built-in. To fish, all you need to do is to push some buttons.

After exchanging greetings, we started out on the way. As mentioned, we had to clear the custom at the border of Singapore sealine. However the procedure was not as simple as some would think. After radioing the custom from ICA, the boat couldn't do anything but to wait. And that night, it was an hour wait just to have the guys in blue come over to have a look at our faces. We had to line up along the boat to be counted like some refugees. But soon it was done, and we were all on the way to the fishing area which was about 3 hours away. Given that our boat was a fast one, 3 hours should bring us about 150km away from Singapore. (my guesstimate)

When we arrived, we all started to do squidding as the first spot was a squidding spot. I tried some bottom fishing but the bait just got eaten away by small fishes. ZW was successful in squidding and managed to land about 3 of them in a short time. A couple more were landed by the others before we head to the bottom fishing spot proper.

Arriving at the first spot, the fishing wasn't too good. Soon morning broke, and we basically went about collecting bait fishes for use later on. After the morning activity, we were all dead tired and decided to sleep till evening to continue the fishing. The other veterans continued to fish like hell and there were some decent catches here and there, but nothing very outstanding.

ZW and I woke up around 5pm and started to fish the evening into the night. I got lucky and managed to score a nice grouper to start off. Later in the evening, the captain brought us to a very productive spot that produced many bigger catches. I got a huge bite and fought a fish for a while until I realized that it wasn't mine. Our lines had all got entangled and it was a very good sized Ray Shark belonging to Siew (guesstimate 12 kg). I have another bite later and again our lines all got messed up. Halfway, I took up my line to unravel and thought that the fish was someone's else. And then it turned out to be mine. But it was landed by Chwee (I think). The Corbia was boga at 5kg. ZW wasn't doing too well and didn't managed to land anything the 2nd night. Around 2am, we went off to sleep for a while and woke around 6am to continue fishing.

The 2nd morning, Patrick's command reel suddenly "sang" and line was spewing out in a long continuous stretch. That indicated that someone big was at the end of the line. Something very big. The machine went on for about a couple of minutes, and finally when the fish surfaced, we were all stumped by the sheer size of it. It was a humongous "Chinaman", a fish that looked like a red snapper. When we weighed it, it was an astounding 12kg. That certainly sealed it as the catch of the trip.

Jimmy was on handline for the entire trip and it was amusing to see someone coming to a boat trip like this using such a primitive method to catch a fish. But he certainly showed his mettle, and managed to land quite 7-8 of Orh Kah Hiah of various size (Big eye trevally). That morning, he also landed a huge Ang Cho (red snapper). It was a good fight and the line even got pulled out with his human drag. He was such a contrast with Patrick who was more high tech on his COMMAND reel which cost about $1300.

Then mr sun got really hot and ZW and I decided to sleep it off and prepare for the fishing later on in the evening. We woke around 5pm and went out to have a look see. Even at 5pm, the sun was still stinging our skins and I got slightly sunburnt around the knees as I was wearing shorts.

The 3rd night, ZW luck came back to him and he started to score his big catches, breaking his all time record. First good catch was a fiesty 4kg Bat Fish that fought till the very end. It looked small but when it was boga-ed, it weight a hefty 4kg. That was a great start for him. After that, he went on to get a "Bullet" (some kind of trevally) and then a 2.5kg Kaci (Sweetlips). Lucky for him, the 3rd night was the sweet spot.

Late into the night, Peng got a record Stingray. He couldn't manage it and had to get the professional fisherman Chwee to reel it back in. As it neared the boat, we could see that it was huge. Expert said that it was in excess of 50kg. They decided not to land it and cut the line.

I was thinking that we would fish till next moring 9-10 and when we woke up to catch the morning fishing at 5am, we were trying to do some last fishing before we packed. The morning spot was one with very strong current and my sinker would hit the bottom and started rolling away from the boat. Initially I thought I couldn't hit the bottom and left off the line till it was flying away in the current. But Or told me that the place was actually shallow and I should just stop when I hit the first bounce. Arh...something I learnt this trip.

Or landed a nice Ang Cho that morning. After that while we were all trying, we were told suddenly that that was it, and we need to all pack. Ah! And I was hoping for a last minute good catch to round off the trip. So grudgingly, I packed. After that, it was back to the bed and sleep off the distance while the boat head back towards motherland. Again at the border, we had to check ourselves into Singapore again. But this time, there was a "queue" at the ICA area and the wait was longer. Very much longer. It took 2 hours for the ICA boat to come around and yet again, we had to line up to be counted and checked.

Once that was done, it was another half hour from there till the Marina. From there, it was a back breaking task of carrying our heavy icebox of catches under the baking sun.

A great trip overall, although ZW and I didn't do very well in the big fish department. However, we did have some taste of how deep fishing is like and gained many good experience. And all manners of creature comfort is possible on this boat. Not a bad experience and certainly one to treasure for time to come.

Woot, the boat certainly looked high end

Bunks like hotel room (air con!)

The gang of experts fisherman

It looked like more like an apartment than a boat

Toilet is decent, although small

But a tad small though. Bathing is a challenging effort

Heavy duty sinkers that we used for the trip

ZW was the sotong king of the trip

3 by him

My first morning on the South China Sea

Simplest meal for the trip. The overall food was pretty good

Some small catches as a warm-up. We were catching bait fishes to fill the well

Got filled up pretty fast

The name of this boat: Seven Seas Conqueress

Jimmy on his handline

Peng landed an Ang Cho

My Monster Mesh and Tyrnos put to the battlefield.

Alamak, come here to land catfish! I too landed one :(

Only this kind of Sabiki can work

My first decent catch. A LengChiam (Emperor)

Ooh. Lunch is looking good

Eat and think about the next big one

Strings of groupers (grouper spot)

ZW landed one too

Wah, someone nich Ang Cho (Snapper)

The $1300 COMMAND reel

It needs an external battery pack to make it run

Rare pic of me

Hey, your rod is moving! (I lost the catch, the line at the hook broke)

I learnt this way of using a dead fish bait and slicing it up.I got the big grouper on this

Woot. A good size grouper

Good size sting ray

I fought this halfway and found that it wasn't mine

Gaffed up on the boat

Landed! A Shovel nosed shark

A cobia. At the time of the photo, I didn't know it was mine

A good size one

Oh? It's mine? Wah, 5kg

A flying fish

More Cobias

Jimmy's one of his numerous Orh Kar

A small grouper

2nd Morning

Patrick kept shouting Ho Yee See, Ho Yee See! (haha, means, let it die, let it die)

Wow, 12kg on the scale

Patrick was elated!

First time I see a live Chinaman

He caught a chicken fish shortly

Kenneth with his grouper

Jimmy on his biggest catch of the trip

Come to daddy

Wow, an Ang Kuay! (Red snapper)

Chwee the pro fighting a good catch...

Battlestations

Slow exposure for this mood picture

Even boat got side mirrors

ZW's time has come

Woot woot, a 4kg Batfish

A good size "Bullet"

The huge stingray. It was released

This "Bullet" was a big one

We went to the nearby SCS Macdonald branch for fries

Another one for ZW

Good size Kaci

It was full moon

I rigged this "contraption" for my last attempt. But the boat kept moving...

Last Ang Cho by Or

Splitting the harvest

The ICA boat. The process is damn slow

Home sweet home

Ah Eng Boat

2010-04-18T02:16:00.000-07:00

This was the second trip for me on this boat. If you had been fishing around, you would find that Ah Eng boat is kinda special. It is a very spacious boat and fishing here is very comfortable with plenty of space for everyone. 8 persons on a boat would be just nice. For this trip, it would be Patrick, Chew, ZW and I and then we met up with Bernard and friend Jon, and fishing veterans, Ah Hwee and Ah Fat. (who for some reasons, is not fat at all)

We boarded the boat under the Penjuru flyover

Unfortunately the coffee shop with the favorite scallop noodle shop had closed down. I was so looking forward to it. After a quick breakfast at Ayer Rajah market, we top up on some fishing stuff from the tackle-shop; like $2 per piece weights; and proceeded along to the boating pickup point.

Once out at sea, we started fishing at the first spot. The sea was rather deep but the current was manageable. I had setup 2 tackles, my Jigwrex PE2-4 and my lighter tackle, blackrose. ZW did likewise and we alternate between the 2 rods depending on the current. ZW was using his recently purchased set and during the trip; TLD15 and a rather pricey Expert Graphite Ares which he found it very much to his liking.

While I was taking his photo and holding my rod under my arm, I also got a take. Another T-Boon

First fishes were by us. ZW and I scored a double hookup of T-Boons (Spanish Flag Snapper). After that, the rest started getting fishes like Kaci, more T-Boons and the regular groupers. However, after the first T-Boon, ZW was quite fishless for the rest of the day. Despite the advise by others, I stuck mainly to my light blackrose. Due to that, I scored mainly small fishes. I think I might have caught the most fishes, but all smallies. My score was:

2 T-Boon, 2 aramugum (small grouper), 1 KBL (small), 1 wrasse (small mouth and yet attack my prawn!), I had also plenty of sangkot, some of which started out promising.

Patrick with his first, a nice Kaci(Sweetlips)

For this trip, I thought it very strange that I kept feeling small bites and sudden takes, but when I struck, it was usually empty. We rationalised this to the bottom being full of corals or weeds that gave us plenty of "false" alarms as if the fishes were biting. Therefore, the fishing was very confusing. We didn't know if it was fishes or just coral bottom. After a while, I didn't quite enjoy the fishing as it was mainly a hit and run affair whether to get the fishes or not.

The morning started rather hot, but it kind of cooled down in the afternoon. Luckily we were quite well covered up and didn't suffer too much from the burning sun. I was trying out my seahawk hat, which worked rather well.

But the star of the trip was from a simple man, John who was Bernard's friend. John wasn't a very technical fishingman, and we could tell from his gear. While the rest were all using expensive stuff like Saltiga, Accurate, Jigging Master, Expert Graphite, Calstar etc...he was just using a Surecatch rod and a cheap combo of an overhead. His first catch was good, a nice Kaci to my envy. Around 3pm in the afternoon, he hooked on something very big. We could all see him struggling to lift the fellow up. When it surfaced, we all gasped at the fish. It was a prize catch of a 2kg Coral Trout. It was not every Sunday that one could see such a nice fish. From the market, this fish could be sold for around $32 per kg. It was indeed his lucky day, and we could see him smiling away and feeling satisfied. Bernard was feeling rather unhappy as his seemingly less experienced friend was getting all the good catches. He turned out to have a duck egg this trip.

After that, the fishing all quieten down. Chew was the last to score a nice leatherjacket which he mistook for a puffer. Everyone told him that it was a chicken fish and good to eat. After that, he probably felt happier. Around 4.30pm the boat headed back and stop at one or two more places for us to try our luck a few more times. We reached back to the land at around 5+pm.

This trip, a mixed bag of catches. Good trip for some, and not so good for the others. But seeing the coral trout, one can only hope that it would soon be their turn to get something that good. It literally took John 40 years to get that. Fishing is certainly a life-long adventure.

If you see people wearing this, you are in the midst of experts.

ZW using his virgin rod set

Petrol station in the sea

ZW got his first fish, a T-Boon

Decent table size

This special T-joint knot. Very useful to spread the line out from the sinker

The deckhand Tonni teaching us how to do it

Nice grouper (not sure from who)

Another grouper from "Ah Fat"

Woot. My KBL. It had taken me 4 years to land a true blue wild KBL

Pose pose with it

Chew got a surprise visit from a Sotong who was trying to attack a "aramugum" that he caught on the way up. It squirt at him on the surface to all of our surprise. Tonni got it up using net

Another small catch by me

A nice T-Boon by "Ah Fat"

Chew's grouper

Something BIG

Wah. Man of the trip showing a V sign

Beautiful closeup pose of the Man and the Beast

This is the way to gang-hook the prawn with 2 hooks

Chew rare catch of a leatherjacket

Believe me, these people all got "Performance" gears

People fishing under the bridge

On the way out, a drowned mouse sighted in a pail

Sibu Kelong/Pulau Tinggi Boat

2010-03-28T00:40:00.000-07:00

Quite a big group this round with a total of 5 cars, and 17 pax, including a spunky hair chatterbox of a little girl. Tan family came in full force and from the looks, really out to fish like hell.

Fix motor not enough business? Sell prawns instead!

The KT boss sitting in the little red car

Along the way, tan had this contact to pick up live prawns which cost RM60 per kg. Not a bad idea and it was rather convenient being along the way to the kelong. Incidentally, the shop name is KT, which is our nick for our "lucky spoon" guy here.

We thot we heard the "Tuk" at the back....but it turned up to be the main windscreen

The tan fishing family

Crystal clear water...can see a dory on the right side of the photo (thomas photo)

Barracuda no eyes see our fishing skills

We reached the kelong jetty in good time. Any later, we will need to row our boats out as the tide would get too low for the bumboats to come into the Jetty. From the people loading up, we discovered that there wouldn't be many people there this weekend. Indeed there wasn't during the week, which made for a pleasant fishing experience. The trip was very relaxing and had plenty of space for casting and eating wind.

Meng Zai with a half eaten lengchiam (Emperor) on the way up

On the boat, I chatted up Meng Zai (aka Ah Meng) the Kelong Mgr. I have known Meng Zai for a pretty long time, since my very first Sibu Kelong trip which was to Hotboys. I asked if it was possible to go for a short boating trip and he agreed to make the arrangements for us. Later, he told me that all the fishing boats were taken up, but if I would like to go on a spacious speed boat? The downside of speed boat was that it would be more shakey. But we later found out that the boat was very comfortable and big. Pretty suited to boat fishing I would say.

Nice spread of food

Reaching the kelong, we unpacked and settled down. The helpers were kind enough to acede to my request for all the beds to be on the lower deck. In fact this trip, I would give them a 5 star for good service. Food was excellent too, except for the morning breakfast of some oily dark brownish noodle with some bits of sausages. But the other food for our main meals were excellent and got approval from everyone on board.

By some sheer conincidence, Thomas met some church friends here. I wondered, what were the odds of that. he better go buy some 4D. For himself, this trip really got him super chao tar since he liked sitting under the hot kelong sun. I wasn't quite around Frankie and Thomas and hence didn't have much pics of them. Those would be coming from Thomas super professional camera in due time.

Twin powered speed boat

After lunch, 6 of us pop out for the boat trip for the afternoon. I was pretty excited as this was something new for me. I had done this once at Ah Ngan before on the regular bumboat but not on a speed boat. The boat was commandered by 2 youngish chap.

Behind Pulau Tinggi. Very nice scenery

Overall, the boat trip was a tad disappointing. But nevertheless, it was a good experience. As the live prawns didn't quite make it (most of it died or was rather half dead), our chances of biggies were quite slim. And it seems tthat the places that the boatmen brought us too wasn't quite promising. Luckily I brought along my tamban rod meant for getting baits and did some small catches. Most of us were getting some assortment of fishes like breams and MJ (Michael jackson, aka small groupers).

She finally got some bites that she can feel

Zul wasn't getting anything until I passed her my blessed tabam rod and she managed to have an exciting time fighting with a decent size lengchiam. It was impressive how the rod was bending...until we found out that she was fighting a rock. haha. But the fish was indeed there. I think it pulled the drag until it reach a rocky structure. But after some coaxing, fish came out again and it was a nice lengchiam. No wonder the fight was good.

YB got 2 parrots, very good catch

A real barracuda for ZW in the evening

Around 6pm, we returned back to the kelong. I got some accounts that people from the other group have been catching "barracudas" until I realized that they were actually todaks.

Time for nite luring

After dinner, ZW, Andrew and I started to explore luring to see if Parangs are around. ZW was first to get a confirmation when one was hooked and started leaping out of the water. But alas, it got away. That encouraged us and we continued trying. But for some reasons, lots of strikes but misses. Throughout the night, we couldn't land any.

YB first Parang! (Photo from Thomas)

I taught YB how to do the luring and passed him one of my lures. And to our surprises, he started landing them. Not just one but in total four!! Argh. Put us all "parangs" experts to shame. haha. But YB was a very hardworking lurer and just seeing him keep going at it was an inspiration.

Sea was very clear...sotong swimming around! (thomas photo)

One more for the icebox (thomas icebox)

Audrey's catch of Sotong (thomas photo)

During the night, we also spied plenty of sotongs swimming around in the clear water. Of the many trips I have been to Sibu, this was by far the best. We started squidding and did manage to land quite a number of them.

Nice breezy morning

Ya Li fishing at the well

The next morning, I was thinking of taking it easy when we were all pleasantly surprised to see a number of big fishes circling around the kelongs. That naturally got us very excited and we all try hard to target them. But to our disappointment, they were not biting our lively kicking offerings at all. It was quite a sight to see all the bait fishes scooting away when the big fishes would occasionally swim into the school to take a nip at them. That really was a nice experience with mother nature.

The man of the trip

YB was at another corner, when we heard a shout and saw his rod bending. We were shocked to learn that he had got a take on a lure! and when I peeped into the water, it was a Mackeral! hoho, that was indeed the catch of the year. I run into the kelong and started shouting for people to come look see. Andrew went off to get the net and very soon, it was netted up on the kelong floor. Rounds of applause and congratulations. It was really was a neat hat trick and a great finale to our visit here.

In a jiffy, all of us started to take out our lure set and starting luring. However, even when my lure passed mr biggie, he didn't even give it a sniff. But ZW's crystal minnow did get a look in the direction. But the luring was qutie difficult due to the low water. Try and try, we didn't get a bite. According to YB, the trick was to do it fast.

Time to balake kampung

Unfortunately, our attempts needed to be cut short as we had to leave the kelong early due to the low tide issue at the Jetty. Reluctantly, we all had to pack and leave the place.

Thereafter we reached the Jetty, Andrew headed straight back home, while the rest followed me to the Permas tackle shop for a look see. The last time, it was too rushed as we were rather late and it was about to close. However, this time, we had all the time in the afternoon and it was a good visit. Then it was back to home sweet home for me to catch my forty winks.

More Pictures...

We stopped here to pick up "KT"'s prawns

Boarding the boat

Don't leave home without this bagus Sambal chilli

Ah Meng having a catch sliced into 2 by a big fish below

First good catch by Zul. A selar papan

Audrey got a small grouper

Ooh. A unicorn leatherjacket

YB with his lengchiam

Thomas with his catch (thomas photo)

Frankie with his long rod (thomas photo)

IZ the todak killer (thomas photo)

Woman todak power (thomas photo)

(thomas photo) Mervlyn is the poster boy for kelong living :)

Wah, like going for BIG GAME fishing

Fishing at Pulau Tinggi

KT's first string of catches

This is a sap boon fish (soap fish)

Michael Jackson (small grouper)

This "monster" fought very hard!

A decent sized Bream

Mine prettier

The two boatman

Andrew fought this 100kg rock before surrendering

A lizard fish

Our total catch during the 4 hour boat trip

The hard working Tan family

One for you and one for me

Thinking out of the box

Andrew netting YB Mack for him

Woot. A Mackeral on lure!

This Mack didn't know what hit him

5 pounder happy meal

2010-03-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

[don't worry, Toman was released. It wasn't made into happy meal]

It has been a while since we have done some PB fishing, so this Sat, we all got together to do some. This would be CK first time to a PB spot. KT brought along friend KI and by the time he drove round half of Singapore to pick us, it was already quite late. I think we were there around 6.45am or so. The sky was already quite bright.

But no matter, because the fishes do seem to come out rather late this time of the year. The sky seemed a little dark and it was rather windy. When I first saw the water, the water kind of murky due to the rainfall these few days. There was a strong up river current so the water wasn't exactly calm and was kind of moving and rippling.

We had to spread out as there were 4 of us. The regular baiting uncles were already at the corner. I fished mainly in the middle while the guys move further up to the river mouth. This morning, I didn't see much fish splashes from my side. But the other guys do see quite a bit nearer to the mouth. Round 7.30am, I was lucky and got a strong take. And when it started to dive into the weeds at will spooling out my line effortlessly, I immediately know that it was no PB, but a Toman. For a moment it got me worried as it swam into a bunch of weeds and I couldn't control it away from it. Suddenly the line went slack and I thought I lost it. But then the line went taut again and sprang to the other side on my right. Again it went near to the banks trying to squeeze into some holes. But I was lucky that there wasn't any complicated undergrowth or wood below otherwise it would surely be a goner. At one point, my braid was tangled up round a small branch. I could only hold on to my rod with the little branch trying to tire the Toman.

After after 3 minutes or so, it did got worn out and I was able to lead it to the river bank. CK was at my side taking video of the catch. He also helped me to get the boga ready in case I needed it to lift the Toman up. But when I tested the leader, it seemed strong enough to just yank it up on the bank. With that, Toman was landed. By then, KT and KI came to my side to help out.

On the boga, it read 5 lbs. That is slightly above 2 kg. We took some photos. This Toman had beautiful purple stripes and was rather gorgeous. After photos, it was released.

