We Got Caught

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. :))

KFC - My Birthday Present

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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LSR - End of my dry spell

D resumed her swimming lessons, and due to that I would be normally be near LSR during Sundays. Seeing that I had gone fishless for sometime, perhaps it was good idea to go back to boot camp for some training and practising.

LSR fishing had sort of degraded due to the kayaking activities, particulary during the weekends. Seeing that most of the activity was near the Jetty, I positioned myself near the other end next to the country club. Sun was a little hot, and I tried to get whatever shade under the tree where I can. I started off with my little River2Sea Sub crank

PB summoning harmonica music


After some 10 casts or so, I was starting to get discouraged. The weather sort of turned nice, with some dark clouds gathering. It did drizzled for a little while, enough to give some sort of reprieve from the hot sun. I changed to my nippy 3D-150, hoping to change my luck. Just as I was thinking of going back empty handed again, I felt the all familiar thud. I had a fish on! Trying to maintain pressure on it, I turned my back shouting to the children to get the camera. But alas, this fish had the good idea of leaping out of the water to do a somersault. That somehow did the trick as I didn't give a good enough strike. Lure came loose and rubber banded back into the water. Argh! From the water surface, I could see that it was quite a small sized PB, (abt 500g?). That accounted for the poor setting of the hooks.

Heaving some sighs, I continued fishing to hope for another chance. Normally in a session, a strike was quite good already. And I had to lose it.

Moving towards to the further end, I tried casting and casting again. Suddenly, with my shades on, I visually saw 2 PB (one bigger, one smaller) scouting the water near the edge. Instinctly, I edged the lure right into their path. Interestingly, I saw the bigger PB looking at my lure, and springing into action to snap at it. The fish was like 5 metres away from me. I gave a yank, and I had it for good. Quickly, I dragged it out onto the walkway, and the fish was mine.







The baiters around me were quite impressed, seeing that this silly guy trying to fish with a plastic actually got something. I took some pictures quickly and tried to remove the hooks, as I wanted to release the fish. About 3 minutes later, I gently put the fish back into the water, and it immediately dashed away from me as fast as it's fishy tail could take it. Thanks to it, my luring confidence has returned. :)