Humble Pie - Six Pipes

There was a PF gathering at SAFYC, Changi Naval Base. We were lucky and got to witness the ending of the round island 30 hrs dragon boating. After that, I just longed for some simple fishing, since I didn't do any on Sat. The tide was on the way down. Andrew said to join me after bringing wife and son to in-laws. Reaching there, the tide was still quite high, but the sun was burning hot to be fishing near the jetty.

I settled down near the canal, just to do some simple fishing. But that side, not a productive spot. There were some taps and eventually, I hauled up one of the culprits, a Puffer. Not good.

Andrew and I decided to move to the jetty for real fishing. This was the spot that I had demostrated my improved fishing powess, by beating TC 9 to 0 some weeks ago. Previous times, my 4lb rig with small tamban hooks worked like a charm, and I was reeling in fish after fish within a short time. But today, rig failed me totally while Andrew was on a roll of several variety of catches. There were wrasse, scat, goby, a baby ACK, a grouper, and maybe others that I had forgotten. Poor me, nothing at all throughout, until he suggested that I changed the rig with his. Okay, maybe that would do the trick. His rig, got this stiff leader that hold out the bait prominently. A point to ponder. I finally did get a fish, but just a Pasir2, as usual.

First Scat








The spot just right in front of the jetty seemed like a productive spot. But at s certain spot, snagged our rigs a few times. Andrew was saying that there were some fishes eating up the baits quickly with barely a tap. He thot it might be glassfish. He finally managed to pull up one, and it was a Scat. He got a few, and the last being one that was quite large. After that, he had to go. I stayed on for another 10-15 minutes, until A chased me to go. Well, alrightly then. Just not on a fishing streak today. Tide also gone to super low level. Thought I had improved quite a bit, but really humbled by a master fisherman today. :)

Changi Car Park 5

Today seemed like a good late night fishing. Weather was superb, considering that it had been raining incessantly for the past few days. Moon was out in its almost full glory. After 7pm, I drove up to Pasir Ris for dinner, planning to move to SAFYC at changi naval base for a spot of comfortable fishing till late. Reaching there, we were told that fishing now would cost $16 for two rods. Holy Toledo! It was only $7 for 2 rods the last time. Furthermore, I didn't get bait at CV, thinking to support him and get the 100g for $4 prawns. Hearing that, I decided to pack up and proceed elsewhere. It wasn't like the place was a super productive spot.

The guard house. D's reading her Pokemon comic.


Moonlight fishing


We then drove to CV for drinks, while I got a pack of live prawns and some tackle shopping. Just wanting to make it simple and convenient, I stopped at Changi Car Park 5 to try out. It had been some time ago since I had been here. I managed to get the last seat next to the army jetty, patrol by guards with rifle. To my thinking, it should be a better spot here.

Just usual, I casted out a long leader rig with my ranggong for live prawns, and another with my squid jig. While waiting for the fish to bite, I would do some squidding as well. This looked like a potential squid spot, being next to a jetty, and with all the lights, should be good.

Rod with live prawns did ring a little, but due to dancing prawns. Reeling back, prawns all covered with seaweed. Other than that, no action whatsoever. Squidding was totally hopeless. But the place was pleasant and clean, and quite well lighted. So, the fishing was quite pleasurable.

D's latest craze. Cutesy turtles.


The children got tired, and went to sleep on the mat. A was also quite uncomfortable due to some ants on the floor. So, at around 12+am, I called it quits and packed to go. A zero for me tonight.

Day Off Fishing at SAFYC

Mullets


Monitor Lizard


I was on a whole stretch of leaves as I needed to look after D, as A headed back home. I thought today to be a good opportunity to fish during the weekdays, something that I didn't get to do often. Morning, tide was around 10am. D and I had a quick breakfast and headed down to Admiralty West, which was just near to my house.

I had been here a few times, and during the high tide, there would quite a bit of bait fish activities around. One could see lots of mullets and half beaks around. Just beyond my casting distance, there would be big patches of ripples of bait fishes moving around. I tried to use "shakey worms", as D would call it. Basically, just a soft plastic on jighead. However, first one, throw and got snagged the first cast. Throw a few more times, need to snapped off the line. Rigged another one, throw and got snagged again. In the end, gave up. Use my tiniest lure that I got from Japan. Lure action looked good, but no effect. Nothing. Only spied quite a few monitor lizard hanging around the edge. Interesting.





At night, I packed up my fishing gear and headed for SAFYC. Just wanted a comfy place for fishing, since D would have to accompany me. I parked my stuff and setup. But strangely, the Tackle shop man didn't come to ask for the fee. I had thot that maybe tonight was free. But fat chance...he came around just when I was about to go. He said he was waiting for me to "register" at the shop. The way he said it, it was as if I was trying to cheat. Hmm...not too happy about it. He was generally a nice man, but he kind of eyed me suspiciously, few times asking if I had thrown the hooks on the floor (which was left by some earlier anglers). Think this would be the last time that I would come here. The fishing wasn't too great anyway.

Throughout the night, no action. Few sparse bites. All in all, quite a boring night. Nothing interesting. Around 11.30pm, I packed. D by then was already quite tired.

SAFYC "ACK"

I had planned to be at Kelong Acheh today, but unfortunately, TC had a sudden work. So, the plan was called off. Perhaps, we could be doing it next week instead. So, being a Friday night, I thought of fishing at SAFYC again.

Although the last attempt wasn't very fruitful, still I prefer the place due to the peace and quiet from the lack of crowd and comfortable facilities. For $5 to get such a priviledge, it wasn't too bad.