I went on to land another feisty PB. Later I learnt that KT also got a PB but lost it before he could get it up on the bank for photos. CK and KI didn't get anything this round. The expert PB lurer came around while I was busy with my Toman and went near the river mouth. From KT account, he was catching them effortlessly again near the river mouth. With just a normal looking river2sea minnow. Hmmm.

Good day!

Group photo with Mr T

One day, KT will have one of his own

My fiesty PB that was foul hooked near the fin

Tilapia Secret Spot

2010-03-13T15:37:00.000-08:00

Well...no secret actually. Everywhere is also tilapia spot. Got long kang, got Tilapias. This afternoon, we almost didn't make it to fish there as the sky was having a mind of its own. Rain a bit, stop a bit, rain a bit..Anyway, CK met me at SLS and despite that it was drizzling slightly, we made our way to leisure mall. This time, a special guest came to join. A white wooly thing that goes "bark bark". I told D to bring Chelsea along for the gathering and maybe she might have fun taking a stroll along the jogging path. She seldom go out and it will be a change for us. She was pretty apprehensive in the car, and cried a little thinking that we are going to bring her to see the "bad" doctor.

Reaching there, the rain came upon us fairly heavily. We waited under the shelter walkway in front of the escalator leading to indoor stadium. I was thinking that Andrew might not come, and waited for ZW to turn up. To my surprise, Andrew and the durian head boy, P2 turned up. ZW got lost but finally made his way to leisure mall. From there, it was another 3 mintues to the spot where I first saw the man fishing at Tg Rhu.

Reaching there, we were half expecting Rangers to come knocking on us and telling us to go away. But to our surprise, no one did come to bother us. In fact the man that I saw on that Thursday night was there again.

Tilapias there were plenty, if the setup is right. Initially we were not getting fishes, until Andrew started fishing. He really is our champion at small fishes. We catch 1, he catches 10. He has this special beady rig with his tiny small hooks that was super effective. All in all, I think we could easily have caught more than 30 Tilapias.

While we were fishing, the children had fun cycling and playing with Chelsea. Quite a fun outing I must say for us and the children. No big fish, little Tilapias also can cure the itch for awhile. haha. When we were leaving, ZW took some small specimens, and we released all of the others back to their brackish homes.

After that was good food at Old Airport Road hawker. Maybe we should have brought the Tilapias and ask the zi char stall to cook for us to see how it taste :)

World's shortest double yellow line

Taking the dog for a walk

Man I met on Thursday evening is back

First catch goes to Andrew

Hmmm...this is a fish?

The children had fun playing fetch

Chelsea, catch the ball!

A different fish, a Goby

Dad, I got a Fish!

Arh, ZW broke his egg and got his first fish, with the approval of Home Minister

A nice Rabbit Fish like specimen, in our "tank" of distilled water!

Andrew's unusual catch of a Goby (Larger than my earlier one)

Ooh, this Eagle swooped down and caught a fish too in it's claws

Picking those that we want to bring home. The rest can reunite with mama Tilapia

Birdwatching and Fishing

2010-03-04T18:25:00.000-08:00

We met REAL birdwatchers.

Interesting day today on our 2nd recce to this place. We met CK for the first time and he turned out to be able to click well with us. On the way in, we indeed met real birdwatchers. They were all armed with cameras with long zooms and tripod set. As we passed them, we were exposed by CK's rod that he held on his hand. KT said that we should learn some bird watching jargon to make our disguise more fool-proofed. hehe.

We pretended to spew some birdwatching jargon and walked on

Sure have plenty of birds here

But the speedboat coming in here to do wake boarding was damn irritating

When we reached the potential spot at the end with the "house", we saw 2 other persons fishing there with bait. But they were shaking their heads and said no fish because of the speed boat that came around every 3 minutes. Aiyah, with disturbance like this, where got KBL? Anyway, we did some casting and got nothing. But the place was big and we could try casting at various pools of water.

I saw KT struggling with his rod and thought he got snagged. But he surprised me with a catch of a kitty!

His Abu spinner worked wonders here

As we were fishing at the inner pool, I saw KT fumbling with his rod. I was thinking sangkot again. But then again, he seem to be fighting a fish. And indeed he eventually pulled up something wriggling from the water. Woah! I immediately ran to his side and start snapping pictures. It was a cat fish. But cat fish or not, any fish is pretty good sign.

Wah..another one! This time a Goby

We moved around and at another spot, KT hit on a zone where he started pulling up gobies. All in all, he had 2. I took his rod with his amazing spinner and hit one myself. Actually I saw something coming for the spinner as I was nearing the bank. I put back the spinner and gave it a few jigs...and wham, a feisty little critter took it. Wow. I didn't know that gobies are that fierce.

We went to this nook to recce and had to cross a flimsy bridge

The sun was coming up and we decided to head back. But along the way, we saw this fishy nook and decided to check it out. But we had to do some balancing on a rickety branch to get to the other side. On the first pass, everyone did ok. On the return pass, CK was the last to go and he lost his balance and tipped backwards and was hanging on to dear life on the rope. But the leaning 70 kg weight on the rope was too much for the supporting branch to bear, and it gave a "crrraccckkk"...and we all did an "uh-oh.."...and CK went crashing into the water.

On the way back to the main road, CK lost his balance and FELL into the water! We could only watch as his weight snapped the branch tied to the end of rope.

We immediately sprang to his rescue. Luckily, his phone was still working after KT gave mouth to mouth resuscitation to it.

Everything he had on was wet. And the water was deep too and I could see him trying to thread water to keep his head up. He managed to somehow get near the branch and hugged it like a baby. We all grabbed him and finally got him to land again. But luckily his bag was a waterproof one and his most important possession was still intact. Phone managed to still work despite getting dunked in water. After this, he sure to remember this day for the rest of his life...haha.

Pop Goes The Weasel

2010-01-30T05:16:00.000-08:00

Frankly, I have no idea what the above phrase means. Searching on the internet, it seems to be a term that is vague in meaning, and nobody is sure as well. But I thought it an apt name to title this for my exploration and learning in that luring technique: popping.

For those who are not familiar with fishing terminologies, popping is a technique that involves casting out a floating fish like plastic with a dish like mouth. The lurer (the person fishing) would jerk at it so that the dishy mouth would push against the surface water to make popping splashes, hence the term Popping. Apparently, this is enough to trigger a strike and to get fish! It sounds incredible, but it is a workable technique, and people do get fishes on them.

But personaly since I started luring few years ago, I had never thought that it was effective. As a matter of fact, one of my first lure to buy was a skitter pop after watching a very convincing Rapala video. After a few newbie casts, I thought I had been had and it had been relegated to my shelf of discarded fishing stuff and was never seen again.

However, of late, I started to experiment with Poppers again. Seeing that I had been consistently getting fishes on minnows and flies, I was wondering if it was possible with Poppers. I do know that many folks do use Poppers to target Tomans.

Starting with my Storm Chug Bug, I started to fish only with Poppers on my morning rounds with Pat and ZW. My initial attempts, did see some promising splashes that were after my popper. But for some reason, they missed! However, it was enough for me to pursue the technique and to keep trying.

I got a strong endorsement with we were fishing with YB, and he landed a 3kg Toman on Popper in 10 mins flat. ZW and I were shocked and that fueled me to keep trying and trying.

On a session with Pat, I finally got close in getting one when in the short hour session, I had 6 hits on my popper. 2 of which I was near to landing but unfortunately thrown the hook. 1 grabbed my Popper and disappeared with it into the inky depths.

Stamp of Victory (1st fish for my minipack as well)

1st fish on 3D Popper

KT against the beautiful rising sun

2nd fish on 3D Popper

This morning, on a session with KT, I finally passed my initiation, and managed to land one after losing the first 2 on the run. Seeing the PB thumping on the grass was stamp of victory. I was so successful with my technique now that I went on to land another 2, totalling 3. KT was impressed and he too started popping. And he did manage to get some bites, but was still in a daze when the PB struck and he never strike back. But he is getting there.

Carp Fisherman from England

2010-01-24T06:55:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting afternoon today. After meeting A at her shop, I decided to take the car to Macritchie for some look see. Since I didn't get any fish this weekend, I was thinking to give it another shot later on at the small space at the legal fishing spot.

Carpark rates

First thing that greeted me when I arrived was that the parking was payable. No more free parking from previously. But ended up when I left, it wasn't too expensive. The first hr was free and staying there for about 2 hours, I only had to pay $0.92.

The dreaded PUB van

PUB very kiasu....everything cannot. Even bring dog cannot. Hmmm, I thot parks are for that kind of purpose?

Of interest also was that there was a PUB van parked right outside. So, don't even think of hanky panky. I had to behave myself.

I had along my mini pack but as the hot was blazing hot, I decided to take a walk on the newly built boardwalk to have a look see at the water. For some reasons, the water these couple of days was rather bad, and it was the same murkiness in the water, just like in LSR this morning.

Just before the path leads away from the water

The trail I was on

2 giant lizards leap into the water for a swim

One of them. They were huge

I didn't see many fishes splashing around and I decided to turn back once I reached the part where the boardwalk ended. On the return route though, I saw 2 large lizards splashing into the water and swimming around in our PUB water. The lizards were huge...easily about 1.5m long! At some point, one of it seem to swim towards me...haha, I had to make sure to have some safety distance in case he thinks that I look yummy. At the usual cove near the kayak area, the tinfoil barbs were still there. But not in that kind of numbers that I saw previously.

Woah, a full setup for a carp fisherman

Just as I was reaching back at the kayaking place, an interesting site greeted me. There was a English man fishing and his setup was an interesting one. I remembered see some pictures in Rod & Line and it was a setup for carp fishing. The amount of gear he had on was staggering and he was on a 9ft pole rod with auto alarm and the kind of tripods that they use. But later on, everything goes into his harvest sack and some carry ons.

As I mentioned to him, mr ranger would be around to ask him to move.

I stood around for a while and then decided to go talk to him. After some initial small talk, I found him a very interesting and nice guy and we got along pretty well. He was doing baiting as it was traditionally the way to catch carps. His rig was very interesting and not something that I know how to do. I told him that actually, he wasn't allowed to fish at that corner. I warned him that the Rangers are pretty active here and he would be approached by one of them soon. Someone else was beside him and doing some luring. True to my words, within 15 mins, Mr Ranger appeared. But he was nice and only told Steve (his name) to move. The other lurer was given the same treatment.

Steve then moved to the legal area. But to get to the water, he had to go down on the slope. But being on the slope, fishing was pretty difficult for him. Earlier on I was telling him that LPR might be a better location for him. Just then, he asked me for the direction to LPR so that he could try there. As I didn't have much to do, I said why don't I give him a lift there. He didn't drive, so he was grateful for my help.

Reaching there, after he setup, we bade our goodbyes. But surely, we will be in touch with him. As it turned out, he worked pretty near my place and suggested that we could meet for lunch. I said sure. I promised to take him to do some boat and kelong fishing in the future. Perhaps, I could also convert him into a lurer. :)

LPR Yabby fishing

At LPR today, there were plenty of people trying to catch Yabbies. But when I looked into some of the pails, nope, I didn't see any.

Mine's a Daiwa

2010-01-17T17:40:00.001-08:00

Itchy fingers...decided to get a proper rod that can fit entirely into my bag. My last purchase wasn't quite right and I had to have the rod tube sticking out.

Was looking at the all the cheapo rods $15 -$50...and didn't like it as most of the guide quality is really terok. I don't want the guides to damage my braided lines which I use exclusively.

Was at Changi Village, Riverland, and saw this rod. At first ask the shop people for telescopic with SIC guide but it was an impossible specs. The only ones that come with SIC is the surf leader (which I have). And then, my eyes saw this hanging on top of the counter. They said, Oh...that one not SIC guides...but fuji guides. Figuring this is better than nothing, I tested it and found it to my liking. Most Telescopic rods are too thick for me to like, but this one, it is bearable. Surprisingly, the specs is for 15-25lbs. The length is shorter and I can put the entire thing into my bag.

The price was $70+ (I don't want to reveal the actual amount, in case the shops will change it)....after all their magical discount. I tried to bargain but they said their profit margin is very low for Daiwa stuff.

Firguring that I would use this alot, I think it is fair to bite the bullet. After all, over time, the cost of each use is very low.

Can't wait to wet it.

Pardon the messy table

The specs in Japanese

Sword out of the casing

Decent guides. I think Fuji hardloy

For counter weights

White top section for visibility

Fits into my bag for Ninja mission

Nice soft bag too

Fishing Bay Resort

2010-01-10T22:11:00.000-08:00

This was just an impromptu trip up to Mersing, to check out a resort known as fishing bay resort. As Pat had worked the night shift, we only set off towards it around 2pm. But Mersing wasn't particulary far away and was reachable within slightly more than 2 hours.

Read more

New Year Fishing

2010-01-03T20:06:00.000-08:00

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.

Relax Fishing At Rakit Atan

2009-12-06T21:48:00.000-08:00

Nothing to shout about for this trip to the Rakit. But this was the first time for KT and Zul as well as two of their friends that came along.

The morning started rather abruptly with a call from Zul in the morning. We were all woken up by the ringing phone. Then we realized that we had past the meeting time and they were all waiting at our block downstairs.

The night before, we had just returned from JB, Endau Rompin and were dead exhausted. Hence, when the alarm rang at 5am, none of us woke up. We quickly scrambled to don our clothes and made our way down in 10 minutes.

Good thing though, the traffic wasn't jammed and we sailed across the checkpoint effortlessly. From there, I routed them to the eatery near to Kong Kong. We settled down for the first meal of the day. There, we introduced ourselves proper to KT's friends and found to our surprise, that we have common friends that we know. Small world indeed.

Driving the country road

They were indeed surprised that I cuold discover a place like this, that had them driving through rugged terrain and ending up in a world hidden from the mainstream traffic. When we arrived, the "carpark" area was filled with cars, and I decided to park outside instead. The way in seemed to have degraded from all the rain and some parts looked quite dangerous for our wheels to get stuck in. KT managed to find a slot nearer to the entrance. The place was quite packed due to the people doing overniters at the rakit.

Crowded Carpark

True enough, when we were returning, the place was much quieter.

Medusa going to Rakit

Tiram Sports Fishing Team Member

Hey, they got moustache! (strap of my camera)

A quick call to Atan, and the boat arrived. Reaching the Rakit, there were quite alot of people. But already, some of them were packing up. We found a spot near the comfy hammocks and starting to go about fishing.

J's first fish

G's first sizeable Tamban

Double hookup of Glassfish

Fighting with a jumping fish on the other end

We got you, Mr todak!

Seeing that the two new friends were first timer, we started them on tamban jigs to get some smallies. I wasn't sure if the todaks were around today. But after drifting some live baits, we confirmed they were. I managed to set the hook on one of them, and passed the rod to Zul and Jasmine to have a taste of the powerful of a jumping fish. Jasmine finished it off by landing the thrashing long fish successfully. Although Mr Todak was quite a small one, it was photo time, and a shot worthy on the family album.

KT's string of four

Backyard fishing

Zul biggest Grouper

As the tide was coming up, the fishes started to arrived. Zul and Jasmine were fishing at the back of the Rakit when Zul caught hold of a personal sized Grouper. Quite an achievement for a newbie fishing. Grouper was packed into the icebox and to be brought home to brag to Mom and Dad.

Anyone wants to buy my "Salmon strips"?

I was trying to help Garlan land a Todak. There were numerous strikes but unfortunately, they would always throw out the hook. Just 10 minutes when we were decided that we were going, we had a last strike but even though I was doing it, todak managed to slipped off again leaving us the mangled prawn. Alas, his todak would have to be another day.

Writings on the Wall

From there, it was straight to Bukit Indah Jusco for our dinner and some shopping. Rain came rather heavily near the Perling stretch. I was checking out if the cinemas were already up, but seems like Bukit Indah Jusco would not have any cinemas. We made our way back around 8pm and got caught in a little Jam. But the traffic was moving and we cleared it in half an hour.

Using A Ranggong

2009-11-29T07:07:00.001-08:00

Amazing, I couldn't find a proper picture of how to rig a ranggong on the internet. So, here goes. My version. This is a general purpose bottom feeder rig. To be used when the current is strong. The current will push up the bait from the bottom. But don't use this when there are rocks. Chances of snagging is high, especially if the boat is drifting.

Ah Eng Boat

2009-11-28T05:47:00.000-08:00

A sudden SMS from last week saw me joining a good fishing buddy Pat for a trip in Ah Eng Boat. Ah Eng operates from West Coast and the fishing would be around Tuas area. This would be a first for me to fish in this area.

So the plan was set and we met up and had breakfast at their regular haunt before boarding the boat. For one thing, the dry mee pok here was superb. (unfortunately, I didn't take a pic of it). First time in my life to eat mee pok with Scallop!

After the sumptuous meal, we headed for the Jetty. For one, the way to the Jetty seemed somewhat spooky, having to park at a deserted place, and to trample past an untidy field. But lo and behold, the river appeared before us, and that was where to board onto Ah Eng Boat.

First time fishing got to transfer boat

Ah Eng comfortable boat

Weird looking building here. Right out of a page in a fantasy comic book

Moving out

Eric checking on the boat

At first glance, the tiny boat that was used to ferry us gave me a shock. For a moment, Eric and I thought that the we were to squeeze into the tiny boat for the day's fishing. But it soon became clear that the smaller boat was to ferry us about 10m to another bigger boat.

Boat with a bedding area

Big spacious boat

Nice looking Toilet

Now, the bigger boat was indeed BIG. It was the largest boat that I have ever been on for boat fishing. All the amenities were cool indeed. Got toilet, kitchen and a bedding area. There were ample space for all of us to do our fishing. In fact, 8 of us seemed some what under capacity for the boat size. But I was told that 11 pax (incl the boatman and deckie) was the max.

White Ninja from the Zu Mountain

The weather today was rather kind. It only got a little hot in the afternoon. But I did my Ninja impersonation to protect from the Sun. After a whole day of it in Kusu, I am beginning to look like lobster.

After some refueling, we were headed out to the deep waters of Tuas. Before coming here, Pat instructed that we need to bring a heavier tackle and big weights. The current here would be strong, and the water deep. I took along my Jigwrex and paired it with my Freams. With a heavier weight, I was hoping not to have a repeat of the situation on the last Ah Fong's trip.

Sophiscated Bait Well

Eric with a tough fighting fish on the other end

Chermin!

Ah Eng is the one behind

Eric powerful catch #2

Eric was first with a good fight and up came a Chermin. In fact, that was the only chermin on the trip. In the morning, the fishing was slow. I got some smallies that I didn't even bother to snap pictures. Eric hit on another good fish before noon, and landed a 2+kg grouper. That was huge and would certainly make a good meal.

Jeremy with T-Boon

Ocea Jigger. A reel I want!

Sailing round the world

Bernard with Grouper

Pat with a lagi big Grouper

Perfect day for Kel-Kar-Ying

The others soon start catching some other fishes. One by one, most of them broke their zero.

Ofmer Sable vs Shimano Jigwrex.

Nice Kaci

Beads on the prawns

Giant Prawn!

Pat 2nd Grouper

I was fumbling on my Jigwrex. With the stiffer rod, I couldn't quite place the vibrations that I am getting was due to fish, or rocks or jumping prawns. I did quite a number false strikes, and quite often upon reeling up, I find the prawn missing. All this is very frustrating for me. I also hit some rocks, and lost 3 big sinkers.

Pat did well for this trip too and landed 2 huge groupers in the range of 2+kg after a slow start in the morning. Pat also bursted a rather big catch. Eric and I too had some moments with some huge monsters that couldn't be heaved up to the surface.

I was trying hard the whole afternoon and managed to land a reasonable sized T-Boon (A yellow striped snapper). But my lines were entangled with Eric's and as we took time to unravel our lines, the fish somehow got off the hook. However with the depressurisation, the fish was floating in the water and getting away from us. I try to cast out my weight at it but couldn't find the target. Soon, it drifted out of sight. There went my proper contribution.

Big rain came

Fishing in the rain

Around 4.15pm or so, it started to rain very suddenly. The downpour was so quick and furious that we didn't have time to find proper shelter and most of us got drenched to the skin. I had it particularly bad as my shoes were fully soak making my feet very cold. After that, I didn't have the mood to fish anymore. Furthermore, I thought the fishing window was till 5pm.

But when the rain stopped, all promptly went back to fishing in hope of scoring a last minute catch. Bernard did well in this aspect and landed an around kg grouper. the rest didn't score anything else significant.

Total Catch

Eric beaming at the catches

We reached shore at around 6pm ending a rather good day fishing. Total catch was rather impressive with 12 or so catches. Although I didn't do well for this trip with my "cursed" jigwrex, it was good to see my buddies enjoying the good fishing. Most certainly, I should be seeing Eric going for more boat trips :)

Kusu Island

2009-11-27T05:21:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Kusu Island

View of the Jetty

There is nothing much in terms of catches from luring. But we gave it a try today, being a holiday, even though the tide timing isn't particulary good. Reached there about 9.30am or so, and the tide was already going down. But the place is clean and nice, and very suitable for picnics. There are plenty of trees around to give shade.

