KFC - Ah Huat Kelong

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 - Kelong Ah Huat (4)

Supposedly the last available Tuas Kelong on my list.



I was expecting this, but nope. Where is this?

Yet another trip to the Tuas area, this time to the last kelong on the list. However, I was quite surprised that it was not the Kelong that I was expecting from some pictures on the internet. So perhaps, there might be another, other than the private one that was out of bounds. ZW had planned to bring along his eldest daughter, but she couldn't wake up that morning. But it was for the better as the Kelong this time, wasn't quite suitable for kids.

We did the usual early morning rendevous, and off we went via woodlands checkpoint. The Q cleared quickly and soon we were on the way to Gelang Patah via Perling. This time, I stopped at Perling to catch some breakfast.

My feet almost got sliced by the boat hitting the Jetty edge while boat was parking

This time, my girl was prepared with her sunglasses

View of the Kelong

We reached the Jetty at around 8am, and already our trusty boatman was there. We soon boarded up and headed towards the Kelong. This Kelong was kind of farthest amongst the rest, and was actually just a "stone" throw away from Jurong Island. From there, we could see Jurong Island doing more reclaimation of the land and extending further out to the sea. From a near distance, we could see all the big ships parking around Singapore. For this reason, the water here is deeper and comparable to the ones in Sibu. However the Kelong itself was in quite a dilapidated state due to lack of maintenance. We were to find out that this Kelong had just been bought over which accounted for its lack of proper maintenance.

The other group of 3 fished on the left

There were already 3 other persons on board, but they kept to the narrow side of the Kelong and left the more open fishing area to us. Maybe due to wanting to face the incoming current. We came to know later that they had been there since last night.

Thinking where to fish

Easy string of Tambans

Tambans paradise


Our first catch proved that there were plentiful of Tambans around. It was so easy to get them that one didn't even need to jig the line. Just cast it down, and up would come a string of Tambans. The Tambans here are the Killer fearsome variety, and would entangle our lines with their mad dashing.

No rod holder. A chair would have to do

I came this time prepared with a workable airpump and we managed to have a pailful of live tamban ever ready for our use to target bigger fishes. But alas, floating was ineffective, and there was entirely no surface action. Although one time, there was an instance reaction when my float bobbed downwards the moment I threw it in. But the fish let go a short while later. I did some bottom and bait was mostly untouched.

How to fry Tambans

We came prepared to cook. Fresh Tambans on the left

We give some chow to the poor hungry dogs

A whipped up lunch with the Tambans and some canned food that we brought along. It was a decent meal and even the dogs were eyeing the food hungrily. We gave some to them as it was evident that they had not been well fed for some time.

Our shady fishing corner

The weather got quite hot during the afternoon and we mostly hid under the shade and waited for the catch to come. The only action was when I tried to put my bait a little bit above the bottom and let the current pushed it out. I was chatting with ZW when we noted some quivering on the rod.

Hanging on..but lost the fish after 30 seconds

As we were talking, my green arrow suddenly took the U-est dip I ever saw in all my time fishing. It was a good one and my lines were spooling out quickly. The fish seemed to have gone deep. I got hold of the rod and gave a strike. And instantly from 50m away, I saw a big fish leaping out of the water and landing with a loud splash. I only had a glance but it certainly looked big, and was whitish. My guess was that it was a Queenie again, since I was using Tamban and doing mid water fishing. And Queenies were abundant here. But this one was a big one and the pull on my rod was very strong. In a short time, it spooled out half my reel. I was worried that it would make a right turn and go around the kelong. As I was trying to reel it in, the line suddenly went limp. I had lost it. From my inspection of the line, it broke at the leader that showed some abrasion. The big probably swallowed the bait deep and the line was rubbing against its rought sand paper like mouth. It was a big disappointment to me but it was a fair fight, and the fish won.

That was about the only big action that afternoon. ZW got a couple of tugs as well, but it didn't connect.

Around 2.30pm, 2 uncles came on board. We were thinking they were here to fish, but later we found out that they were actually the new owners of this Kelong. Apparently, they had just bought over the Kelong and was making plans to expand it. We were told to come back in 6 months to see a brand new Kelong with good fishing. :). For now, at RM60, this place wasn't quite worth it due to the lack of space and proper facilities.

The pot bellied new boss

The private Kelong

Close up view of the private Kelong

The boatman suddenly appeared to fetch some people back and we decided to go off as well seeing that the fishing wasn't about to improve due to the declining tide. On the way, it rained a little. But luckily, it wasn't heavy and we managed to get back to land without getting wet.

From there, we headed for Jusco for shopping before coming back around 8pm right into a nasty checkpoint Jam.

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