However, upon reaching there, it was surprisingly crowded. The space near the end of the Jetty was unoccupied, and we parked ourselves around the last 2 or 3 lights spacing from the end. The tip of the Jetty would supposedly be the prime spot and was always taken. The Boss of the marina tackle recognised us and was quite friendly. We bought prawns from him this time round, and paid for 2 rods, which actually cost only $7, as compared to 1 rod for a fiver.





This was to be first time using my Lemax President Royal, and I rigged a running sinker with live prawns on 1/0 circle hook. This was to be the important reason for my catch latter. I rigged up my other DNA rod with an apollo with smaller size 4 hooks. But totally no catch with this rod (actually a tiny weeny cardinal). But half hour later for my President, there was a sudden strike, and the rod did a precarious dip and bounced a couple of times. I quickly grabbed the bouncing rod before it could be dragged into the sea. Good thing that my drag was set just nice, and the hookup was solid. I could feel the fish still at the other end, giving a good fight. The fight lasted for about a minute, and few times, my lines went zipping out as the fish resisted my attempts to reel it in. When it hit the surface, I thought I had gotten an Emperor. I tighten the drag and swung it in. But to my pleasant surprise, it was a nice and shiny AC (John's Snapper, Lutjanus johnii). The circle hook was nicely hooked on the lip and there wasn't any chance that it could have thrown the hook. Somehow everything connected nicely, from the timinng, the settings, the equipment and importantly, the fish finding my bait. This was to be my very first good size ACK. Gotten some smallish ones before, but those didn't count. A good break from the poor fishing lately.

However, after that, the fishing went down. There were totally no bites at all, and the prawns mostly came back alive and kicking. I tried some squidding with my ShrimpHunter, but no impact. But, there was a group of english speaking family fishing at the end of the Jetty, and into the Marina. It was not allowed to fish there, but when the Boss wasn't making his round, they would sneakily fish around that area. And boy, was it productive. I was told that they had caught about 3 boxes full of fishes today. It was like fishes after fishes, from snapper to groupers and what have you. I got tempted and went to fish around them, on the ramp to the boats in the Marina. However, I had no luck at all, and the fishes were not biting my bait. Seemed that the corner was the good spot, and I didn't want to squeeze into them as they were already fishing over there.

I gave up and went back to my spot. Around 1.30am, I spent my last prawn and called it a day. D was already very sleepy and quite miserable from the cold. At least it was a fruitful trip at the beginning. But this time the experience wasn't too positive. There were too many people today, and a group of youngsters were fishing like 1metre from me, and constantly crossing my lines. Furthermore, they were smoking non-stop and that really irritated the hell out of me.

And what you know, when I was washing my rod, I saw that the big guide of the President was a little bit slanted. I used my fingers to try to twist it back, and "piak", the guide and the metal ring broke! Boo hoo hoo...that was the end of my "new" rod, my "one fish unlucky lucky rod".







Argh!


Yum!


My Rod Graveyard.

SAFYC Broken Rod

Tonight's tide was a convenient tide, at around 9pm. This was just nice for a night out after dinner fishing. I had thought of the changi boardwalk after dinner at CV, but it drizzled a little. So, somewhere safe and comfortable would be better. SAFYC was just round the corner, and I thought to try it out tonight.

Reaching there, as was expected, there wasn't any crowd. Not since they introduced the $5 per rod charge for fishing here. As I walked in, the collection man was already there making his rounds. Turned out that this man was the owner of the marina tackle there. This should be some kind of arrangement with the YC management to supplement his business. But I thought it counter-productive, as this would reduce the amount of people visting, and hence lesser sale from his shop.

Anyway, he was a nice gentleman and would greet everyone nicely. I chat with him a paid a fiver for a rod. I thought of sneaking out another rod, but I noted that he was quite viligant in his rounds, and decided against it. Everyone else seemed to be following the rules.

Good thing with this scheme was that the jetty wasn't packed at all, and I even managed to move quite far out in the jetty for a spot. There were like about 5 groups of people fishing, and that was it.

I had gotten a small pack of live prawns and did some bottom fishing at first. But the first 2 fishes that I brought up, turned out to be Kitties again (eel tail cats). I then decided to do some prawn spinning and changed my weight to a lighter one and did a slow reeling in after casting. But that wasn't effective. I managed to get a strong bite near the edge of the jetty at the bottom and when I fought it up to the surface, it turned out to be a fairly big puffer. Due to its weight, I couldn't reel in up straight away with the drag setting. Just as I was tightening the drag, the hook suddenly came off the puffer. Too bad, else I should have a pic. Surprisingly, the line nor hook was cut. Anyway, just a puffer.





Thereafter, the bites became less. Not sure why. But I did manage to have quite a few bites near the edge but didn't connect. Just as I was down to my last 2 prawns, I got a strong bite but due to my slowness, it got snagged. Even as I was tugging the line, I could feel it moving inwards. Fish must have had run into a hole and moving deeper. I didn't want to lose it and I held on as much as I could. My rod was doing a nice arc but I felt I was losing the battle. I tighten the drag some more, and suddenly, there was a "piak", and my upper part of my favourite lemax rod broke into 3. I held on with my now much shorten rod and pulled as hard as I could. The line suddenly got loosen and came up with the hook missing. Wow, that must had been a big one. Too bad now I would never know what.

Lesson learnt: Never force a snag by bending the rod. :(. My line was rated 15lbs, rod rated 8-17lbs..didn't expect the rod to give way.