Rocks on the bay

While we were setting up, an old american man came over and asked what we catching. Well, we could only hope to hit some groupers and if luck would have it, barracudas. He seemed to knwo his fishes, and was probably a fisho. But the scenario of barracudas coming into the bay area was long gone. From the structure, I could see that it has lots of potential for the incoming tide.

KT looking more and more professional

We lured the morning, but there were only some strikes from the surface todaks (rather small). The area is pretty much cover with weeds, so any deep divers would have a hard time. But the place looked like plenty of squids to me.

I was rather right about this. In the afternoon, KT tired from his luring, changed to tamban hooks and try to get some small fellows. Unknowingly, he hooked a tiny anchovie. When the line came up, we saw a group of baby squids coming to attack it. In fact, it was rather relentless. The only went away when the line was near to me and I made a silly sudden movement. Then squirts of black ink, and then they were gone.

Tortoise Island

Newly painted

The day turned very hot and humid, and seeing no action, we decided to return on the 2.15pm ferry.

Overall, although no achievement, but a good recce.

My Ima Gene

My new Fat Rap

Chermin Fever On Ah Fong Boat

2009-10-31T08:55:00.001-07:00

Just few days back, I got a message from Salleh asking if I would like to join them for a boat trip this Sat. I had fished with him some time back, and that was where I got to meet Patrick and people like DesT and Nimo from FK. Salleh himself is an easy-going fatherly person. A pleasant fishing companion. For the past few times that he invited me, I had turned it down as they mainly fish only on Ah Fong's Boat due to the block booking system. But this time, I thought it was good to catch up again and meet a friend.

Just yesterday, it rained dogs and cats. And even on the morning itself, it was raining relentlessly. I woke up rather late and had to rush to catch a cab in the rain to make my way to CV. But reaching there, the rain miraclously stopped.

My Black Rose - Changi Fishing Light Boat Tackle

And we indeed had very pleasant and cool weather for the entire trip. We had all thought that this time round, the fishing should be quite bad as the water was quite cold due to all the rain since yesterday. To our surprise, it wasn't true.

Ah Fong netting the catch

Jeff was the first to hit

Ah Fong a member of FishingNewsRoom?

Ah Fong for this trip, took us out from the usual route around Ubin/Tekong and headed for the deeper waters near Changi Naval Base. Along the way, we made a first stop at a Chermin spot. I hadn't ever caught any Chermin for all the boat trips that I had made before, so I wasn't too hopeful. But Jeff was the first to hit on a good size Chermin and that woke up everyone to full battle alert.

My First for the day

2nd Chermin

3rd Chermin. Smallest but fought the hardest

Then I got lucky and hit the 2nd Chermin. Ah Fong with his skilled hands got about 3 chermins, while I totaled 3 chermins too. And all these at around 10am! I landed another small grouper. For this spot, the current wasn't strong and the water wasn't too deep. With my light tackle, I had an advantage over the rest with their heavier gears with my sensitivity. Those 3 chermins really put up a jolly good fight on my Black Rose.

Jerry's ACK that broke his zero

Jeff's nice ACK that was fouled hook. (Prawn in mouth, but hook on body)

Joseph's catches

Salleh's two Groupers

But luck for me changed and improved for the others when they moved on to the next spot. At the new location, the water was very deep so much so that I ran out of braided lines and went into my backing mono. And due to the strong current, I couldn't bring my bait down to the bottom with a size 2 weight. I tried putting heavier weights at Ah Fong instructions but my rod was bending too much to be of much use. Even keeping the lines to check on the prawns took a hell lot of effort. I gave up the idea and didn't fish seriously. After all, I had already gotten pretty good results within the first two hours, so there wasn't any stress to get any more fishes.

The entire afternoon, they stayed at the spot. Those with heavier tackles did manage got get some ACK and some groupers. Jeff landed a beautiful Parrot. Jerry had a good catch of a small KBL.

Big Grouper!

Around 2pm, I too got lucky when I was reeling up my line. My reel suddenly went "zzzzzzzippp" out and I was stumped for the moment. Did I hit a rock? But the boat was moving too slow for the lines to pull out so strongly. The others all cried out and said it's a fish and shouted for me to start pumping. Coming out of my stupor, I began to gain control on the runaway fish. But the water was deep and getting the fish up took a rather long way and a lot of my strength. It did multiple runs on the entire way up. When it finally surfaced, I was shocked to see a Grouper. The way the fish fought and see sawing with me on the way up, it wasn't like any Groupers that I had caught before. And the initial run, it should have slammed itself into a rock and snag my lines. My guess was that when I was keeping my lines, the bait itself was already some distance from the bottom and therefore, it couldn't reach the safe haven of the rocky bottom.

The Grouper looked about 2kg to me, and when I returned home and boga it, it was indeed about 2.1kg. It should weigh a little more when it was fresh out of the sea with the water content in the body.

On the way back, we visited the Chermin spot again. But this time, they were not around anymore. We fished till around 5pm and then made our way back.

Total catch

All in all, a very surprising trip for me. I never expected to have such good catches in our local waters. But I guess, it still hold some surprises from time to time. If only I had a heavier rod for the deeper waters. A lesson learnt never to underestimate the fishing that might be possible here.

Strangely, it started to rain again at about 6pm. It was amazing how we managed to stay dry for the fishing period during this rainy season. :)

Pontian Again

2009-10-26T01:28:00.001-07:00

This is my 3rd visit here. So far, the fishing hasn't been that great, but there had been a few surprises. The original plan was to go Sibu but due to some constraints, we decided to head for a day trip instead. Pontian Kelong was just right and since most haven't been there, it was worth a trip there again.

We met up early that morning and headed down to Kukup for breakfast. After that, it was a quick tour of Kukup for some tidbits shopping. From there, it was about half hour to the Jetty. As we wanted to try out the fishing with some live prawns, Eric and I headed to the nearby fishing pond at Parit Sikom to buy some live prawns. It was quite expensive here at RM1 per piece.

TC and Friend finally arrived after being lost on the way. We touched down at the Kelong at around 11am, on the up-coming tide. Everyone was quite impressed that the Kelong was quite big and well designed for fishing.

TC lucky catch of a small Kurau

Just within 5 minutes, TC had a catch of a Kurau on his smelly prawn meat. Not bad a catch and that fueled us with high expectations for this trip. But the fishing from then didn't improve. Andrew's rod did have quite a number of ringing strikes but the fish always got away.

KT preparing hammock for afternoon siesta

The half-beaks were out here again in big numbers. I tried my luck to see if I could get one on a tiny Altima spoon. It wasn't easy but I finally managed one. But the fellow slipped away before I could take a picture. We saw a large todak (should be a metre in length) circling the Kelong, but it was smart and didn't want to take our offerings of live bait, even when right in front of him.

Z first half-beak

Z first Queen

Lucky Flounder on live prawns

Bait fishes were sparse but it was fairly easy to get them after some tries. Zu got her first half-beak, and later on, got her first Queenie. The bait fishes seemed to come out in numbers during the late afternoon and the guys had some fun filling up the pail with them. I had a lucky fish of a flounder on live prawn. An unusual catch at a Kelong.

Lau's string of catch

Just as we were about to leave the place, the baitfishes came in numbers. To my surprise, there were plenty of juvenile Queens that were being caught. Andrew's rod had a strong take that saw his stiff rod bending a U. But alas, today wasn't his day and the fish got away again. From the bend, it must have been a fairly good sized fellow.

On the way back, we headed for Permas for a good johor style street food for dinner and after that, visited FishingLine for some tackle shopping. As expected, the causeway wasn't that jammed and we arrived home at quite an early time of about 10pm or so.

LSR Little Friend

2009-10-11T05:33:00.000-07:00

A structure is being built on the left side of LSR

I was back at LSR this evening for a short session. This is the place where it all started for me. It has been a while since I have come here since D didn't have to go for swimming anymore. Wifey wanted to eat Chong Pang Nasi Lemak and we were too early. So I went there to try my luck to see if I can get a small one for my aquarium. My last attempt was thwarted by mr blue man, and I had to release it back.

My little LSR friend

Reached there, a friendly face came from my back and said "hello uncle". I turned around and it was that little boy that is like there every weekend. The last time, he wanted to buy "cloth string" from me? I was like "huh?" How much you need, can take from me, no need to buy. Today, he looked at my things and asked me what I am using. I showed him the char bee hoon fly. He said why I didn't bring cat fish. O_o....haha. This boy is a trained baiter. His rod was rigged to a float with two large hooks. Probably targetting toman. I asked him got fish or not, he didn't reply. I asked if he needed anything and told him to feel free to take from whatever I have. Very cute and well mannered boy. Next time, must take a proper picture with him.

My precious

Char Bee Hoon Fly

I went on to try spin flying. Water was fairly clear, but it was pretty sterile. Cannot see any fishes, big or even tiny ones. I covered every angle and cast out scanning the water around. Just as I was about to give up, a tiny fellow took my fly and vibrated my line. I quickly lifted it up and tried to fling it over to the grass patch. But it fell short and hit the rocks. Ouch. Luckily it wasn't badly hurt and I managed to put it into my pail and filled it with water. After that, went back to the water and hit another one. This time a little bigger. But it's thrashing got it off the hook and it escaped. But the one that I have was enough.

After that, packed up and went for yum yum Nasi Lemak.

When there is something strange, in the neighbourhood, who you gonna call?

Are We At Changi Boardwalk?

2009-10-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

Asked the spunky P2. In fact, we were just there minutes ago but his mind was affixed with D's PSP that everything other thing else was just a blur. We had planned to do some squidding and met up at Changi Boardwalk. But upon reaching there, the water was dreadfully low that any fishing was dead impossible. We decided then to detour for FW3 to just do some quick fishing for an hour.

The fishing was just $10 for an hour at the C&R pond. It was KT's first time there and it would be good experience for him to get something bigger than the usual PB. Andrew and I were quite surprised that he wanted to lure instead of the customary baiting over here. But that turned out to be a good decision.

Luring is allowed but with single debarbed hooks. He had with him some spoons that were armed with single hooks, so it was all right. We quickly setup to make full use of the hour. The children had a good time over there continuing feeding their pet animals on the PSP.

For us baiting, the action was rather slow. Andrew had some small bites but got away. About half hour into the fishing, we heard a reel sing beside us and it was kt's. Amazingly, he had a fish and it was a mightly strong one. Seeing his expression, he was thoroughly enjoying it.

The fish was landed with the help of one of the worker. Fish was foul hooked at the tail end. He said, "not cat, not patin", but good fish. He wanted to have the picture to display on the wall. But I was on my camera and couldn't bluetooth to him.

The silver green spoon was the one

After that, KT got another one but lost it on it's way back. Andrew got a strike just minutes before we packed. It was a small cat, but it gave a very fiesty fight on his very light celebas tackle.

Very quickly, the hour was up. Not bad for just a short session, and a good first for KT, the tireless lurer.

We Got Caught

2009-10-05T05:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I had been thinking to post this or not...but my principle in life, the good, will take it, the bad, will also take it. Part of living a life worth living is to take living to the edge, and challenge boundaries. But of cos, I am not talking about bungee jumping or doing prison break or diving out of a plane. I am probably too old for that, and will get a heart attack if I try. Yet, life is meant to be lived, and never try, never know.

Some lot of us have been doing fishing that is considered less than legal in the eyes of the law. Sadly, in Singapore, places with fishes are always out of bounds. Well, but we have been careful to adhere to the principle of the rules that we are breaking. The purpose of the ruling was to ensure that our water is free from litter and to preserve our aquatic heritage. From what we had seen, the rules are there for a good purpose. We had come across many places that had been littered by inconsiderate baiters with rubbish and lunchboxes, as well as nets and fishing tackles. We also have seen people that harvest the fishes in our reservoir so much so that the water gets depleted of life. For what it is worth, we have been careful in the aspects of maintaining the lifestock and keeping the places clean. And also not to disturb other park users as well.

But yet for some strange reason, people are allowed to bait freely in the legal spot. Well, aren't they all breaking the law too? Somehow, there is a double standard here. I have been to LSR some early mornings and found the entire jetty filled with lines and rods and catches from the night from baiting. At kranji (a legal spot), it can be so full of baiters that I couldn't even find a place to cast. And sometimes cross their lines, they have the cheek to frown on me. :O

Unfortunately, some of us got caught on Sunday while fishing at LPR by a sting operation. I should have recognised the people in blue as they came in noisily from the legal side. But I was telling myself, hmm, they can't be that early. But to cut a long story short, we were surrounded CID style...and was approached by a guy holding up his badge and we were asked to surrender our ICs. They even asked me if I am Singaporean!? Well, I probably looked like a terrorist since I didn't shave that morning. No negotiation is allowed until we gave our ICs to the rangers. Although they soften after we did that and tried to reason with them, I don't think we will be let off easily. We are now expecting a letter from our PUB this few days. Somehow this compared to a speeding ticket, has a more serious tone to it. Like feeding monkeys, I guess. Apparently, someone has tipped off the rangers and complained about us. We were shown an SMS from the public about our illegal fishing activity.

I think our mood has been quite affected by this happening. Sometimes, I wonder if they are catching the right people? For us who enjoy the sport and are matured enough to preserve our environment, we get caught and got treated like criminals. While people are freely throwing out baits into our clean water and littering the legal spots all over. Even at the illegal spots, there are plenty of illegal fisherman that harms the environment and the water by fishing from floating platforms and bringing back all their catches. I mean, what are the people on the floating platform collecting weeds doing!? While they have not broken any rule, they are destroying the habitat and dirtying the water.

I thought I need to let this out, and not wallow in the inevitable. In my conscious, while I know that we have broken the law but have done so knowing that we did not harm anything. Tell me, don't we break the law everyday? Jay walking, illegal parking, speeding (don't speed 100km/h how to overtake???), illegal car mod, pirate DVD etc etc...The thing is, while the law is meant for the good of the people, it cannot cover all instances for everyone. But Singaporeans tend to be very obedient after years of living under PAP rule that we usually are scared to voice out and challenge boundaries.

End of the day, it is just a probably just a fine for a small offence. But maybe I will need to do a jail break if I got sent to jail....haha. Watch out for the next episode. :))

Kelong Limat Once Again

2009-09-27T00:34:00.001-07:00

First time for him to go under the Tuas custom bridge

Hey, a new Kelong here

Patrick happened to be free today and we decided to pay a visit to the Tuas Kelong as he hadn't been there before. To my surprise when I called to book it, I was informed that it was empty. It used to be rather crowded as there was a group that frequent there every weekend. Previously, the catch rate here was pretty impressive, and there were some photos of some past catches of big fishes.

I mis-stepped and almost fell into this hole. Unluckily my arm hit the wooden pole and stablised me

Nobody here

When we arrived there, indeed it was. The fishing was very relaxing given that we had the kelong to ourselves. However, the fishes weren't there. Even getting Tamban was a rather difficult affair. I tried to do some luring and did manage to get some bites from the todaks but couldn't get a firm hookup. As Todaks here was rather small and hence, the hookup wasn't easy.

Yay! Her first todak

Time slowed down

She got another one

Seeing not much action, I decided to throw out some glass fishes for todak fun. I let D have a go at handling the fish herself and landing it. She managed to get 2 of them, all by herself.

Good pic to make into jigsaw puzzle

Moon came out

Dog int the dog house

Leaving the Kelong

However, that was about it for the fishing here. No encounters with any other biggies. Even using bait on tamban jigs was not easy although Patrick's wife did get some wrasse and small leatherjacket. We packed around 5.30pm and got the boatman to bring us back.

Although not much in terms of fishing, it was a relaxing outing. We had a good dinner at the famous Tien Lai restaurant before heading back to JB town for some shopping and then back home.

Patrick checking on his pics

We couldn't even fill up this tiny icebox

Reaching the Jetty

KFC - Hot Boys Kelong Fishing

2009-09-15T17:03:00.000-07:00

We arrived at Sibu rather early, after meeting up and having breakfast at the usual haunt of Mac near Carrefour. Going via the Sedili route, the going was rather speedy despite having to navigate over some bomb craters on the otherwise nice-to-drive road. Within 1.5 hours, we reached the Jetty. We would have been earlier if not for the detour fo find the fishing pond for live prawns. We saw a huge sign, but asking the locals, none of them knew where the pond was. :(

We exceeded the limit. There were 15 of us on board. :)

At the Jetty, we had to wait a little for the other group that was a little bit late. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that there were only the 6 other people in the kelong. That makes a total of 17 pax for the trip and the fishing was very relaxing indeed. Probably due to the exam period and also the fear of fishing during the ghosty month. Also, the malay folks were fasting, so fishing was too exerting for them. :)

Only 2 tables for meals
f

Therefore, we almost had the whole kelong to ourselves. I had not been to Hot Boys for the longest time. In fact, in all my trips to kelongs in Sibu, this would be only the 3rd time that I would have set foot here. Although the beds were not that clean, generally they were quite comparable with the other 3 kelongs. The main reason for me not going is the advertised price on their website which was rather steep compared to the other 3.

fThe 3 rascals that bullied my little cherrywood!

Double hookup of 3 in a row of Snooks

Got a basket of these

We had the cook prepared it for dinner

The other group, were just doing recreational type of fishing. so there weren't any long rods around to impede casting in any direction. Unfortunately, the bait fishes today weren't too cooperative and it was rather difficult to get bait fishes to throw out for live baiting. We hit on a school of baby barras and we kept getting them enough to fill up a basket. We decided to have the cook prepare it for us for our dinner. Occasionally, we would also hit on some big selars which ready put up a good fish. Once, I had 3 of them on the same line and my cherrywood rod was bent to the max.:O

The food for this trip was rather good, I should say. For lunch, we had a table sized chermin. For dinner, we had steamboat. For the lunch the next day, we had 3 pieces of Kurau. With the good eating fare, we were rather worried that the trip would indeed cost us. :S

Ros's first todak

For the day fishing, due to the limited live baits, I didn't manage to help KT get his first todak. With one of the lucky live bait, Ros managed to land one under my guidance. Andrew was getting them with dead prawn meat which worked quite effectively. Except that those that came up were rather small. But it was better than nothing and KT had a few go at it. However, all the strikes thrown the hook when they thrashed and leaped out of the water. That impressed KT quite a bit having tasted the powerful of the acrobats of the sea. Still, none was landed for him.

Jetty to Sibu Island

A Beetle came a visiting KT's hat to give a dose of good luck

They certainly had fun

Hmm...hot boys?

We were relaxing one corner. All missing is bacardi and rum and maybe some bikini girls to give us backrubs :P

That afternoon, the children said that they wanted to go to the Sibu island. Seeing that Dezi and Ely hadn't been there, we decided to make a trip. Andrew, KT and I took our luring rods there thinking to try out some luring. But the island wasn't too suitable for luring and we just sat there relaxing instead while the children had fun burying each other in sand. On the way back, while waiting for the boat, we did some luring at the jetty. There was some activity and a few times, we see splashes and some reaction on the lures. But we didn't have enough time and had to stop when the boat arrived.

Pat looked like an escape convict

It rained for half hour for so around 6. But nothing serious. It was back to fishing after the rain stopped.

Hoho! The green squid jig was a killer

Eric is now on a squidding row

Night came and we went on to do some squidding. Eric had with him a new green squid jig which worked very well. He was first to haul up a very good size squid around 6+pm, when it wasn't even dark yet. KT got excited and tried it out himself and was rewarded with one. There after, he was grinning to himself the whole night (Ha! Say me some more).

Nice evening. Hungry ghosts coming out

Elyn admiring the sunset

I set off to test the water for parangs as it was the intention to help Pat and KT land their very first. Indeed they were around, but not alot. I got a number of strikes but didn't manage to connect. My lumi SS minnow wasn't working well. That I reviewed logically that it was due to the rather tall height that we were from the water. For some reasons, the water level this trip was rather low. SS minnow was a super shallow runner and with too steep an angle from the lurer, it couldn't run well. So I changed to my standard L-minnow and that was better.

KT's first squid! See how wide the grin

KT helping to land Eric's fiesty parang

One for the album

Dal also had a squid (again on the green thing)

Eric was on a roll this trip and got 4 parangs in a space of a short time which impressed the parang newbies of Pat and KT. KT was trying out with his x-rap at one corner when I passed him and asked him to try for parangs. But he told me that he had gotten a todak and was in the midst of fighting it. I was shocked and stood around to see his todak. As he was reeling in, the fish at the other end decided to take a leap. That moment, I saw that it was a parang instead. Not bad at all. But parang swam too close to the stilts and the line got entangled with it. Then parang was lost thereafter. After that, he went on to use his other lures which I think wasn't quite suitable.

