Ah Eng Boat

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 :)

SAF Yacht Club Sea Wall

It has been a while visiting this place. Seeing that tide table said it would be a nice evening hightide, I decided to try out here again. During the day, it would be hot like the sahara desert, but in the evening, it is a nice breezy spot with good view and open sea.

Shawn came along all the way from Lab Park where he was fishing. We reached the place rather late at 5pm thereabout. The fishing period here is rather limited as once the sun goes down, it would be pitch dark like anything.

Old man and the sea


It wasn't too crowded, and there was ample space for everyone fishing here. Despite that the entrance said that this area to be restricted with the cartoon of the soldier shooting at the trespassers, it never was any problem for the fishing folks here.

Shawn finally broke the egg


I started luring but ended not being able to get into the swing of things. My lines kept making "char bee hoon" (fishing slang for entangled lines) due to the strong inward wind. Therefore, my casts were like quite short and limited distance. Shawn went on to do bottom fishing. However it was quite rocky area here and bottom fishing was difficult. He finally managed to get a small snapper on Sabiki with prawn meat.

Looks like good ground for these critters


There were some uncles there fishing for small fishes like scats and rabbits, I think. They all seemed to congregate around the stone.

Path to Secret Garden


The uncles left and one of them returned to ask for help to push the van that was stucked at the forested area. We finally did manage to get the van unstuck and from this, I realized that there was another way in for the fishing here.

Mr lure, where the fish?


Very nice dinner for some people tonight


We didn't get anything respectable at the end of the fishing. But on the way out, we passed by this 2 malay man who was holding a line with 2 chermins. Wow. From my converstaion with them, it was gotten 15 minutes back and on live prawns. Seeing such a catch, my faith in this area was restored.

I shall be back.

Lost Chermin - Lab Park

It was a perfect day for an evening hour of fishing. Tide was around 8pm, just nice for a late afternoon into 8, catching the rising tide sort of thing. Andrew texted to fish this Sat, since P2 was to be with his nanny. We discussed about various places, but I decided on targetting for Chermin in comfort. Since we were attacked by sandflies 2 days ago, A and I didn't want to do any rough ground fishing just yet. To make things even better, weather was just great, the overcast, cool and windy type. It was just great to be on a jetty with such a setting. On a normal day, standing on this jetty at 4pm would indeed be a crazy thing to do.



I arrived rather early after getting prawns from Taman Jurong. But, as there were some events going on, the parking lots were all taken up. I had to park a little far from the Park itself. This didn't look like the usual crowd for a Sat afternoon. But I realized that it might have been the school holidays. Anyway, these were not the fishing crowd, and the Jetty was just as empty like normally.



I took some time to set up a normal apollo rig. Chermins seemed to be best targeted by a 2 hook apollo. My other rod was for squidding, my usual try out while I wait sort of activity. Andrew came around 5pm, and made the mistake of parking rather far away. There used to be this shortcut to the Jetty, but it was closed. For that, he had to make a long walk to reach the Jetty. Before he arrived, I had a few wriggles on my rod, but nothing was hooked. He too rigged up 2 rods, one for chermin, and the other for small fishes.

Seeing that my squidding was not productive, I changed to tamban jig and did some jigging. It was fairly successful, and I caught I think about 10 or so. With a tamban, I changed the jigging rod to a floating rig, and waited out for any surface action.

Despite a few trembling on the rod tip, I couldn't get anything. There were some possible signs of crab action on our baits. We lost a few bites, due to the prawns being eaten on the top half. Might just be signs of crabs.





The sun started to set, and it was a pretty sight. I could understand why I had met quite a number of photography enthusiast on my many trips here. It was a nice place to be catching the setting sun, against all the backdrops of ships and refineries. I took some setting sun pics, but with my lousy phone cam, it didn't look that good.



It started getting late, into the 7+pm, when suddenly, Andrew's rod gave a nod. He picked it up, and all of a sudden, the line started spooling out and rod turned into a bent. I helped to remove the bell, and the fight was on. From the left of the jetty, he moved to the right to try control the fish on the other end. When it surfaced, all gushed in awe at a nice 1+kg chermin in the water. But it was rather heavy, and Andrew asked for his DIY gaff into his bag. I took it out to him, but didn't managed to gaff the moving target. Seeing that the fish wasn't too big, he decided to try lift it out of the water with his line.

But it was a bad decision as the hook gave way, and he lost the fish. However, mr chermin was still swimming in circles round and round the water. It must have been wounded. Down went the gaff, but it didn't find the right position to get a hook up. Furthermore, it was rather late already and the visibity wasn't so good. After a while, it disappeared from sight, and was gone. Such a waste.