After so many misses, finally a good size one

Elyn was fishing the whole night till late

Andrew was too tired from the trip and knocked out quite early. Therefore, not much action from him during the night. That night, I only managed to land 1 parang. Elyn was sleeping mostly in the day and fished till rather late at night. She managed to get some interesting variety of fishes that I seldom seen. I too was rather tired and went to sleep. But the bed was rather warm and I sneaked off to sleep at the karaOke room on the sofa. It was rather comfy and I really slept tight till the alarm woke me at 5am. I heard that there was a 2hr manhunt for me when they saw that I was not on my bed and might had fallen into the water fighting off a 15kg barracuda. :D

Early morning luring, and a small consolation catch

That morning at 5am, the parangs were more cooperative and I hit 3 parangs and lost quite a number. Pat and KT too joined me. But alas, Pat was using the SS minnow too and I didn't realise till it was rather late. I passed him an L-minnow. But for some reasons, he had no bites at all. It might be due to the strong current and his weights were not enough. Once the morning arrived, the parangs would be gone.

Hmm..this should qualify for the Guiness book of record!

Elyn got a fierce fighter of a Leatherjacket

Alien looking fish

Fresh catches from the sea

Again, the bait fishes were hard to get that morning. But very interestingly, Andrew and I saw a big cobia circling around the kelong. We tried hard to target it. But there wasn't any live bait and we settled for a dead one. We saw the cobia coming near to the bait and took a sniff at it and turn away. Andrew and I were holding our breaths when that happened. What a waste! If that had been a live bait, we should have a good fight with it. We tried couple of times until time ran out and we had to pack.

Although the fishing wasn't spectacular, it was relaxing indeed. It was also nice to see big fishes circling round the kelong. It was such a pity about the poor availability of bait fishes. But parangs and squid were also there to entertain us for the trip. All in all, a rather good kelong family fishing trip. Definitely a relaxing one :))

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KFC - Tampines Quarry

2009-09-12T01:12:00.000-07:00

We went Tampines Quarry this morning. I think this is not an illegal spot. Well, I don't see any no fishing sign here. In fact, there were plenty of rubbish and litter on the floor that indicated that there were lots of fishing activities here. We cast for a while and caught nothing. This place was a far cry from most of the shh spots that we go to. But there were occasional splashes from some big monsters in the water. Some quite near to us.

The char bee hoon fly

Tiny 4-5 cm fingerling. Got foul hooked on the body

I was trying out the char-bee-hoon fly and got the smallest fish ever in my life on artificial. It was a tiny PB fingerling. Probably only about 4-5 cm. But it was foul hooked on the body. I quickly took out the hook w/o any pics. I had wanted to catch a small PB to put into my tank. But this fellow didn't seem to be in good health after having the hook impale the middle of its body. But it was still alive as I put it into a plastic bag.

My 2nd PB. A more respectable catch

Tapao for my aquarium

My second fish on the char-bee-hoon fly was a more respectable small PB. It gave a good fight as I guided it in to avoid the many branches. Fish was nicely hooked on the lips. With my debarbed hooks, it was removed easily. I quickly find a bigger plastic bag from the trash around and have it nicely bagged/tapao for my aquarium. The other tiny one, I released hoping that it would recover.

Uncle stood behind me doing nothing for 15 mins until I moved to another spot. Must be I took his favourite spot

Pat and KT got nothing on both sides of me. After a while, some people came with bicycles to do baiting. Seeing what they were carrying, they were fully equipped to target the bigger monsters here. One uncle waited at my spot until I moved away. Probably his favourite bottom spot. Quite cool. His bicycle is a modified rod stand.

Here no fish, but plenty of rubbish :(
Please, if you fish, take care not to litter the area.

KFC - Why Legal Fishing Spots has no fish

2009-09-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

We discovered a spot lately that was very productive. The last time we went, we were quite late and there was already a crowd fishing at the corner. Not wanting to crash the party, we did some fishing along the banks and only managed to hit one small fish. KT almost lost his vibe but was lucky again to save it back.

This morning, I brought Pat back to the same spot. But this time, despite all the difficult-to-walk terrain, we braved the muddy ground and trod along to reach the river mouth. Already at 6.40am on a Thursday morning, there were around 4 or 5 or so chinese foreign workers with 1 or 2 locals fishing there. Mind you, they were not only using little bait fishes, but were also on feathers and lures. Quite sophiscated this bunch. Squeezing ourselves on a narrow side, we did our casting.

Pat has reached the place earlier on while I was assembling my gear. When I joined him, he already got a big momma PB. The area here was simply amazing. There was water movement all over. At some places, it was almost boiling from all the feeding frenzy. The group beside us was on a roll. They were pulling up PBs every minute. Looking around, I saw that they were certainly not the Catch & Release type and the fishes were meant to be "tapaoed" back. From my estimate, there were already like 20+ PBs in 2 keepnets. Overhearing their conversation, they had gotten 70+ the day before. I wouldn't be surprised if they were here everyday and catching them at this rate. With some mental calculations, this would work out to about 2000 odd PBs per month. Can they really eat all that?

I can understand that they might want it for food as eating in Singapore is not cheap, and what more to have live fish for food. But shoudn't there be a limit of what they can eat? The bagging limit in this case would probably be how much they can carry back before giving up. There was no other word for it. The PBs here were simply waiting to be massacred.

That morning, my fly wasn't tied quite well and didn't swim naturally. Due to that, I only had 2 hits. Pat had 3 hits and some escaped ones. But given the crowded location, I wasn't quite in the mood to fish that much. It was just an eye opening to see how greedy people can get. When we toss the PB back to the water, one chap even got the cheek to chide us for putting it back into the same fishing area saying that it would spook all the other fishes away.

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KFC - Hit By Double Silver Bullets

2009-09-04T06:42:00.000-07:00

Waking up early this morning, Pat and I visited the famous river. Getting there was not so easy, but after some monkey swings and leopard crawls, we arrived at the location in the dark. Setting up our gear was getting quite challenging but after some fumblings with our touchlights, we managed to start our first cast before the sun comes up.

But after 10 cast or so, nothing was biting yet. I was at the rocky area doing when Pat suddenly came behind me like a ghost and showed me his first big catch of a PB. It was his biggest so far. Strange that I didn't hear any splashes but he said it was so noisy. Hmm, the sound might have been blocked by the big tree in between us.

For me, nothing was biting my furry friend and I was starting to wonder about this location when something swooped up and hit the fly with a mighty force. My braided lines were peeling off and when the fish got close, it was another surprise of a Sebarau. Woot woot. This is my 2nd in such a short time. And bigger this time. Again congratulary rounds of photo takings for the sweet memories and then Sebarau went back home.

Pat went further up the river and missed a strong take. I saw him bending back to form a nice arc with his rod. I was about to take out my camera to video it when the fish was lost. From the initial fight, it was definitely a prize one. Too bad.

Next fish for me was a PB. Although not big, this fellow was in the prime of health and gave me a thumping good fight. After that, things started to quieten down after that. This morning, the river was rather still and the water not flowing. That might have affected the catch rate.

Times was almost up when my final few cast got on to a solid take again. This time, my reel again sung as the lines peeled out. It was noticably longer and the fish fought harder. Fish went left and right. When it surfaced, I was elated to see another silvery bullet. This one was the biggest and a beautiful specimen with a clear black mark cover the silvery scales. I tire it out and then it was hoisted to the grassy ground for photo taking. My biggest ever.

Although not very high catch rate here today, but the quality of the catch was remarkable. Good morning exercise for me and Pat. After that, it was to the SHH coffee shop. Indeed the aroma of the coffee there is better. AFter a decent breakfast and chit chat about the fruitful morning, we went home after a beautiful start to the day.

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KFC - My Birthday Present

2009-08-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

Looks very NZ isn't it?

We almost didn't go this trip as ZW wasn't sure if the trip was confirmed. SMS was sent to me at 12am to ask if the trip was on. But that time, I was already in ZZ land and only woke up to check for time at 1am. That was when I saw the message. That morning, seeing no reply to my SMS wake up call, I called in only to find him sleepily on the other side of the phone. "Trip is on", I said. With that, he hastily got his things together and came around to pick me.

First PB that fell for my shrimpy

He was so hasty that when we reached the location, he discovered that he had forgotten his reel. Alamak! Therefore he ended becoming my fishing ahmad and helped me with my photo shooting. It was still quite dark when we arrived. To our surprise, the spot seemed very quiet and still and there wasn't any disturbance on the water that would excite us. I tried around a few places and didn't get any reaction. But thinking that the place near the canal would be best, we parked ourselves at that area to keep casting.

This one has a golden sheen

How to look cool while fighting a fish

Unusual greyish tone PB

The sun keep came up quite shortly and soon it was bright as day. Quite a number of early morning joggers came by and there was even a woman sitting there meditating. Then, we saw some fly fishermen coming to our location. I recognised one of them from my last trip to NSLK. But this bunch were rather experienced and only a few cast later, they had big splashes on the water. I was impressed and tried to edge nearer to them to get to the fishing zone where they got the fishes. But actually that didn't matter. It seemed that the PBs all just woke up and started coming out for breakfast. I soon started to hit on one after another all over, as good as the fly fishermen were doing. PBs here are no smallies, and quite a number are of decent size.

Ho Ho...I finally got you!

Hee Hee...Hee...Hee...

It felt like holding a pure silver ingot

When are you done with the photos? Asked the Sebby

I was doing like about 6 PBs already when my next fish hit on my shrimpy fly and pulled out my reel for a few seconds. Wow, that was certainly a fish on steriods. To my surprise then, when it surfaced, it had the characteristc black mark on the centre of the boday over its silvery gleaming scales. It was a Sebarau! I had quite a bit of difficulty to land it as it's thrashing was quite uncontrollable and I was most fearful of losing the prize catch of a lifetime. Seeing the danger, I quickly held on to the leader and lifted the fish up high on the ground away from the water. It was securely landed. Gleaming gleefully, I couldn't believe my good luck that I had finally had this rare specimen of a catch in Singapore waters. This was the best birthday present I have had. "Take a few more pics!", I told ZW. It was definitely not an everyday reservoir catch.

Last one for the road

AR, the fly fishermen that I recognised came over to talk to me and fish along side after that. He finally recalled seeing me at NSLK few weeks back. It was fun to make new friends when one goes fishing. We have a common goal and that is what make us ticked together.

I totalled 9 fishes that morning before I decided to leave. It was certainly an exhilarating morning. Well worth all the trouble to wake up early and deprive ourselves of our warm beds. Every once a while if you try hard enough, you would be rewarded with a catch to remember for a lifetime. This is just a moment. More stories for my grandchildren and my fishing buddies. ZW was so full of regret that he had forgotten his reel. However with results like this, we will be back.

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KFC - Fishing at Semenyih

2009-08-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hazy days are back

We passed through some town

Sukida Resort came to my knowledge after reading some posts by people who has been there. This place has been well visited by fly fisherman, including the famous Uncle Amin. From their catch reports, all very nice catches. Since I picked up fly fishing, I started to go catch and release pond to train myself in this new fishing art form. All I had caught now, were just the various PBs from our reservoir. So, with the long weekend coming up, I planned a trip to Semenyih (Sir-men-nee) for some Malaysian style pond fishing. For this trip, it was just my family and TC that came along. I started the trip at 4am (ungodly hour) due to the expectation that the checkpoints would be jammed. Indeed it was, and at 4.30am, we were stuck in the jam for half an hour. Not too bad. From woodlands checkpoint, it was all the way to the NSH, and then a direct drive to Machap for breakfast.

We are here in Semenyih

Arriving at Tan Sri Haneco

Dirt road to what we thought was Sukida. (Turn out to be Fish Valley)

Nearing the entrance

The food at Machap was downright terrible, and the other Yakun-styled Kopitiam was not open (which was more decent). I threw away my first plate of rice as the chilli tasted too sourly to be edible. The second food, was unpleasant and I pushed it away too. I finally had some simple sandwiches and be done with it. From there, our 2nd stop was at the Ayer Keroh KFC reststop. There, the food was better and we had some waffles. And then from there, we went the remaining portion of the drive then we hit the GPS spot for Sukida Resort. We reached there arould 11am.

The route that my GPS indicated was a rather longish way. My maps were not updated, and the GPS didn't know about a new expressway that could have shorten the driving distance. On the way back, I relied more on TC's GPS as the routing was better. In fact, all the way up, my GPS went bonkers and it was showing my car driving in reverse gear. And at every exit, it would recalculate. Later at Ayer Keroh reststop, I did a restart of the phone and it was fine. When we arrived at the place, after talking to the owner, we found that the place we were at was Fish Valley instead and not Sukida. The rates here, RM20 for fly fishing, and RM30 for bottom fishing. From 12pm, Bottom was RM20. Cost was for 2 rods. They open only till 7pm, and don't have resorts for overnighters. In fact, they are constructing it now. The owner was downright friendly and didn't mind that we were going Sukida instead. In fact, he directed us the way there. [This month rod & line, it was said that Fish Valley had plabuks (the cat fishes similar to those in Bangkok Bungsumran.)

Lunch at a Construction site coffee shop

We followed the instructions but didn't manage to find it at the 5km distance mark that the Fishing Valley guy told us. Along the way, we had to passed by a row of Cemetaries, called Nirvana or something. It seemed that this was an area designated for this memorial purposes. We backtracked and decide to do lunch at a coffee shop built next to a construction site. It was big and clean and we also found the food to be not bad. We managed to get further directions from another group of customer who thought that we were Taiwan tourist. (Hm!).

Some kind of waterfall park here. Once we see this, we have overshot Sukida

At Sukida Resort. No Signage here

Badly maintained Signage

All the fishing cost

Tentage for functions

Scenic view to sip Kopi at the main pond

Another angle

The toilet

We finally did find Sukida Resort and it wasn't like what we expected. It was a little run- down, but the pond were quite big and natural looking. Even the signage was a smallish one, and not very visible from the road. There were a total of 3 ponds that were fishable. There was another pond where the water was full of weeds but very clear waters. I did try a little there but looks like no fishes at all. But the place was nicely layout and it didn't feel too Pondish. Fishing was only RM10 per rod. We asked for fishing dough or bait but they only had bread. (Surprise). The man said that they only encourage natural fishing here. The chalets were at RM70 and RM100, but it was fully taken as there was function going on. The lady said we could try Sri Bayu which was next door. The rooms there were at RM40 each.

A Hut near the 2nd pond

View of the 2nd pond

Sukida Ponies

We parked ourselves here

Me doing fly fishing

A wooly bugger that no fish was interested in

So we were kind of upsetted with our plans. We could fish here but was wondering how to settle the accomodation problem. Anyway, we left that aside and decided to just fish and worry about that later. My recce around the pond, I did see some small haruans at the edge of the ponds. There were some occasional big swirls in the water, going after the loose pieces of bread that others have left over. TC went on to do baiting, whereas I setup my fly rod and went about casting here and there. Despite all my efforts, there were totally no bites at all. Even dangling the fly right in front of the small haruans elicited no response! They probably showed me their haruan middle finger before swimming away. Good thing though was that my fly casting has improved. Over there, it was quite spacious at some spots and I could extend the full reach of my fly line. I tried all over the ponds, but didn't manage to get any reaction. The bread fly that I had tied at home didn't work well as it was sinking. Back to the drawing board!

TC was sitting one corner and doing boring bread fishing. The results were bad and he caught nothing as well. But the malay guy on our left side did score a small Patin. He has some kind of rig that could toss a good chunk of bread (which wasn't bought from the resort) quite a distance away. TC had some red thread multi-hooks contraption and he copied his method. But it didn't work as well probaby due to our in house brand bread. Around 4pm, I gave up my fly fishing and setup my sakura and joined him in bread fishing as well. We sat there for the next hours, and to our exasperation, nothing at all. The fishes here seemed well fed from all the loose bread and were quite smart in discerning what is edible and what's not.

Ponies liked the bananas

D scared to go near to the Ponies

Next time bring me more bananas ok?

Later in the afternoon, the resort Ponies were let our for a walk. D had some fun with the ponies that kind of roamed freely around the resort. They like the bananas that TC had, and even accepted our bread and leafy grass. Actually, for the bad fishing, they were quite entertaining us quite a bit.

Opposite side, a whole stretch of cemetary ground

Around 6pm, we decided to call it quits. From there, we aimed to look for a cheap motel/hotel to spend the night. Since we are already here, we planned to just spend the night somewhere and return to Fish Valley to give it a try. But for some unknown reasons, all the hotels/motels were fully booked. We found one that was zero star one but decided against it as it was run by an indian (got smell) and didn't look too clean. We broke off the search and went to Metro Point, a shopping mall, to have dinner first. Dinner was done at a place called Noodle house and it was quite good actually. After that, we did a spot of quick shopping and I managed to buy a car charger for my phone that worked just for RM8. Wah, my dopod has a special requirement for high current at 1000mA and most charger wouldn't even work.

We went into the wrong entrance for Sri Bayu and ended up in a construction site

A Semenyih ghost in white

After that, it was more searching for places to sleep. Finally, we decide to go back and find Sri Bayu as the Sudika owners had suggested. But the problem was that the road sign for Sri Bayu lead us through a cross-road terrain into a deserted location. But we passed by a makeshift sort of coffee-shop. We tried to ask for directions but couldn't quite understand what the people were saying. We made some wrong turns and was skirting a new looking fishing pond that had nobody and some wild dogs. We made a second pass at the coffee-shop from nowhere and had A to ask this time. We were then told that the entrance was from another side.

Backtracking to the entrance, we went to explore another way and ended up seeing excavators and bulldozers and long haired woman in white. That couldn't be right and then we went back to the signage to see if there was anyone to call. Indeed which we manged to reach them, we were told that that entrance was to a new branch and not ready yet. In the middle of the, a long convoy of vehicles came out of the darkness. TC and I were shocked and we thought we were just there and it looked pretty deserted! The old Sri Bayu as further down the road at another 5km away. We were also told that there was one last room available and we could have it. Whew, that seemed to solve our problem with a place to stay.

Finally! Found Sri Bayu

We finally arrived at Sri Bayu and found it to be more crowded than Sukida and there were plenty of people having fun fishing there. The room was paid and we were given the keys to the chalet. But when we reached there, it was just a small room with a double deck bed inside. That was quite alright but the place was quite dirty and smelled of bird droppings from the dough that people used for fishing. And all around us, were people fishing just in front of the chalet. They were smoking and making a lot of noise. How then can we sleep in such a place. While A and D went to have a bath, TC and I discussed and decided to return the room. We will then make our way back to Singapore. Problem was that I was already dead tired. The night before, I only had 2 hours of sleep. And after a hectic day, I wasn't too sure if I could last for the 4 hours drive.

All the fishing cost. This is not catch and release pond

Looks nice, but the chalet interior was stinky

The chalet

Someone caught a Patin next to our chalet

Anyway, that seemed the best course of action, and we then made our way back to Singapore. During the drive, indeed I almost dozed off while driving. Even gulging down a can of Red Bull didn't help this time. It was so bad that I was hallucinating from the lights in front of me. Sensing the danger, I decided to ask A to take over the wheels. Good thing was that she had been sleeping the whole day and did mange to let me sleep for an hour or so. The NSH at that time wasn't too busy and was managable for her.

We arrived in Singapore and by the time I sent TC back home, it was about 4am. That concluded a 24 hours drive up to Semenyih and a visit to 3 fishing ponds, all in a day. It was a bad fishing day, but a rather adventerous drive up to Malaysia Pond fishing Central for this trip.

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KFC - Nanyang Fish Farm 3rd Visit

2009-08-03T05:28:00.000-07:00

My car servicing was up and I had to run into JB to visit my workshop. Pat had a stretch of leaves and joined me for the trip. We were planning to do some simple fishing after my servicing. I thought to go to Kulai Nanyang Fish Farm again. The last two times there, I had returned with a substantial zero. And it wasn't that the place has no fish. They are there in fact, and will sneer at me every once a while with some big splashes in the water. The local folks there seemed to know how to catch them and they were landing them quite frequently, right under my nose.

The last time, someone was doing fly fishing and was pretty successful, I must say. The short two hours there, I saw him landing about 4-5 Patins on fly. At that time, I wasn't into fly fishing and didn't think to observe how he was doing it and what fly he was using. Today, I had packed along my fly rod and gave it a try. As the farm wasn't too crowded, I had ample space to do my casting. All the flies I brought along, I tried. But all I caught were some branches behind me once a while.

Pat wasn't doing too well for his float fishing either. When we arrived, the man only gave us bread to fish as he didn't have the kng then. Although there were some bites, the fish quickly released them before we could react. But the local certainly know how to catch the fishes and was regularly bringing them up. It might be due to their customised concoction of the kng they had prepared.

After an hour plus or so, the ladies got bored and gave us another half an hour to fish. I admitted defeat for my fly rod and switch to my Sakura for some float fishing. I had a brief bite on the last minute but the fish was smart and released it quickly. Pat too had a nugde but again didn't connect. We left the place defeated. But while chatting with a local chinese guy beside us, we were told that there is another catch and release pond nearby. When we heard the word "arapamai", we all dripped saliva uncontrollably. On the way back, we did a detour to find the place but missed it. But with a carload of unhappy ladies, we better head for shopping and food else we won't be able to return in 1 piece.

Information about the fishing pond

He should be a teacher, with a whip like this

All the magic flies that I tried. None worked

With my fly rod

Back to baiting...guys opposite us having a field day

Com'on....bite please

Serene pond

People beside us got one

Took a while to coax it into the net

About 5 kg

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KFC - River Fishing At Sg Lebam

2009-07-25T05:32:00.000-07:00

Finallly, we arrived at Sg Lebam Jetty to commence our river fishing trip. After discovering the place for quite a while, we didn't have the chance to fish this place till now. This trip, we have a couple of new friends, tan and his daughter Yali and kelvin and zu. We had met in the morning as usual under my block and had the usual breakfast fare at Carrefour Mac. TC surprisely turned up very early. So we were right on time.

Inside the forest, got lots of monkeys

You shoot, I shoot

Here got pirates or not?

The collect money lady pai kai boss

All our live prawns that KBLs can't resist

Driving up the wap to the Lebam Jetty was uneventful this time round. The friendly Buang was there preparing the boat. After some logistics of fuelling and getting baits, we were on the way. Tide at that point was rather low. Quite perfect timing for the day's trip. Howver, water wasn't clear due to the rain for the past few days.

A row of houses on the river. Fish where you live

Can have BBQ here

Setting up

Another boat polluting the air

That's how an anaconda boat would look like

Hey, a rainbow!

Everyone was pleased with the boat as it was big and comfy with ample fishing space. The weather today was cloudy and not blazing hot. We even saw a rainbow, before it drizzled a little. But nothing too wet. The various spots that Bujang brought us, didn't produce anything. We tried luring, bottom fishing with dead prawn, bottom fishing with live prawns and even trolling. But nothing was biting. The boat had a fishfinder, and occasionally we would past by some big blips on the device indicating some monster fishes at the bottom of the boat.

The white divider is where the fresh water comes from

Nice shady spot. Great for an afternoon nap

If only these were durians

Hardworking lurer

Captain of the boat

See, got toilet here

And cooking utensils

And tap for washing hands

The spot I missed my 2 KBLs!

The children playing like monkeys

We came to a spot that another boat was fishing. Bujang asked if they had anything and indeed they did. Bujang anchored the boat on the opposite side of the branch. At his instruction, we tossed out a live prawns on float. And I was elated to get a strike. But my fumblings didn't get me a hook up and prawn was gone. I tried another time and yet again another strike. But before I could do anything, a splash and it was gone. Boat at the other end got a KBL just in front of us. We couldn't see it clearly but could hear the flapping of the fish on the boat's bottom. Bujang at that time said that he would prepare lunch and said to go another place where it was windier to have lunch. I reluctantly agreed.

Can watch TV

D trying her soft rubber lure

Lunch time!

Sg Lebam River restaurant

This ninja caught a Catty

Wah! This fish so ugly!

Say I ugly, I bite you

No worry, this fish can hold

And cook to eat

Yummilicious!

At the new spot, TC had a brief excitement with a bending rod. But up came a kitty, due to his smelly prawns approach. Zu had numerous fights with a good size crab that kept trying to steal her baits. It got away but she finally landed another fellow, a Kuku (toadfish). It was a rather good size one, and Bujang said that it was good eating. He cooked it on the spot and indeed, the meat was tasty and sweet. After lunch, we went to various spots but there were no fish. I lost a lure and kelvin almost lost one, but was manged to be rescued. At 3pm, we took the slow boat back to the Jetty. The children had fun piloting the boat. Not something they can do everyday.

Find finder says got biggie below

Argh, my lure got stucked

Kel-Kar-ying on a river boat

Driving a boat is fun

Nice river view, with a smoking chimmy

The Sg Lebam Fishing Team

As fishy as it can get

For children, can rent this

Ok, shopping and eating time!

Despite the poor fishing, I did managed to inch closer to my tiresome quest to land a wild KBL. As for luring, the closest I had was to see a half beak chasing my x-rap. Beyond that, it was a risky exercise to lose the lure on some mangrove trees. But the trip was great fun. To fish in a river like this was a nice change from sea fishing. And on a boat like this, it was downright luxurious. We had good company today as well and the 2 children got along quite well. Bujang said that the boat can be used for fishing at night too, at the same cost. That sounded interesting and we might just give it a try.

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KFC - Pulau Semakau, Rubbish Island

2009-07-20T02:15:00.000-07:00

To be honest, I was thinking that I should be catching some decent specimens for the Semakau Trip. Given the unique and un-spoilt location, there should be plenty of fishes there. Therefore, I was pretty much looking forward to it. After all the neccesary registrations and paper work, we all met at West Coast Mac to have a good breakfast before roughing it out for the day. The gathering point was at West Coast Pier, which I almost mistaken for the Marina Ferry Terminal.

We are going Semakau

Die lah, got number like this!

At West Coast Pier

On the boat (a 15 mins ride)

At the Pier, all the other anglers arrived rather punctually. We met our friendly guide, Aw, who was to take us there for the event. Aw is a very seasoned angler and have done decades of fishing, his perference being freshwater/river type of fishing. He is also one of the pioneering fly fisherman in S'pore. We also met up with tanwh, who was a friendly guy and a father of 2. In total, there were only about 10 of us. Our group already made up half of it. We were allocated number tags which double up as mearsuring tapes. In the event of catching fish, a photo of the catch was required to log it for the competition. We were not exactly there for the competition and any catch is good enough for us. I was given the number 144, which pretty much sums up the luck I have had that day.

Welcome to rubbish island

Ok, make sure you guys catch some fishes today and don't anyhow throw rubbish

Let's go!

Reaching Semakau, we were given a short briefing by Aw, before boarding a van to bring us to the southern tip. It was customary of the guide to start at this location, which according to Aw, should be good for a couple of catches. Later we will adjourned to the inner series of water enclosure at Cell 3. But the tide timing was not good, and furthermore this particular tide was not strong, and the water flow was weak.

Arriving at the Southern tip

On your mark, get set, go!

Clear water, fishing the channel

tan was definitely hardworking at luring

By the time we started fishing, it was already high tide. We had missed the incoming tide completely. Pat had some early bites on his minnow and surface cruisers. But that was it. Upon retrospection, we realized that all the other anglers disappeared from the southern tip and went off fishing in other locations. We were later to realize that the fishes by that time should be at Cell 3, which was an inner section of the area. It was percisely there that the 2 expert anglers landed 4 GTs and 2 Queens. I don't have any pictures with me, as we didn't see them in action and only know of it after the fishing from the photos from their camera.

Change Spot! Cell 3

Alex getting some Kelong Chi

Some of us trying at the opposite side of the pipes

the stretch there, rather rocky

We changed location from the southern tip to Cell 3 at around 11am. By the time we arrived there, the tide was already going out. So again, we missed the fishing at Cell 3. The place there was like some esturary area, and an angler said that there were Tarpons. For this competition, Tarpons have the highest score and he was trying to get them on Tamban jigs, but got Kelong Chis instead.

Marcus landed the catch of the day

I am 146

Marcus landed a Flathead here on his $3 lure. Not a bad catch considering what the rest of us were catching, which is nothing. ZW and I explored further into the other cells (which was supposedly out of bounds). However, it was difficult to fish there and I lost a lure, and ZW got his lure stuck there twice. We gave up and went back to the Cell 3 area. The weather got hot and we all waited at the shelter for the van to bring us back.

Evan, the angmoh landed a small Parrot fish which he felt not worth logging it for the competition. He seemed like a very experienced angler and was dressed head to toe with professional fishing attire. From his previous trip here, he had gotten a slot in the championship league from previous catches.

Going to the other Cell

Haiyo, Sangkot my Sasuke

Give up...

Back at HQ

Champion lurer

At the NEA building (which was thankfully A.C), there was a short informal ceremony of giving out the prize to the winner, which was the champion lurer for this trip and a few previous trip. I think he won himself a $150 voucher.

Boat came rather late, and we were soon back in mainland ending a failed attempt for our debut trip to Semakau. I think we should be trying this again, and hopefully recover from our mistakes and start catching something.

It was a rather disappointing day for me, but it goes to show half of the success of fishing is to know the behavior of the place. Getting to the right place at the right time is the other half of using the correct equipment and technique. We were all expecting biggies and was using a bit heavier tackle. Myself, I was casting my larger lures. I think now that smaller ones should work better. Next trip here, we should all be better experienced to get something. Till then!

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KFC - Bedok Reservoir Surprise

2009-07-13T08:49:00.000-07:00

This weekend, there wasn't much in the way of fishing. But Andrew messaged me asking if I was doing anything. I suggested to try-out fishing at bedok reservoir as it was near his place. Even though he is staying very near to it, he had not been there before. Another reason for us not going there often is due to the insufficient parking lots. Getting a lot there is quite impossible at times. But today, we were surprised that there were free lots around. From the car park, it was a short walk to the boardwalk. We settled down at the bench.

As the boardwalk was rather crowded with quite a number of people fishing, we went to the right side of and fished on the rocky banks instead. Lots of people were baiting quite openly. We fished for about half and hour and there wasn't any action. Water was clear and I couldn't even see a tiny fish. From past experience, this wasn't a productive spot. However, someone on the boardwalk left on his bicycle and we were shocked to see him holding on to 3 large PBs. I ran to him and asked for some photos which he gamely obliged.

We were almost on the verge of giving up and returned to the bench for some snacks and drinks. Andrew said to try the middle of the boardwalk and I agreed. From the high vantage there, we could see some blurry image of a fish deep in the water. We identified it as Tilapia from the white/pinkish body. To our greatest surprise, the fish reacted by turning its body when our flies swam across. Excited, we continued to try to get its attention.

While Andrew was back at the bench to get something, I saw the tilapia inching forward to my squid fly as I dragged it past. I instinctively gave a yank. At first, I thought I had hit a rock as the fly was near the rocky bottom. But the line started to move to my delight. I peered down to the water and confirmed that I had a hookup. Excitedly, I shouted for Andrew to come help to get some pics in case the fish throw the hook. Tilapia on fly is quite unheard of (at least for me) and I didn't want to go back without any evidence. I fought the fish for a while which was fun on my new light rod, my 4 piece sakura. Andrew climbed down the banks and help land the fish. As we were deciding what to do with it, by the time we put the fish back into the water with a cord, the fish was already out of the water for a long time of 5 minutes. I was impressed that the fish was still quite fiesty and didn't die after such a long time out of water. They are definitely very hardy. A crowd had gathered and was impressed with our "big" fish.

We returned to fishing when Andrew saw another Tilapia in the water. As he had some bread with him, he quickly changed his rig to a small hook with long leader. Tossing out, we waited and went back to chit chats. Suddenly, I saw his limited edition cabelas bending and a fish was definitely on. Guiding it up to the surface, it was indeed the tilapia that we saw. For a tilapia, we were surprised that the fight was quite fiesty with tugs and water splashes. I held on the rod while Andrew again climbed down to land the fish. Crowd by this time had return again, puzzled by this 2 guy with the furry bait.

We decided to keep one fish alive and let ZW have it for his 3 feet tank. The other, we decided to Cnk for the dinner table. I had never eaten a tilapia before. When we arrived at ZW home, we decided to cook it immediately. It was surprisingly good eating and didn't have the muddy taste. Not bad at all. No wonder they do sell tilapias in Sheng Shiong. As it turned out, quite an unexpected outing and an enjoyable evening fishing with Andrew. I was really expecting nothing and results like this is quite pleasant.

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KFC - 18 Pounder Mama Toman

2009-07-05T06:39:00.000-07:00

Early this morning, ZW and I woke up during the wee hours to do some lure fishing at the reservoir. This is the golden hour that fishes tend to feed. So depriving ourselves from our warm beds, we gathered our fishing barangs and off we went.

Reaching the ground, it was not yet light as we setup up our rods in the dark. But the day break came around 6.40am and soon we could see fish activities all over. ZW was on his favourite Avis 3 hook lure, and I was using my pink K-ten. After casting for about 20 mins, I got the first hit of a small but fiesty toman that put up one hell of a splashy fight. I released it and went back to luring.

ZW was not hitting anything this time perhaps due to his darker colored lure. Previously, it was able to get quite a number of hits successfully. But this morning, the color perhaps wasn't that conducive for the current lighting.

I went back to casting and in another 15 mins, I got an electrifying take. The thing that got my lure set off with it with the lines peeling off my reel efforlessly on my right. That went on for about 30 secs, till I got worried about running out of lines. But the fish stopped after a while and I managed to start to able to nudge it slowly back to my side. There was some see-sawing of me getting the lines back and then it took off again pulling out what I put back. But eventually, I sensed the fish tiring out and I was able to get the upper hand. I was pretty careful as I was just on a 10lb line on my 8-15lb blackrose. The lure was set pretty well and the fish wasn't able to shake it off.

I was struggling to hold it

From the feel, it was definitely a big one. I quickly called for ZW to get the boga in my back. As I pulled the fish near to the banks, it finally surfaced and did a couple more thrashes. ZW and I were shocked at the size and the broadnest of it's mouth. For a moment, we both thought it was a cat fish. But as soon as we got it on the banks, we could see from the whitish side that it was a mummy toman.

It gulped the whole lure into its mouth

Final pose to show the full extent of the body before releasing it

The fish was exhausted and didn't put up any fight when we were holding it for photos and all. I couldn't hold it properly from the sheer weight and the slippery body. Carefully, I plied open the lure from it's powerful jaws. Good thing I had my boga with me, else it would have been tough to handle it. We then released it back to the water. For a while, it was topsy turvey, but it soon recovered and righted itself and quickly swam away.

My lure after that couldn't swim well anymore. When I examined it at home, I discovered that the toman had punctured it with it's teeth and that water was seeping into the lure internal. No wonder it wasn't able to swim properly after that. Testament to how powerful a bite from a toman is. With this catch, I have set a new record for myself. A day to remember and quite worth the lack of sleep with results like this. :)

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KFC - Pontian Kelong

2009-06-27T05:06:00.000-07:00

It was a rare occasion for Andrew's family to be out full force with us. Today, the plan to head for the Kelong at Pontian. Andrew was eager to try it after reading the write up on the last recce trip. IZ and Jean too came along for their first try at Pontian. We were to find out that Jean studied here and hence was familiar with the area inside out. Since we were rather early as the tide was to be at around 3pm, we headed for Kukup instead to have a look see.

Reaching the town of Kukup

Quaint town of Kukup with the newly built ferry terminal

There was a chinese storey telling competition going on here

Kukup GSS!

20 years ago, here got lots of fishes

Kukup belongs to Pontian

Being the first time in Kukup, it was a "nose" opener for them. Kukup has a distinct "salty fish" smell to it mixed with all the garbage collecting below the stilts of the buildings. But this is a famous place for seafood and local delicacies. We did some shopping for crackers and tidbits and such, as we are not going to get lunch on the kelong.

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

Although I planned to bring them to the nearby durian farm, all thought it was best to head straight for the kelong. So from Kukup, in about 40 mins, we arrived at the jetty. I contacted the owners and soon, they came along to meet us.

Tide at that time was really low. The boat had to move slowly in the shallow waters. But once we hit the deeper waters, we zoomed away to the Kelong just ahead of us. Water turned better the further we leave the shore. Reaching there, we found the place to big and spacious. Also, not many people were there.

Yes, we are

I caught this fish!

Renovation going on

Just 15 minutes here, got commotion!

Holy cow! A 2kg or so Kurau!

Wahsay..

And into the icebox with the other big fishes *saliva dripping*

Just within 15 minutes, there was a commotion. Someone had gotten something big and his friend was scrambling for the long net. We all ran there to have a look, and I was shocked to see a 2kg+ Kurau in the net. The fishing looked promising indeed. And when the man open the icebox to put the latest catch, we found many other catches inside it. From what we gathered, the group had been there since yesterday.

Andrew also catch sight of a leaping Kurau said to be in the region of 6-7 kilos. We hastily toss out all our bottom fishing lines and kept our fingers crossed. But alas, the fishes never did come.

I am a dedicated bait fish supplier

Extreme fishing (for half beaks)

Finally got it!

I also have! female one

The group left the place around 3pm leaving the entire kelong to us. But despite the incoming tide, there wasn't any bite at all. The only one was when Andrew got a malong eel. It was lost however when we failed to navigate it into the net. Luckily I managed to catch it on video.

We did have some fun though catching the swarms of half beaks and little todaks. Iz and Jean managed to get their very first half beaks.

Quiz time..

Are we there yet?

Hoo...I challenge with you, kor kor. We swing 1 thousand times can?

A Pari left its mark here

The dried up tail

Hmm...looks like "matchbox" car

Pure, simple happiness. I am a bumblebee

We left the place around 5pm and headed for Pontian town for dinner/lunch. Jean wanted to bring us to try the famous Pontian wanton noodles. Unfortunately, upon reaching there, we found it closed. Hence we went to the only mall in Pontian, Billion mall for KFC instead. That was followed by some shopping before we headed back to Singapore via Tuas.

We all agreed that the place was rather promising and vowed to try an overniter one day.

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KFC - Teluk Sengat Rakit

2009-06-21T00:03:00.001-07:00

A few times we said to try out the Rakit at the Teluk Sengat area. But it had been postponed due to last minute decisions to go to some where nearer. To get here, it was needed to drive up to Kota Tinggi and come down via the road to Desaru. to the other side of sg Layang. Therefore, a rather long round about drive. This time round, I decided to pay it a visit once and for all to find out about how the fishing is at the other side of the river from Kong Kong. TC was there recently to visit the Crocodile farm and informed me that he saw some Rakits there near the Jetty.

Reaching there, indeed there were rolls of Rakit around the Jetty. Being high tide, we did see activities in the water, and even some sea birds catching a herring or two. I quickly got the Rakit contact from the food stall and in my smattering of broken Malay, called the Rakit to get them to pick us up. By some miracle, the man understood me and came to pick us within 5 minutes. In fact, the boat ride to the Rakit was verynear and we could actually see him waving from the Rakit.

When we landed on the Rakit, we were immediately impressed with the place. It was big, and clean and there were lots of space to fish. The fee was an affordable RM20, and we were even given a jug of iced orange drink. A first in any Kelongs or Rakits that we have been. TC went about doing his apollo with his prawn meat and sotong, while I tried to test the water by using Tamban jig, and then doing some luring with my Regno.

But alas, the fishing was very bad. Even TC with his baited hooks, didn't manage to get anything at all. But I did see some solitary fishes swimming in the water. Water was fairly clear, but it turned to the brackish type very soon when we started fishing. We had missed the incoming tide and with the outgoing tide, water quality was rather bad.

It was only after some effort that I managed to catch 1 tiny weeny glassfish. With that, TC threw out a float with the live bait. And then he got a small Todak with it. But Todak after landing on the floor, wiggled and freed itself and gave us the slip.

We left shortly not wanting to waste our time here. On the way back, the boatman told us that the water had been spoiled by all the reclamation done by Singaore. From my experience fishing in this water, I tend to agree with them. The water had indeed turned rather bad lately.

It was such a waste that the fishing was such as this seemed such a comfortable place to spend a lazy afternoon. Hopefully, the water would get better in the near future, and we could all come back and enjoy this place again.
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KFC - Toman Fishing

2009-06-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

Since I had just returned from the Durian farm in Segamat, we had a short meeting at LSR to celebrate Alicia's birthday and to eat durians that I had lugged back from the land of durians. The rest of the children mischievously buried her presents in the sand at the playground. The poor girl had to dig it out with her bare hands. But of course, X marks the spot and it was easily found.

Lucky for us, Marcus came to join us. And we discovered his secret talent in opening durians. Otherwise, I would probably have hacked it to pieces. The rest had a good time devouring the durians and luckily, I had brought back enough.

As we were at LSR, I tried a little fishing too. But again, the fishes were not at home. After trying for an hour, I gave up.

Remebering that ZW had a secret spot, we went to the place for recce. And to our excitement, we saw people catching some good size toman in front of us. Unable to contain our itch, ZW and I decided to come back again with our rods.

Reaching there, we tried to squeeze ourselves along the rocky bank for fishing. ZW was the first to hit on a baby toman. But alas as I was getting my camera out, it gave ZW the slip and fell back into the water. I hit the next fish and again, it was another toman. This seemed to be a Toman spot. ZW again hit on a fish, and this time, it was no baby. It gave the rod a good fight and the lines were even spooling out. But unfortunately, we only managed to video it before it again threw the hook and ran away. I took the next fish and another baby. After that, all fell quiet. And since it was getting late, we made a move back to civilisation.

It was a great short session and a very fruitful ones. ZW was very successful with his unbranded silvery blue lure. My 3D minnow also worked well. Definitely a very potential spot here.