After that, it got quite dark and it was pretty hard to see anything. We aimed to pack at about 8pm, just nice to leave for dinner. While we were packing, all of a sudden, from the south, we saw a huge ball of orange flames flared up into the sky. Wow, it looked alot like fireworks. But if it was not, it was certainly something serious going on. We were too far away to hear any sound. I tried to get a picture, but by the time I got the camera ready, the fire had susided. Maybe we would read about it in the papers.

We left the place around 8. It was a good attempt today, and what a waste about the chermin, else it would certainly be a very fruitful trip. But this definitely confirmed that this place was productive for Chermin. I would surely want to try it again another time.

National Day Diamond

Today, was our Nation 41st birthday. I had won 2 lucky tickets for the parade and so the plan for the day was to have A and D attend the birthday bash, while I would be fishing somewhere nearby.

We left the house early, around 11am, so that we could find a good lot to park and later walk to the stadium. Most of the roads round there would be close from 2pm, so we circled around to find the best location. After a while, we settled down with the Kallang river park, as from there, it was just a 10-15 minutes walk to the stadium. I noted that the area under the nicoll highway flyover looked interesting for some fishing. In fact, there were already some rods in that vicinity.

We walked there and found that there was another group of boys/uncles fishing already. I setup my light tackle, as usual to test out the water. While I was playing with the sabiki hooks, the other group caught some fishes, one of which was quite decent. From a distance, it looked like a good size Grunter. The man thought it was a KBL and shouted out, but realized his mistake soon after.

My light tackle was coming out of the water with baits taken, although there wasn't any catches. It was a good sign. Maybe it was just that I was using a bit larger hooks, hence no catches. I setup my Contender and my Rapala also, one on my apollo rig, and the other on my KBL floating rig. I was still hoping for my first KBL.

A man came on a bicycle and parked himself next to me. Later, he started chit chatting with me and I realized he is a china man, although didn't look like it. He was nice, and quite a good company. I tried hard to follow his strong "tsing tao" accent but only managed to understand him about 50%.



A brought D to the toilet and I had to guard the things. So, I was quite a distance away from the rods. All of a sudden, my rod rang out (the bells) and did a strong jump (almost dropped into the sea here). Something had taken the prawns and it felt like a biggie. Luckily, I had set the drag correctly and the rod didn't fall into the water. I ran over and did a strike and immediately, it was a hookup. The pull was quite strong and my reel was going ziip ziip....with lines pulling off. But it got tired after a while and I managed to bring it to the edge of the water. I was quite curious as to what fish this was, half expecting another catfish.

But to my surprise, it was a chermin. Wow, for the water here, I would never have expected a chermin (diamond trevally). I thought these fishes are out in the open sea. I lifted it out of the water and it was struggling. To my good luck, the hooks held firm and I did manage to lift it out and land it on the ground. The china man came over to help me and he did all the unhooking and putting the fish near my icebox. Haha, after that, he was quite chatty to me.

During the hookup, the fish ran round the other group lines and one of them came over to untangle the mess. For a while, we were not sure if it was my hook or his that got the fish. But it was later confirmed that the hookup was mine. Anyway, he told me that he also know that his rig would not be able to get a chermin, as he was using worms. He seemed quite a knowledgable fisho. Quite a nice chap actually. On the way back, we exchanged smiles.





A and D came back and was surprised to see my catch. But what a waste that they had missed the action. I re-baited the rod and went about with my other rods. About 15 minutes later, I got another strong pull on my rod. Wow, it was incredible. This one felt like a big fish too...like the first one. But I managed to subdue this fish quite quickly as it swim over to my right side where I had space to pull it in. I lifted it up and to my surprise again, it was another chermin! What luck. But this one is smaller as we can tell from the size. This time, A and D saw the action and came to help. D was very excited and wanted to take pics with it too. I let her hold on to the fish and we snapped a few pics for memories. The fish although looking quite spikely, is actually quite a tame fish. No sharp teeth and spines or anything.



Shortly after, A and D went to the stadium for the parade. By this time, the tide had already gone down quite a bit and you could already see the sandy floor. The action quieten down and there were no more bites. The china man rod did some bending but I felt that he struck too late. By the time he pulled back, the prawn was already eaten. (he was using dead prawns).





Seeing a crowd gathering to watch the fireworks from the stadium, I felt that I had enough for the day and packed. I put the things into the car and waited out for the parade to end. Back home, we cooked one of it and tasted real good.