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KFC - Ah Huat Kelong

2009-06-06T06:07:00.000-07:00

The last time we had been in Tuas was quite a number of months ago. For the last visit to Ah Huat, we met the new owners who promised that the kelong would be nicely renovated by the next time we come again. They had recently bought over the Kelong and is in the process of renovating it. At the current state then, it was poorly maintained. There were rather big gaps in the wooden planks, and also not much of space to fish properly. I thought of revisiting this kelong thinking that it would have finished renovation by now.

This morning, it was initially decided to head for Desaru Rakit. (Probably Teluk Sengat). But as we gathered for breakfast at Carrefour, I recalled that Ah Huat Kelong should be due for a revisit to check out the new condition. All agreed and a quick call to Liman had him waiting for us at the Jetty. My last trip there, I had hit upon a huge Queenie that bent my rod like sugar cane.

I want this fish and that fish

Wah, someday he will have this kind of boat

Do I look like an actress?

Jason kelong (nicest Kelong in Tuas)

Alicia caught her fish on her own

From the upcoming tide, got some small action.
Something took off my fish head

Upon arrival at the Kelong, we found that it was still the same kelong with nothing being done to it. The so called renovation did not take place at all. At first, we wanted to change to another place. Liman told us that the Kelong at Jason would require a minimum of 10 pax at RM130. Rather steep prices. But seeing that the Kelong was empty, we decided to try it out again.

He got his Todak fishing skill recertified

Kelong dogs. They eat fish

A Fireworm (never never touch it)

Hmm...an alien is growing on this Tamban

Well, angler of the month

Who broke the plank and fell into this hole

After fishing for a while, we found that other than Tambans (loads of it), there was nothing else in terms of good fishing. TC was doing alot of apollo with prawn and sotong meat. With that, he got the biggest fish of the trip. A good size Bream. He also managed to get a decent Todak. ZW, who usually would get a Todak or two, failed in this aspect. Todaks were around, but in small numbers and puny ones.

Reclaimation works. Singapore is getting bigger and bigger

The caretaker told us that the fishing had gone down due to the reclaimation work just across the water. From this Kelong, the reclaimed land was rather near. (<1Km). For that, the water was affected and all the fishes had gone away. But the Tambans were rather plentiful and even the fishing people on boats would anchor near the kelong to get them.

They "stole" some of this cactus plant

No fish no fish, said the Kelong helper

Jason's nice Kelong

Passing by the island (there were some people on it)

The tide went down and then it was rather quiet. Live baiting would see the bait fishes still alive after an hour. We decided not to waste time and left the place around 3pm.

Durian GSS

Zhi Char from Tian Tian Lai Restaurant

From there, TC led us to him favourite restaurant near Gelang Patah. According to him, lots of Singaporean come here to eat. The regular food dishes were rather cheap. Only the live seafood was comparable to Singapore's prices.

Followed by dessert

Ready...

Being Durian season, there were some durians for sale at RM5 per kg. Very cheap prices. We ordered around 4Kg, and to my surprise, the durian was top quality and we had a good durian party. Everyone ate to their fill. Simply delicious.

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KFC - Rock fishing at Srau, East Java

2009-05-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

Srau Beach is situated at East Java. I was there for a holiday, as well as to meet some relatives. Not knowing what to expect, I brought along my fishing rod just in case the fishing was promising.

First view of Srau beach did not disappoint me with her beauty. I had earlier check out the photos from the internet and thought they were heavily edited. But it was true down to every detail. The beach was clean and the water, crystal clear. Mixed with the greenary and open sea, it was paradise on Earth.

I was initially thinking if it was possible to fish at all. But we saw in the distant, someone with a fishing rod. My heart skipped a beat. We quickly found the way to climb up the hill and to meet the lone fisherman pearched on the rocks.

He was alone at first, but was joined by 2 others of his friends. I had a chit chat with him and found that he was in fact fishing for todaks! Over here, Todaks are a prized catch, fetching quite a good sum of money in the market.

I quickly setup my rod and started fishing. Since I didn't have any bait, I tried jigging for bait fishes. But it was uneffective, and the rocks at the bottom snagged my lines a few times. I then turned to luring, much to the amusement from the 3 old man.

They came over and out of curiosity, looked through the things in my fishing bag. Since they were kind and friendly, I gave each one of them a "souvenir" from Singapore. They were immediately greatful and I became their good friend after that. One even enthusiatically said the fishing lure was so realistic that it will definitely work. Actually, on my first cast, I saw a grouper through the clear water chasing after it. Unfortunately, it turned away at the last moment. After casting for a few times, my lure got snagged by the corals and was lost.

I left the place knowing that I have indeed been to a fishing paradise that most people wouldn't get a chance to see. If only I had some baits.

http://community.mocca.com/articles/rock-fishing-srau-beach-east-java

KFC - Ah Fatt With New Friends

2009-05-22T06:11:00.000-07:00

The last time I had been here was actually a long 6 months. Probably the longest time period that I have clocked for the return trip. Therefore, this trip was long awaited. However, it was unfortunate that many of KFC members couldn't make it for this. There were new faces for this trip though from ChiewSim and ChinHua who joined us today with their little princess, YenHan.

After a brief exchanges of greetings under my block, the jolly bunch consisting of IZ, Pat, myself and A with the above new fiends set off to Carrefour Mac to rendevous with Yew and Family. They arrived rather punctually I must say. Therefore, we made good time reaching Leman Jetty. In fact a bit too early that we had to wait for the boat.

Reaching the Kelong, I was immensely happy that we had very clear water for this trip. This was by far the clearest water I had seen. It made me just happy to look into the water column and see plentiful of fishes swimming around. Such water clarity was rather rare and perhaps only during this time of the year. Weather however was burning hot. Kelong itself was moderately occupied with about 64pax. Not too bad and we still have ample fishing space.

We set up quickly and started fishing. CH with his cheapo rod set managed to get some good cactches. Tambans however were conspicously missing. We only managed to get some decent bait fish. IZ quickly used some and hit on his favorite Todak rather quickly. That done, he went on to target other species of fishes. (at the end of the day, he got bored with Todak fishing).

The other folks were just simply relaxing and enjoying themselves fishing with no pressure whatsoever. It was easy to get some thing on simple Tamban jig baited with sotong. Soon the make shift aquarium was filled with assortment of fishes. However, we were indeed very low on fishes suitable for live baiting. Seeing that, I bought from Ah Yong (Ah Fatt's Kelong manager/boss) some live prawns. But using live prawns were trickly as they would be quickly killed by all the peckings from the small fishes. Therefore, they don't last very long.

I was also glad to see people getting squids, no less in the day time. Encouraged by their results, I also did some squidding and managed to break my long standing squidless period of close to a year. In fact, the rest of the folks too managed to get one or two squids. They were indeed coming into the season.

Night came and I tried out luring to see if the Parangs were around. And to my utmost gladness, they were indeed. I had many strikes until I finetuned the technique and landed one. Followed by another. CH and IZ got excited and tossed out L-minnows as well. IZ finally managed to score his first Parang on lure. CH came very close and had a hookup. But it dropped on the way near the kelong. Other than that, there were plenty of Lorongs to catch during the night.

Early next morning was however a great disappointment. I woke up at 4.30am and couldn't get any action. This was so due to the abundance of Jelly fishes all over. it was so thick that my lures would occasionally scope some gooey bits of Jelly fishes. Rather irritating.

The next morning, the Jelly fishes started to disperse and the water got a bit better. However, we start cannot get enough of Tambans. From the little we got, these were quickly used by Yew and others to try out Todak fishing. And it was very successful. Todaks were rather dumb here and they would go for the live bait in a short waiting time. CH and Yew with Family had good fun catching them.

We packed rather early as most of us were quite tired from the fishing under the blazing hot sun. After a hearty lunch, we departed from the trip with some pleasant memories. Although not a fantastic trip, it wasn't too bad and a rather enjoyable one due to the great company of new and old friends.

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KFC - Search For KBL Part 2

2009-05-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

The boss at the Kong Kong Jeti told us to return this week as the current would be slower. He said that KBLs bite during the slower tide. ZW and I were keen to try out for our first kbl again and planned to return for our revenge. Alas Andrew couldn't come this time round. At the last hour, Pat and Ros decided that they could join us. That made for a good 5 pax to a boat with the boatman.

Upon arrival, we almost couldn't get any boatman. The boss, Yarkob made some frantic calls and managed to find someone to be our boatman for the day. We were informed to book before hand as the weekends would usually be fully booked. The boatman soon arrived and we moved out around 9am.

This time, the boat went kind of far for our first spot to fill up our bait well. ZW as rather lucky to hit on a small queenie on his tamban jig. With the cherrywoord, the fight was a good one.

The river system that promised of > 10 kilos KBL

First cast, and he was on!

Up came a nice baby trevally

Doesn't he look like a trishaw man??

He caught something, a grunter

Thereafter, the boatman brought us rather far into an estuary system where he said the kbls here would be big. He mentioned 10 kilos at least. That kind of number certainly made our mouth wet with saliva. The moment the boat was parked, he immediately had a hit. From the action, not a bad one. After some muscling with his conolon rod, up came a beautiful baby trevally. I was shocked to know that one could get them here. We were definitely all keyed up with this success and toss out our rigs with the greatest of hope.

But the minutes ticked away and nothing was biting at all. Initially, there were some disturbances to our live prawns which came up half eaten and all. But half hour later, it was largely untouched. At this time, the sun was blazing hot and we were all suffering from an overdose of UV. Pat and Ros were not too prepared to be baking directly under the sun. Seeing that, I suggested to take a break and return to the jetty for lunch first before carrying on.

Coffee shop from the 60s

Food was ok

Toilets from the past!

Kopi Lim shop

The road where we were at

But I was caught unaware that we had actually ventured very far from the Jetty and the return trip alone used up half of our fuel. We had lunch at a very quaint looking shop that was reminisence of the 60s. Even the toilet was old school complete with a "the ring" kind of well.

Wah, not easy parallel parking!

Tower of Pisa, in Kong Kong

Our venerable Anchorman!

Workers fishing from the top

He knew exactly where the tambans are

After a respite from the burning sun and cooling ourselves down with gassy drinks, we ventured out again for attempt number two. First stop again was to refill our bait well which by now was left with half the live prawns and no tambans. Boatman brought us to a construction site which to our amusement, the workers were even fishing from the platform.

The weather took a sudden turn and it began to drizzle. Luckily, it wasn't heavy and we managed to stay fairly dry. After filling up our bait wells, the boatman brought us to another river system. We were later to find that it was just barely 1km from the jetty.

The crab that caught the Tamban with the fisherman that caught the crab

KBL not at home today

Ros had some fun with grunters

waiting...waiting

So, it was no surprise that we didn't get any bites at all. Ros had some fun with catching some small grunters but that was about it. Pat had a funny catch of a crab grabbing on to his dead tamban. I again caught a tree fish...and lost my xrap. Around 4pm, just as the tide was filling up the river, we ran out of baits. I called it a day and returned back to the jetty defeated with our tails limping behind our backs.

But the timing was just right for us to drive back to Singapore via the woodlands checkpoint. From the voice traffic system, we were told that traffic was smooth flowing. However, it was not the case and we were caught in bumper to bumper jam. But it was indeed moving rather fast and we cleared it in like half an hour. Not too bad.

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KFC - Kong Kong Boat Fishing

2009-05-10T16:45:00.000-07:00

The trip originally started out with OTC wanting to visit Kong Kong again after his last fruitful catch session at the Rakit. ZW and I were interested in trying out the boat fishing that we changed upon the last trip. Andrew also made time to fish with us, quite rare given his busy work. One thing was foremost on our minds: KBL.

It was a beautiful day

At the Jetty

All the prices you need

They sell live prawns here

We arrived at Kong Kong around 9am after some delay. But with a tide time of around 12pm, we were just about right for the boat trip. TC and friend decided to head for the kelong instead. For the 3 of us, after some enquiries with the owner, we soon boarded the boat with a young guide. At the jetty, there plenty of pictures with mighty good catches. We couldn't help focusing on the Kims in the picture and imagining ourselves holding on to the prize trophy.

Beautiful river system

Bait fishing at the Ujam

A Lorong (Big eye herring)

Boat is equipped with bait well

First stop was to fill up our bait well with Tambans. We were brought to a abandoned Kelong. Tambans were indeed plenty and soon we had enough. And it was back to the river system again to target our Kims.

Fishing makes people happy

Nice marshy area

Start your engine

Alamak...caught a Tree fish

These buggers are terror

Scenic spot

Naughty lure, never get me anything

But alas, the Kims were not around. Although there were some signs of fish activites (splashes in the water etc), we were not getting any bites. At some places, the mozzies came to bite us instead. Andrew got quite badly bitten as he was dressed rather skimpily. ZW and I fared better as we were covered from head to top, more so to protect ourselves from the hot sun. But for this trip, the weather was nice and not too overly hot.

Since no KBL, we decidied to go "deep" sea

And then to "surecatch" spot

Not everyday can touch a oil tanker "ass"

I also want

Wow...big grouper!

ZW broke the egg

The boat is huge!

Plane heading towards Changi Airport

Andrew's ibu gelama

We could sense that the guide was noticibily desparate for us to get some catches. As a last resort, he brought us to his "surecatch" place. And to our greatest surprise, it was under a mega oil tanker, just next to its giant propeller.

But true enough, there were indeed lots of fishes down there. We had to aim at the properller and there would be some bites. But due to the postion of the boat, it was rather hard to get to the sweet spot. Boatman had numerous strikes but got snagged for some. But he did brought up a beautiful 1Kg grouper. There was another catch that was estimated at 3kg, but it escaped just at the surface with the boatman spilling some malay expletives. Andrew had a beautiful catch of a ibu gelama (mama gelama) and ZW had a smaller one. I too got a small grouper (ard 300g) which I let go.

Place for the firefly trip

Yummilicious!!

We called it a day around 4pm and headed for Kota Tinggi to check out the route to the firefly for Andrew. At the corner restaurant, we asked to cook our big grouper and had our dinner there. Grouper was yummilious and as fresh as it could get. Just nice for the 3 of us.

We were rather disappointed that we didn't get any Kims, but it was an interesting trip overall. I had never done a river boat fishing before, and not to mention, a boat trip fishing under a boat. Not an everyday location. As for the Kims, we will be back.

More..

KFC - Kelong Pontian

2009-05-01T22:10:00.001-07:00

In all my years of kelong fishing, I had never heard of a kelong in the waters at Pontian. It was only by a chanced web browsing that I discovered the whiff of it's existance. Being the nosy Kelong explorer that I am, we decided to pay it a visit this Labour day.

A clean beach that was devoid of rubbish (rare find in Malaysia)

Getting there was easy, but finding where to board the boat to the Kelong wasn't. Equipped with our trusty navigational tools, we found our way to a possible boarding area. The beach looked clean but it wasn't the correct place. Only after some calls to our contact, we finally managed to find ourselves at the right places.

Gangster lizard says cannot pass!

When we arrived there and was walking to the Jetty, a humongous monitor lizard came slithering out of the bushes and blocked our way down the stairs. Luckily, he was heading for another kelong and went off shortly. Otherwise, our this recce trip would need to be postponed to another "lizardless" day.

The ride was a short 10 minutes ride and we soon were in view of the Kelong. From the distance, it was way beyond my expectation. I had thought it would be smallish and dirty old kelong. But boy, I was wrong. In fact, it looked on par with the ones at Sibu in terms of size and facilities.

Kelong flyer (guarantee won't jam)

Lots of green to the brown and blue here

We settled under a shelter that was thoughtfully placed around the kelong. The kelong had a longish extension further into the sea, and the area for fishing was abundant. We started fishing and found that the fishing here was not that easy. Most of the bait fishes that we got occasionally were rather smallish and not suitable for use as bait. However on the surface of the water, there plentiful of fishes which were at first thought were todaks. However, we confirmed them to be half beaks. Seemed like this was a half beak paradise.

Sip your tea and enjoy the island view

At the far end of the extension, one could see Palau Pisang. Something tells me that there would be plenty of monkey business on the island. The kelong was still undergoing upgrading works. It looked to be better and bigger in the future.

Float rig

ZW first half beak

Anchrovies on Jig

Beautiful half beaks (with a pinkish tint)

Lots of these which got irritating after a while

Tiny todaks here

Selar Papan

The half beaks could be gotten on tambans jigs, as well as throwing out a float with a small hook baited with some fish meat. There were some todaks too, but small ones. As they mix in with the half beaks, they all looked alike.

My lure got chomped into two by huge monster (aka, the kelong plank...hehe)

ZW tyring out the lasso rig

I think plenty of these here

The fishing was generally slow and no one was getting big catches or anything. Gelamas were evidently around when we saw some people fishing for them with sarong worms.

The happy boy with his surprised catch

Around 4+pm just as the tide was coming up, the fishing got a little better. Our neighbour had a seemingly stucked line. They did some "guitar twanging" with the lines and managed to loosen it. As the guy was reeling in, out came a decent sized grouper. First sign that this place could yield some surprises after all.

this guy is cool and frequent visitor to Ah Fatt

Good table size Kurau

Next, our malay neighbour saw his rod twitching and went on to engage the fish. Without much commotion or anything, he reeled up a Kg+ kurau. We were like "wow!". His rod was rather heavy and there wasn't much fight at all.

Another tick for fishes caught for him

Size 8 Kurau

My rod got some disturbances but alas, I couldn't connect with anything. However, ZW got lucky and he too pulled up a fair sized Kurau. Another first for him at this kelong, along with his catches of half beaks.

This view very much like the one in Labrador Park

Kelong in the Sunset

Another Singapore car behind mine!

We left the place around 6+ just as the sun was going down. While waiting for the boat, we had a friendly chat with a group of girls (family) who incidentally were from Singapore. Quite an unusual sight to see Singaporeans here, and a all woman fishing group somemore.

Fishing in the Kelong was generally slow but showed promises of some big catches if one is patient enough. Not a bad recce and another addition to our long list of future kelong visits.

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Road To Becoming A Fly Fisherman

2009-04-26T05:42:00.000-07:00

My fly fishing rod had only been sparingly used ever since I bought it some weeks ago. Today, I wanted to do more pracitising at it and went to LPR after D's swimming lesson.

It was hard to find a big enough area where I would not pose a danger to passer-bys with my flying hook and line. My technique was still quite raw and I couldn't do my cast properly and spent like half hour trying and trying. It was Roll cast and False cast practises. Even though I had a fly at the end of my line, it wasn't catching anything. I was mainly focusing on the casting part and didn't try to animate the fly too much.

Fly casting was hard work and I worked up a good sweat under the hot sun. But the weather took a turn and suddenly, rain appeared to be coming. I stop my fly casting and changed to my spin rod. With the charlie that was given by Jimmy, I tossed it out. But the execution was miss timed and my lines didn't go quite far. But to my surprise when I started luring it, I got a hit immediately. It was as though that the PB was eyeing it and when it started moving, it decided to go for it.

It was a small PB and I quickly put it into a plastic bag, thinking to give to ZW later. I brought it home and put it into my temporary tank. But I made the silly mistake of changing the water entirely thinking that PBs were quite hardy. But I think there must have been a drastic change in the PH, and the PB died shortly after. (after 3 hours)

Late afternoon, I had to run some errands of returning library books and all. When all was done, it was around 6. I had the urge to run to a reservoir to attempt to get a fish on my fly rod. OC said can because I bought her a new scissors, so I zoomed to macritche and started on my fly fishing.

I hadn't successfully got a fish here except for the big one that got away before I could photograph it. I used the fly that I had tied as a demonstration at LSR. The passer-bys were all eyeing me like some alien from outer space. I heard many people asking "what's that fellow doing?". Casting away for around 20 minutes, I suddenly had a nip at my fly. To my delight, there was a huge PB just about 10-15 metres away from me. I hastily tried to cast over to the region again but my fly line got all entangled in my Kan cheongness and I had to waste time unraveling it. When I next cast again, I couldn't see the PB anymore. But after trying for 2 times, wham! and I got a hit. I was so excited that I shouted out to A and everyone walking pass. But the excitement was short-lived. I was holding on to the fly line and didn't know how to control the fish with it. The fish exerted a strong pull and broke my 8lb leader! I was dumbfounded. First time I had a PB breaking my 8lb leader.

But the whole episode gave me hope although I was sore from the chance of scoring a first on my fly fishing rod. I hastily tied another fly, this time using the gotcha that Jimmy gave me.

It was back to casting and casting again and my hopes were raised when I saw some smaller PB giving chase. But it was only another 15mins when I got a hit again. This time, not a small one as well. Again, I was inexperienced at how to control the fish. In my clumisness, I accidentally released all the spare fly line at my feet and the fish had a moment of free run with the hook in the mouth. This would usually be a critical mistake for fishing. But luckily the slack didn't cost me my fish and the hook up was firm. I shouted for the camera and slowly coaxed the fish to the bank. Holding on to the leader, I had landed it.

With that, I have now become a full fledged fly fisherman :). All without much lessons or coaching. It was also the first time I had a fish photographed at Macritche resrrvoir. My previous attempts here were quite fruitless but my opinion of this place had changed. In a short time alone, I saw so many PBs. There would definitely be more sessions here to come.

KFC - Rakit Kong Kong

2009-04-25T06:28:00.000-07:00

This rakit was discovered last week and I was all curious to go try it. The weekend, seeing that nothing was planned, ZW and I decided to pay it a visit. A last minute call to TC saw that he was interested too. Another call to IZ, and he was on as well. I was hoping that the water here would be better. If you look at the map, this place is further south of the Rakit at Sg Layang and nearer to the open sea at Tekong. Reaching there around 8am, we were rather early and there wasn't much people at the restaurant. We saw an uncle and asked him on we could get over to fish at the rakit. Luckily Jean was with us and the communication problem was solved. Very soon, we boarded a small boat that took us over in less than a minute.

How much the fishing cost

Machiam some rock band

Aircraft carrier style Rakit

This lady...everything also catch!

The Rakit was a longish one and at the centre, was a sheltered area for shade and cover from rain. We were the only ones there at that time although more people came to join us around 12pm. That day, it was quite overcast with a hint of rain. But the rain didn't come and the fishing was again rather pleasant under a shady sky. Water was however of the greenish type with lots of cloudy sendiments. We also spied lots of jelly fishes swimming around. Not very good sign for fishing waters.

My stingray!

Yay, no more naggin about stingray

Stingray letting out the babies in the stomach

However IZ had a surprise catch and got a smallish brown stingray. Jean had been nagging about stingray from him for the longest time and today, the command was fulfilled. We were thinking that the stingray was a baby one and had actually wanted to release it. But the hook was swallowed deep and we couldn't save it. And then right before our eyes, we saw the stingray releasing its baby from itself before it died. I remember reading about this and seeing it happening was quite a touching experience.

This boatman had a long net cutting across the river :(

This girl can catch anything!

No one knew what fish this was

After that, although the fishing wasn't too good, Jean scooped up plenty of interesting little fishes to our amusement.

TC had a run of catches of catfishes at a particular sport. His rod was always the one with the bells ringing and him running to the action. Although catfishes were not rated highly in terms of catches, they do put up a decent fight. He also caught one or two stingray as well as some of the other folks. It looked like stingrays of this specie was quite common here.

Interesting way to harvest clams

This doggie is so scared of people

1 stingray to his record

Hey, there is a Kelong there!

Bye bye Rakit.

The tide came up and then went down without the water improving. We were puzzled how it was that the water would be better at the layang rakit? We were thinking that it might just be this particular timing that the fishing was poor.

The house of the durian plantation

At 1.30pm, we decided to call it a day and packed and left the place. From there, we went to do some recce and even found a kelong nearby. We shall try it out soon. Driving further, we also came across a durian plantation. We were told that the season was in August. Come August, we might give this place a visit.
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KFC - Kong Kong Rakit Recce

2009-04-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Used to be able to fish at the Jetty for free under the old restuarant management

Rakit with the white roof

We had always detoured on the Kong Kong road towards sg layang. Actually, I had been to Kong Kong many years back and even did a spot of "boat" fishing there. There is a resort/restaurant at the end of the road. They also provided facilities like rental of boats for people keen on going fishing.

I decided to revisit this place again. The management here had changed hands since and when i asked around, I was told that the boss would not allow people to fish on the Jetty. However, the staff there was ok to close one eye. But better still, there was a Rakit just minutes around the water, and there, we could fish at the cost of RM15 per pax. According to him, there were good catches there. Definitely a place for future KFC visits.

Fishing village of Kong Kong

Bustling activites here

I left the resort and went to the village Jetty to have a look around. To my surprise, there were many people holding rods and fishing stuff and boarding on boats. I was naturally curious and went to ask around about the fishing here.

The Jetty Quaint Coffee Shop. The Goreng Pisang here is damn good

Uncle telling us to contact him

We had some drinks at the coffee shop and started chatting to some guys there. However, the information was quite inconsistent and rather suspicious. According to the uncle, the boat could bring us to the rakit at the cost of RM120 per trip for 8 persons. And there will be another fee of RM120 on the return. The cost at the Rakit, would have to be checked with the Rakit owner. We asked for the Rakit contact but the uncle gave us his instead.

When asked about where the people going, they replied that they were going boat fishing. Somehow that didn't seem right as I even see small children boarding the boat heading towards the many Rakits on the water.

Map of Kong Kong
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=sing
apore&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=25.981365,40.517578&ie=UTF8&ll
=1.518553,103.997741&spn=0.015959,0.019784&t=h&z=15

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KFC - Attempt at Fly Tying

2009-04-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

My recent venture into the rarely attempted pastime of fly tying had infected fellow KFC members and naturally roused certain interest on how to tie fly. While I am not yet so experienced, I think I know enough to try to teach them how to tie a fly. We gathered at LSR this morning to attempt to have each one of us tie and fly and then testing it to see if it would work and get us a fish.

My lousily tied Chennile Charlie

People passing by must be thinking we all siao!

Another use of a fly tying vise

Luckily for us, the vise fitted nicely on the LSR park bench chair and we improvised to convert it into a fly tying bench. With the required materials that I brought, I briefly went through the process of tying a chenille charile. However, I did quite a bad job and the resultant fly wasn't too professional looking. But it was good enough as a demonstration.

Weird variations of the Chenille Charlie

The others quickly had a go at it and each came up with their own version of the fly. I told them to be free to improvise if needed. There wasn't any need to follow any steps to the letter.

With my newly tied fly, I went down to the rocks to have a go at it. And Wham! First cast, I hit a PB. How's that for Proof of concept? :D. However, the PB shooked loose nearing the bank and I lost it. At first I thought the PBs were around in numbers. But we found out later that while the water was clear, the PBs were not readily around. It took me quite a number of cast to get 4 bites later on, while the others were mainly still zero.

Finally another notch on his fishing accomplishment

ZW as normal was the first to score a good hit. He caught a big one at the corner and from where I was standing, it was putting up a good fight. Soon, a big fellow was proudly seen displayed. His fly had passed the acid test.

Patrick was still getting nothing on his 2nd attempt here at LSR. However, he kept trying and trying. And heaven rewarded his persistence and he too hit on a good size one. I was about 100m from him and I could hear a yell that he had got a PB. But he made the mistake of not setting the hook properly and the PB was lost just as he was about to lift it up to the grass patch. We all saw it and yelped in despair as the PB swam away. Too bad that he did not manage to get a pic of it. But he too passed the fly tying test :)

Pat trying out my fly rod

I also brought along my fly rod and let the guys try out fly rod casting. I was not good myself but from what I read, I tried to teach them how to cast a fly line. Most agreed that it was pretty fun.

The children that gave us power.

Man who caught the Earth Eater

ZW and I continued our PB fishing into the afternoon at Kranji after lunch but was badly put to shame by baiters that scored 3 good size PB in just 15 minutes. We had been like cast our flies for hours with no bite whatsoever. Water was still that greenish murky look that was common at Kranji. On the way back, a baiter (on worms) caught a beautiful earth eater. When can I get that on fly? :(

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KFC - Ah Chong Boat Fishing

2009-04-12T05:25:00.001-07:00

It was a chance meeting with Patrick at Team 7 while I was doing my tackle shopping. I had known Patrick from a previous Pekan Trip. When he mentioned that he would be going to local offshore, I told him to let me know about the next. So one Monday morning, I got an SMS asking me if I would be interested to try Ah Chong. Knowning that ZW was also keen in trying out boat fishing after the last try at Inu kelong, I asked him too.

Old friends and new friends

*

The date came and ZW picked up me with Chew and Patrick. We met their other friends Mike and Roger at the Terminal. Another couple joined us, Jonathan and his gf. We were soon on Ah Chong's boat moving off for our day of local offshore fishing. From my previous experience with Ah Fong, I wasn't expecting too much and only brought along my light tackle of a Black Rose. During breakfast, when the conversation got to the big monsters and heavy tackles, I was feeling rather underequipped for the battle ahead.

Spot near Seawall
Raju's boat

*

A huge catch at Ah Fong's Boat. People taking photos in the boat

*

But first spot that Ah Chong brought was to a location beside a rocky seawall. The current wasn't too strong and with a small size 2/3 weight, it was sufficent for me. I had the advantage of being more sensitive with my lighter tackle. In fact, the other boats, Ah Fong, Ah Long and Raju were also there. But the morning fishing was slow and nothing much was biting. However, the other boats caught some Queenies, and Ah Fong got one that was huge, a 7/8 kilo monster. ZW scored a nice Yellow Tail (Fusilier) on prawn meat. The rest using live prawns wasn't getting anything until Roger had an outstanding catch of a Golden Snapper, which was of a good size too. (around 2kg). After that, everyone soon started to get something.

Spot near Tekong

*

We changed a couple of spots until we fished mainly at the enclosure near to Tekong. With the slower current, somehow the fishes abound there. The weather was excellent with overcast clouds and a spot of light raining in the noon time. But nothing too heavy and it was still fishable. Naturally, there was very little scorching sun which made the fishing quite cool and relaxing.

ZW's catches

*

My catches

Surprise catch of a good size Grouper (Ah Chong said "green eyed" grouper)

*

Fierce fight with Parrot on my light tackle

*

At the end of the trip, I scored a nice around 1Kg Grouper, and a 2lb (measured on boga) Parrot fish + some misc small catches. ZW scored 1 Yellow Tail, 2 small ACK, 1 Puffer. Jonathan scored an outstanding kilo plus Kaci + small fishes. Mike scored 2 or so nice snappers + others. Roger was the champion of them all with the above mentioned Golden Snapper, a nice grunter and others. Only Patrick and Chew were fishless after the trip. Patrick had a close miss with a probable Chermin at the Chermin spot.

Jonathan Catches

Powerful Kaci

*

Ah Chong said this is Ang Kuay

*

Mikes's catches

Nice ACK

*

Roger's catches

(champion 2kg Golden snapper)

*

*

He said "next fish is grunter" and it was

*

*

Total catches

*

Steam Parrot Fish. Yum!

*

*

All in all a nice outing fishing and making new friends. In the car on the way back, we were toying with the idea for a Rompin Trip in the near future. Well, my dusty heavy gear could see some action soon.

Old friends and new friends

Read more here

Fly Me To The Moon

2009-04-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

My latest acquisition:-
2nd hand set at $300. Rod: 3 pcs Harvest (Korea made), Reel: Orvis BattenKill 3/4 Large arbor. Line 4 weight.

I had succumbed to the dark side, where anglers fear to thread. Although not yet officially a fly angler, my gears are ready to rock and roll. Just need to add fish.

What Happened To My Flies?

2009-04-05T04:14:00.001-07:00

Last week, I had quite a number in the group going to LSR to test out my wonder flies that I was so lucky with. I had tied some flies before hand and handed it out to them in anticipation of them catching plenty of PBs. However, that time round the fishing was very poor. Unlike the previous week where we could see small PBs chasing the flies, this time the flies were just swimming and getting wet without any action. Water also didn't look as clear with kind of a murky look. However, there were some experts at the Jetty and they got some impressive catches of a big PB and later on a humongous Mummy Toman. Seemed that he was using Yozuri surface cruiser.

"I am taking video arh"

"How shall we cook this fish arh?"

This week, ZW and I went LSR again to try flies one more time. Unfortunately, again the water very bad. And it started to rain. We all moved to the Jetty shelter. Kind of repeat of last week. After the rain stopped a little, I cast out my clouser again and got a big take. Up came a good sized PB. So my flies still got a bit of juice and can still work. I noticed that the fishes would bite after the rain. ZW got some small ones and managed to bring back one to put into his aquarium.

A father and son team were fishing on our left side and the boy was very lucky today. They were casting out a float rig with a fly (white feather with bright yellow body). The boy caught a two palm sized PB and later topped it with another big PB. His father was certainly very proud of him.

KFC - Ed Pro Pond

2009-04-03T04:13:00.000-07:00

It was recently made known to me that there was a local fishing pond at Pasir Ris farmway 3, near to the places where there were many aquarium and dog farms. I was asked by a forum friend to meet there so I stepped into Ed Pro Pond for the first time. They were doing fly fishing which I heard they had 3 takes but didn't manage to control it to land.

Ed Pro Pond consisted of 3 areas, one salt water pond, one prawning "pond" and the last and the biggest, the fresh water catch and release pond. I was quite surprised that the pond was a rather popular one well visited by people. In the short hour or so that I was there, there were numerous catches and mind you, big ones too. It was possible to catch the famous Mekong catfish without having to fly to Thailand to do so.

That night, I asked ZW if he was interested to pay it a visit. I didn't check out the price that afternoon and from what I saw on the internet, it was $50 for 5 hours. Rather expensive. But we went down anyway to have a look see and not thinking to touch water at all. When we arrived, we read on the notice that it was possible to fish for 2 hrs for $15 at the C&R pond. That wasn't too bad and we paid the money and was soon fishing for the first time at a local fishing pond.

While we were paying the money, I had a chat with the worker and discovered that flies wouldn't work at night. As for lures, it would need to be debarbed and converted to single hooks. So asking what would work, he recommended us chicken liver. Well, I had never tried this before that was as close to "fear factor" as you could get in terms of bait. But the bait was cheap at $1 a big pack. So we decided to do fresh water "baiting". Something that you could not do legally in singapore.

1st Landed Patin ever (helper said 5kg)

My 2nd Patin that was lost

True enough to the worker's words. I had barely parked my rod for 10 minutes and out shot my lines. I had anticipated it and had purposely loosen my drag. If I hadn't done so, my rod would have flown into the water. The fight was hard and intense and soon (about 5 minutes), a Patin surfaced. Wahoo, my very first Patin ever. Helper came over to lift it out for photo taking and soon it was released back into the water. I re-rigged and toss out to the water again. As I was helping ZW with his rig, my rod again "flew" a little before lines went spooling out. Wah, another take. I fought it but it felt smaller this round. It was yet another Patin. Seems like Chicken Liver = Patin over here. But as it was near the edge for us to lift up, it sudenly thrashed and splashed into the water again. And this time, the hook came out and I lost it.

ZW got a take

ZW was impressed and soon he too was on one. But his lines were not tied well, and the hook came off. His second take, he didn't fight well and tighten the drag too hard. The mainline broke (20lb) and fish was lost. 3rd time, he was better trained and he finally managed to land one. But as I was helping to try boga the fish for photo taking, the helper came over. I thought he was helping us but he just unhooked the fish and let it go. Argh! Poor ZW didn't have any photo to show for that catch. But it was videoed, luckily.

Helper with the 6kg Pacu

Time past very quickly and our 2hrs were up. As were were leaving, the neighbouring group (which was rather quiet) had a big hit. This time, it was not a Patin but a huge 6 kg Pacu. It was definitely an interesting short session, and a very good training ground on how to handle big catches. At $15, I think it was quite worth the experience.

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KFC - Trip to St John

2009-03-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

Many of us in the group haven't had the chance to visit St John island, despite having stayed in Singapore for years. Actually, there wasn't much to do there as well, except to fish. As I expected, fishing wasn't a very comfortable as there were not many shelters around, and the promising area was to do the fishing at the so called "causeway". This is the dam like area cutting across the island channel of water. The current there would be quite strong during the changing of tides.

Disembarking from the Jetty

So it was that a trip was planned to visit this island. In terms of logistics, it was easier as the ferry terminal have regular runs of ferry to St John, then to Kusu and back to Singapore every 2 hours or so during Sun. I was pleasantly surprised to see the famous Des T from fishingkaki forum leading a group to St John to catch his favourite fish ie Todak.

The "Causeway"

Our group met quite punctually and we were soon on the ferry to St John. The trip there wasn't long and we were there in like 15 minutes. From there, we headed for the "causeway". But the place was hot and burning, and we walked further down to park ourselves on the road under a shady rock. We were all impressed with the clarity of the water, and Tambans were immediately sighted when we disembarked form the Jetty.

My aim for this trip was to experiment on my flies to see if they would indeed catch anything. We did have some bites from todaks on the surface of the water, but other than that, hardly anything else. I skirted it around the rocks but no groupers were interested in it. What did work was sending out live prawns on float and some of us managed to catch some todaks. It was however not easy to get them.

First Todak!

Pat was first to draw first blood and get a small todak to his credit. Todaks were definitely around although not in large numbers. After that opening number, we got more confident to proceed on.

White St John Island Ninja

Ooh...this is how it feels to get big fish

Landed and approved by master fisherman

ZW the todak master as usual had all the todak luck and he was soon fighting a big one a the other end of the line. IZ had a chance to play with it for a while to refresh his memory of how fighting a todak was like. WL (IZ's friend) also experienced a bit of the excitement of having a big todak on the line. ZW got the todak up and after a few fotos, we released it back to the water.

St John got no fish, only Hermie the Hermit crab

Lunch time. Eating like construction workers

I also Got!!

Wah, my fish so big wor!

All fueled up by the refresher course, IZ quickly rigged up a live prawn and targetted the general area. And indeed his curse was broken this time, and he hooked on a todak that was larger than all that he ever caught. As he was using my light rod, the fight was pretty intense. When the todak was landed, he was all smiles after having a dry spell of going todakless for 6 months already.

PPPPIAK!

I didn't have much luck in luring/flying and even though I tried here and there, no monster came to bite my offerings. The sun was indeed getting to my head, and fishing was tough work here. I also had an accident while flinging out my lure and it caught a branch and broke my green arrow into two. Boo hoo....now I can buy a new rod. :P

Toot toot....walk somemore

So, despite an eventful day of big todaks, there were nothing much else from the clear blue sea. It was just such a waste as the water was ready good, something that cannot be seen in Singapore. Only other interesting fishes that I saw were a large group of half beaks, and a small group of mullets swimming around here. Our kaya bread didn't work as it wasn't branded one like Ya Kun. Haz. Strangely, all of us didn't even try bottom fishing.

Read it here

So Many Fishes, So Little Time

2009-03-22T04:57:00.001-07:00

My smallest PB ever

As planned, I met ZW for a short PB session. Pat had to work and couldn't join us. Objective was to help them get their very first PB in Singapore. A came along with his Dr Ng and a few other children. Naturally, the children all had great fun playing with each other.

His catches got bigger and bigger

Peering into the water, I was wondering if the small PBs were still around. After a few casts, my doubts disappered and we confirmed that they were still there in numbers. ZW soon landed his first ever PB, breaking the curse of the zero for Singapore fishing. Although small, it was already an achievement. We started counting the score but when I got to 4:3 or something, we totally lost count. There were too many catches, but small ones. A also managed to land one or two.

Urgh..so heavy

I gave my Papa power one to catch this

At the end of the session, I was a little disappointed that we didn't hit any large ones, as those would really put up a good fight. But given the effectiveness of the technique, it was only a matter of time.

The mischiveous Dr Ng

A beautiful fly that I need to learn how to make. It was very effective

Fly by Night

2009-03-18T05:49:00.000-07:00

My first attempt in the proper tying of flies using the correct techniques, after spending an obscene amount of tuition fee. However my skills are still far off. Hopefully, it will improve with time. I am seriously lacking a proper pair of good scissors. Couldn't snip off the tiny strands of streamers at the joint. >:(

Work in progress

Accident! The vise "kelp" me. Don't play play. Fly tying is dangerous

My Fly tying bible (by Peter Gathercole). Look like the picture?

A charlie using pink mono scrape lines

KFC - Trip To Sister Island

2009-03-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

Once a upon a time, there were two sisters (dunno pretty or not). One day, pirates came and wanted to marry one (the prettier one, I suppose). They all not happy and fell into the sea and died. Then 2 islands sprung up and became Sister Island. This is a brief agak agak history of how Sister island came about from what I read from the internet.

Marina South Ferry Pier

Being quite an unknown island of Singapore, my first thought was that there must have lots of fish. So when we were unsuccessful in getting our bums to Sibu Kelong due to "everyone wants to go Sibu Kelong at the start of school holiday syndrome", I was hoping that this would be a good alternative. Being in Singapore, it would be easier to get to. However, there are no operating ferry to bring people there. From what I gathered, a private boat needed to be chartered.

We brought so many things, that even need trolley

While waiting, let's play badminton

Dog goes a riding on a bumboat

Karen forgot to take passport

This little girl was so quiet, I didn't even hear her speak after telling me her name

Ini mini miney mo, which island shall we go?

Going fishing makes me happy

It was rather challenging to fill up the boat space to spread the cost so that it would be cheap. Information was also not easy to find. However, all things worked out at the last minute and I managed to find 24 fishing siao people, and 2 boats that were surprisingly cheaper than the fare to St island. This time round, even a "cute cute little" dog came to join us.

The bigger island jetty already got people there!

We went to the smaller one instead loh

Wah, water was SO clear

Walking nearer to the toilet

We managed to meet up by 9am like clockwork, and were soon loading up to the bumboat to get to Sister Island. Actually it wasnt very far from Singapore, and we reached it in no time. But boatman said that the bigger sister island was quite filled with people and we decided to go to the smaller island island. At first glance I was immediately excited about the potential of the fishing here. Water was as clear as a screen protector, we could even see the little fishes swimming around. Tambans were sighted and that meant that the fishing couldn't be that bad and I had wasted my money getting live prawns.

Beautiful beach here. We were the only ones

Let's setup command post here

Rare sight of nice water

Breakwater from one of the two lagoons

Stand here fish also shiok

Nice fine sand

Shall we look for treasure?

We moved deeper into the island and parked ourselves near to the toilet. However, that was quite bad for the fishing as we fished mostly at the Jetty. So, I was quite away from the non fishing group and didn't get much pictures of the "dunno what activity" they were doing. But we had the whole island to ourselves and it felt like we own the island. The only trouble wa an old monkey that wasn't happy that "cute cute doggie" was here.

Alan's family discover fishing!

We quickly setup and moved to the Jetty to fish. Alan, after some fishing tips from me, managed his first Tamban with his family. They were all shouting "big fish big fish". Luckily no people on the island otherwise they sure to laugh until drop into the sea. Current got very strong around the mid day and our lines were all drifting out fast and couldn't hit the bottom. Bottom fishing wasn't good as our sinkers kept getting snagged on the rocks.

Nice beach. No need to go phuket already. Even doggie also having good time

ZW, the todak master

The todak loving gang quickly sent out their offerings to the todak gods here. IZ was especially stressed to get a todak as he was todakless for a very long time already. But todak fishing here wasn't that great and there were only a few hits. IZ lost 2, especially one that J was fighting for a while and lost it when the rod was passed to him. Tomorrow, his ears sue become swollen.The "todak king" aka ZW nevertheless was able to get 2 todaks despite the "advanced" level todak fishing.

Little children fishing

I.want.to.get.the.biggest.fish.

Our cooks conjuring up good food

Yum!

How many CHOPSTICKS?

Patrick & fam fishing under the coconut tree. Ros with a Sergent fish

A tuskfish (kind of a parrot)

Other than Tambans, we managed to get some small fishes with small hooks and prawn meat. I was using too big a hook and didn't fare very well. They will mostly snatch my bait away and left me with an empty hook. Small specimens from the bottom were quite commonly Parrot fishes. http://www.handlinefishing.com/whatsthisfish/wrasses/anchortuskfish.htm

Strange looking "holy" tree

Group 1 leaving the island

Group 2 got stranded by doggie who doesn't want to go home

Next time, we take this boat (it's raining in Singapore)

Time passed very fast and very soon, it was time to leave. We definitely didnt' get enough of the fishing, but had to leave due to our cars coupon expiring. In fact, Marcus was to get a little fine for exceeding his coupons by 10 mins. There was a small incident when our "cute cute dog" refused to board the ferry. When TC wanted to carry him, he turned around and chomped off a little part of TC for him to remember this Sister island trip. He wanted to run away to stay with the pretty monkey. But after we reminded him of his favourite dog food, he decided to get on the ferry to return home.

All in all, it was a nice day for just relaxation and camping. Weather man bluffed us said rain...but the weather there was bright and sunny. However in terms of fishing, I was greatly disappointed. The water looked so good but was devoid of big fishes. Another example of how bad fishing in Singapre had gotten in recent times. i.want.my.big.fish......*sigh*

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Return to LSR

2009-03-15T05:32:00.001-07:00

Of late, I hadn't been productive in LSR ever since the construction started. Thinking that the construction had affected the water, I didn't try very hard in PB fishing. The few times that I brought ZW for fresh water fishing, we didn't get anything.

But just last week when the sun was shining brightly, I discovered to my utmost surprise that there were indeed plently of baby PBs around. From the clear water, I could see them zooming into my lure. But since the lure was much bigger than them, there wasn't any hookup. Intrigued, I decided to come back this morning to try again.

Knowing that PBs are best gotten on flies, I decided to swap my lures for flies. Since they are small, the hookup chances might be better. Indeed in a 40 minutes session, I got quite a number of bites, and even gotten a small PB. Later, the fly got stuck onto a rock and I burst my line.

I returned home and decided to put my long acquired fly tying vise to use. It had been sitting in my cupboard for the longest time since I bought it last year. Following some instruction from the internet, I tied 2 poorly done charlie. One even was not knotted properly and the lines came loose. Nevertheless, I was eager to put them to the water to test test. Wife was displeased and give me just a window of half an hour or else.

It was raining earlier on, but when I reached LSR, the rain had stopped. But the seats were rather wet. I hastily setup my rod (and I even missed one guide). Water was not as clear as before in the morning. Out when my fly #1 and in 10 minutes, I had a hookup. However on the way up, I dropped it. Guy fishing next to me gave me a smile. I noted that he was doing bottom as well as doing some casting with a yellow fly once a while.

I tried again and in yet another 10 minutes, I had an electrifying hit. WHAM! Something that I hadn't experienced for a long time. The hookup was solid as the fish was big. Enjoying the fight, I eventually subdued it on my 6lb line/8lb leader and brought it up to the grass patch for some photo taking. All these within the allocated wife allowed time. The rest of the folks fishing were so stunned to see this guy coming, and leaving with a catch in 20 minutes flat, while they were still tossing out their lures. Above fishes all returned back to the water to fight another day.

My girl was so impressed and asked me to tie more flies to sell on the internet. haha.

KFC - Inu Kelong

2009-03-09T21:53:00.000-07:00

We had originally planned this to be a small group recce trip to Inu Kelong. But a last minute chit chat with IZ over MSN saw him interested to come along with Jean. That sat saw us heading up to Penyabong in a group of five. TC came slightly late from the planned meet up time and we only left the popular SHELL station at around 7am. The distance was slightly longer than going to Sibu, and my estimate was that we would reach there in about 3 hours. We had a quick simple breakfast at around 9.15 at the Mersing bridge. From there,we finally reached the Penyabong jetty slightly before 10am.

Countryside road

At the road end

The Jetty was the same one for going to Acheh Kelong, so I was already familiar with it. As expected, the scenary was beautiful and clean and well maintained. During the drive in the long curvy country side road towards the Jetty, we saw plentiful of cows and sheeps and also alot of cow dung on the road. Some places are out-right postcard beautiful and quite a surprise that we can see such places in Malaysia other than going to expensive island resorts.

A simple coffee shop here

..and a fish loading bay

Walking to the Jetty end

IZ, better get me this size of stingray or I don't friend you

Someone's queen

Going up the boat

Simon, the kelong owner, met us at the Jetty. Simon was a chatty and friendly person and really put us at ease and made the trip as enjoyable as possible for us. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we were the only group on the Kelong. Another group had cancelled the trip leaving us to the entire kelong. We loaded up and was soon on the boat heading to the Kelong. The boat ride to the Kelong was only about 15 minutes.

View of the Kelong

Our spacious hall for the night

Looking towards the kitchen and dining room

Nice island backdrop

Wah! So many todaks here

Making salted fish

Jean drew first blood

Nice fusilier (Yellow tail) from IZ

Getting lunch ready

Reaching there, we unpacked leisurely with no stress whatsoever. It was so nice to be fishing at a spot where there was no one else.The peace and quiet was definitely worth the long trip up here and better than any expensive resort. As the Kelong was near to the island, we could also hear birds chirping. However, the water depth was quite alright and not too shallow. The height of the Kelong from the water was very high for some reason even when the tide came up.

Todaks waiting for lunch too

We saw lots of todaks around the kelong. But the todaks there were very smart, the type that go to university. It wasn't easy to trick them to take our bait. Even a sprightly kicking tamban was eyed with caution. It was only once a while that they would go for it, and we mostly ended up with the todak throwing off the hook and escaping with our baits. But the good thng was that it was easy to get Tambans here and we quickly filled up our DIY bait well and had ample baits throughout the stay. Only problem was that our air pump ran out of battery and the fishes died from lack of air. Jean was our faithful bait supplier and made sure that we were always loaded up with our ammunitions for todak hunting.

My only catch of a blur todak on lure

ZW and I did some luring as well. Despite the todaks taking an interest in my lure, they would turn away at the last moment due to the very clear water. But during one of the "last moment" turning away, I managed to latch on a todak at the tail end. Shook and jumped all it could, the hook up was strong. I landed it and took some pictures and then released it back to the water to grow bigger.

On the boat ride to the Kelong, Simon was asking if we would like to do boat fishing. As a value added service, he only charged us RM100 for the boat. That would work out to be RM20 per pax, very cheap indeed. As the others had not yet been on boat fishing before, it was good opportunity to try it out.

Four amigos going boat fishing

Gentlemen, drop your lines

Therefore at around 3.30pm, we boarded the boat setting out for most of our first boat fishing. Since we didn't have live baits, we were only armed with simple apollo rigs with dead sotong and prawn meat. The boatman was just glad to be out with us, away from his boss. Despite his boss telling him not to go too far, he actually brought us to various spots for fishing. On the way, it rained a little, but nothing heavy to dampen our spirit.

TC flying grouper. It got angry and bit my rod as revenge

After photo shot, was let off with a warning

I got another fish. Fishing so easy

I also have. Mine bigger

So cute. Can we bring it back?

Haha..my first catch of the smallest grouper in the world

Beautiful island backdrop

Finally caught a grouper too

Only expert can get this

ZW got a bite!

Nice ACK

We had so much fun!

TC was first to draw first blood with a "flying" grouper. He was reeling in so hard that we all thought that he had landed a monster.But out came a tiny grouper that flew out of the water with such a force that it jettison into the sky and almost landed on our heads.Luckily the boat had a sun cover else it would knock me on the head as I was standing next to him. He again took the second and thirdfish and was sniggering at us lousy fisherman. But after that, we all started to have some catches of mostly small groupers and breams. Jean was last to get her first catch of a tiny baby grouper. The prize catch of the trip was a respectable ACK (John snapper) by ZW. TC too landed his favourite fish, a decent Leng Chiam (Emperor).

Group photo of first boat fishing

The fishes that didn't get away

Dinner time

We went back around 6.30pm just in time to rest before going for dinner. At that time, it started to rain. Dinner was a unusual spread of steamboat, first ever I had on a Kelong. It was nice and we were all well serviced by the staff there seeing if the food was alright; if we had enough rice and so on. Another group of 12 had joined usbut they were just staying over at the kelong from another boat fishing trip, It was just a rest and sleeping stop for them. As it was raining, and we mainly just took our time to eat, rest and relax.

Nice kelong view. Over here, the stars were extra bright

Rain stopped at around 10-11pm, and we continued to fish. We saw lots of small fish activity but was unable to interest them withanything. Casting out dead Tambans also didn't get us anything. Luring was a complete non action. During all out attempts, we sangkot quite a few lures on the Kelong stilts. Next morning, Simon was so kind to climb down the stilts to retrieve it for us. And there were like 6-7 lures that he had to take! Really excellent service.

The woman that caught the most fish!

Early next morning, ZW and I woke up at around 5am to see if we can get some catches on our lure. Again nothing. But I tossed out my tamban rig with some sotong and prawn meat. Suddenly my little tamban rod took a very strong bend. Up came 2 big Selars, one of which was two palms long. The commotion also woke up the rest. It was quite effective to use sotong meat and catching small fishes from then on. Tambans that morning was also plentiful. Jean was jokingly complaining that she "catch until sianz"...haha. At the end of the trip, she caught 3 bags full of tambans.

I finally got you!

Had to net it

As long as a rifle

Kelong cook can make the todak taste good

That morning, again the todaks came out in force. Even though most were not too big, there were the occasional large sized on circling the kelong. As luck would have it, ZW little tamban rod got a very strong hit. The todak scooted out far from the kelong and I got worried if he had enough lines for it. It went to the left of the kelong and then to the right, just like fighting a marlin. hehe. When it finally tire out, we saw it to be a very large one and was wondering how to bring it up. Kelong helper wanted to net it but it was too long for th net. I thot of the good idea to use my luring rod to assist to distribute the weight for lifting it up. With my lure, i hooked itand managed to lift it such that it was able to bend into a u-shape to get into the net. ZW was beaming cheek to cheek and it was definitely an impressive record breaking catch. We asked the kelong to cook it for us for our tea break later. The way it was prepared turned out quite tasty, although they used liberal amount of salt to mask the fishy smell.

Why the todak so smart?

My consolation prize. A Selar

I got it! (but it escaped shortly after)

Only poor IZ was unable to land any todak despite many strikes. I attributed it to his poor equipment. He missed a very good strike of what must have been a large todak. But he wasn't able to adjust the drag properly and there was too much resistance and todak did a flip and he lost it. We had to stop him from jumping into water to wrestle it with his bare hands.

We left the Kelong at about 12pm. Despite my many reminders to pack, most of them still continued to fish and fish until the last minute. :). It was certainly a rare occasion to be enjoying the fishing so much. From the Jetty, we headed out to Mersing for lunch. We first visited the Mersing tackle shop where we replenished our dwindling stock of weights and hooks. After that, TC took us to a good and cheap restaurant. Although we ordered quite a number of dishes, the amount per pax was only RM16. So cheap!

From there, we headed straight home and I decided to go back via the Tuas 2nd link. Traffic was smooth and we reached back around 6pm concluding our fruitful recce trip. This time round, ZW would bring back some better catches for his wife and not just another round of more todaks. :)

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Changi Boardwalk and Senibong

2009-02-22T05:28:00.000-08:00

A "Green eye" squid

Peaceful tranquil night

Meow meow

A rare catch of a "bak tao" (cuttlefish)

Another last minute call for a night fishing and the turnout was rather surprising. I couldn't quite think of a good place to fish except to bring the folks to Changi Boardwalk to try their luck. And when we finally reached there, we were welcome by a bunch of people that were dressed from top to toe in fishing branded attire in the midst of gaffing a squid up. Most of us hadn't really seen a live squid closeup, and it was an exciting way to start off a nite of fishing.

After the initial commotion, we setup with some hope of getting something that night. We had gotten some live prawns which I had almost erroneously ordered a batch of 1.5 kg live prawns when I meant 150g. Lucky I realized the mistake before the shop closed, otherwise we would be stuck with $50 worth of prawns. :P

Jean got a cat fish and another small fish that I couldn't ID. Being her first, she was naturally going ga ga over it. That was about our only catches as the rest of us were trying out fishing with live prawns. There were indeed some quick bites that killed our prawns or dragged our lines to the rocks. I was the only one that got lucky and managed to bring up a cuttlefish on live prawns with single hook. I was surprised myself. Looked like this place was quite a good spot for squid fishing.

My green arrow patiently waiting

TC enjoying the fishing

A beautiful Pomfret

My only catch of a "helicopter"

The next day, TC wanted to run into JB for some errands and cheap shopping. I followed along in his car with him braving the woodlands checkpoint jam. But the jam turned out quite ok with us clearing it in an hour or so. After shopping, we decided to kill some time in the afternoon to visit a paypond at Senibong, around the Permas area. After some bargaining, we managed to get a spot for RM22 per pax for 2 hours. Quite cheap as compared to Singapore pond fishing.

The fishing was slow and most people didn't have any catches. But our neighbour got a Pomfret after he arrived shortly. From my observation, he was using apollo with prawn meat. We were doing prawn spinning all the while, hoping to get some biggies. But seems like prawn meat is more effective here. I copied him and only managed to bring up a tripod fish aka "helicopter".

The 2 hours came up very quickly and we left without any catches. Seemed like I didn't have any luck doing pond fishing. This was my third time at a pond and I still hadn't gotten anything yet, despite the fact that the fishes were in the water. Anyway, I am not really a pond person.

Kranji Reservoir Green Water

2009-02-15T04:32:00.000-08:00

Hoping to break my dry spell of a rather long fishless month, I dropped by Kranji for a spot of luring to try my luck. But reaching there, I was totally shocked to see our reservoir water filled with thick ozzy greenish particulates that totally filled the water. It was so thick that it almost felt like green paint.

But strange enough, there were even people luring in such conditions. I observed for a while to see if there were still fishes swimming in such water condition and concluded that if I were a fish, I would stay far away from such a place. Then as I was walking further down, I saw a duo of an old man and a younger man luring. To my utmost surprise, he had 3 catches gotten in a net on the floor. It blew my mind to think that they could even get any fishes here. From what I see, he was doing a mix of luring and baiting. At the end of the lure, he had an extra line linking to a hook with an oyster flesh. So strange. Wouldn't that impede the movement of the lure? But still, his results showed.

I tried to lure for a while after that but got zilch. Well, the spell had to be broken another day then.

KFC - Valentine Day Fishing

2009-02-15T04:27:00.000-08:00

I hadn't count on this trip to happen as it was Valentine's day, and presumbly people had more romantic things to do than to visit a dirty kelong. But TC surprised me that he was game to try it and I agreed to do a re-introductory trip to Tuas Kelong seeing that he had not been fishing for a while. Since he was coming, ZW family could also ride along in his car. The day before, I also got a out-of-the-blue message from Pat that he was all cleared for the trip as well. Well, well, looked like people do like to fish on Valentine's day perhaps to have an excuse for not doing that expensive candlelight dinner.

We met as usual at the early hour to avoid the checkpoint jam. With the 3 cars, we re-grouped at the SHELL station (that people were finding hard to locate) and set off to get breakfast before hitting the Jetty. We had breakfast at the Perling coffee shop where the "parata" was sold. However, I noted that they changed the sign and it was no longer "by order". I also realized that it was quite common to see migratory birds making their way to the north from there. That must had been some north south highway for migrating birds.

"stay away from me food", hissed the monkey

Quaint JB fishing village

Boat was maxed to capacity

Up the kelong, one by one

At the Jetty, we were met by a grouchy monkey on top someone's poor car. It was proably not to happy that we were here to bring back fishes by the truck load. That was our plan as we all eagerly set off to our fishing destination.

The tide was indeed very low and when we reached the kelong, the steps were a little higher than the boat and we had to do some gymnastics to transfer all the people big and small from the boat to the kelong. However, Liman was an experienced boatman and we all got up safe and sound.

Pat and Ros trying out the fishing

My mummy is a good fisherwoman

A Chermin hauled up from the Kelong's net

One of the biggest fish for this trip

The kelong wasn't crowded at first and we only had 3 other pax on it. With the ample space, it was rather fun to fish expect that the tide was at the lowest and fishes were not around. We had enough time to prepare for the fishing as the tide would only improve around noon. The plan was to fill up our pails with some bait fish for the better fishing later. However, the Tambans were not quite around at that time, although we did get them once a while.

This climb up and down room is so fun!

I just ordered Pizza Hut (guilty look)

Behold our baby. We call him bubbles

The children had their own fun and mostly entertained themselves playing in the helper' 2nd story living quarters and playing their self made games.

Ah hong and his many catching at this kelong

The kelong help informed me that the legendary "ah hong" would be coming later. I was rather puzzled as who was this "ah hong" person and found his photo pasted on the kelong with his many impressive catches. Definitely proof that this kelong was capable of producing excellent catches.

Around 10, another big group of people came and the kelong got crowded. They were mostly using big rods and they cast their lines on top of us till we were rather squeezed for space to fish. Ah hong came later (with another big group) and it got almost impossible to enjoy the fishing with all the lines all over. I decided then to leave by 3.30pm if the fishing hadn't improve by then. Fishing in such crowded condition wasn't too enjoyable.

More porridge? (he is the porridge king, can eat 4 bowls!)

We were pressured by the ladies who were preparing our lunch to have some decent catch for lunch later. Tried as we could, all we could do was to provide 2 plateful of Tambans. Lunch was served with an impressive spread of dishes. Although the pot of porridge was filled to the brim, we managed to clean it up with nothing left.

How the expert keep their bait fishes alive

Heart stopping moment

Yet another Kitty

During lunch, there was a commotion (the only one) and someone's big rod went ballistic and line was peeling fast from it. The owner controlled it for a while but the line snapped. I was later to learn that he was on wire leader and even that couldn't hold the fish at the other end. Must have been a huge one. Other than that one time, all the other catches were mostly catfishes. Seeing how the other group do their fishing with big chunky and smelly sotong bait, it was no wonder.

Notice how the birds were all standing in line waiting for their food

A Goatfish

The lady that we met previously was doing her usual apollo fishing with prawn meat, and I must say that she was rather successful with it. Before we left, she caught a rarely seen goatfish above.

Street hawker fare at Permas Jaya

Birthday party at Jusco

Seeing the poor fishing, we spent the rest of the day doing tackle shopping and then followed by dinner at Permas. Food was cheap and good and definitely much better than the fishing we had. From there, we went to Jusco Terbrau City to do more shopping and then held a simple cake cutting ceremony for A who was celebrating her birthday today.

The fishing was rather poor today despite the promising location. There are times that I looked at the sea and lament where all the fishes were and this was definitely one of those moments. Perhaps that would be ok given that fishing was an activity that no one could predict. However, what spoilt it greatly was the overcrowded fishing condition. Nevertheless, I think it was a memorable timeout, an unusual Valentine day and hopefully our next trip should be see us bring back the truck load of fishes that we were aspiring for. :)

A Valentine Day of Fishing at Tuas Kelong