Rakit PL - Queenie attack

This week, Eric was keen to try out the Rakit and so off we go again to visit what that had come to be my regular haunt. We reached the Rakit about 9am, with the tide turning to come up in a few hours.

The morning started well with nice cool weather. The water seemed alright to me and I was habouring high hopes of a fruitful catch. But we soon learnt that the fishing was quite tough with hardly any catches from jigging. The tambans were simply nowhere to be found. Eric got lucky and caught the one and only tamban for the trip.

Unlikely star of the day


Kal-Kar-ying


Waiting for the bell


Good rod bending fight


A Duri


But one thing that was plentiful, was the humble glassfish. Seeing that we hardly got any live bait, Eric experimented with sending out a glassfish drifting in the water. He was fishing at a certain spot with a certain chair, and that was the lucky spot for the day. His bell on the the rod kept ringing and the first catch of a Duri that put up a good fight came on board. Duri was caught on dead prawn meat.

A group doing boat fishing (rentable from the rakit)


This is better than the playground swing


Kitty enjoying a glass fish meal


Fishing for food for Kitty


The children had fun playing happy family with the resident baby cat. They took turns caring for it and fishing for fishes for it to eat. :)

Sweet success! Second Kurau for Eric, which almost dropped back into the sea


Close up




Though Duri wasn't particularly a good one, it was a good prelude to better things to come. Eric's lucky spot soon had the bell ringing again. The fish put up a very good fight and when it surfaced, we thought it another Duri. But on closer inspection, it turned up to be the prizest catch of a Threadfin! A Threadfin at the Rakit was the least expected fish as I had never seen anyone catching it so far. So it was a beaming Eric with the Threadfin snapping pictures all the way to the icebox.

I wasn't doing that well and the only actions that I had was some takes by todaks disturbing my live prawns. But my hooks were too large and they would throw out the hook very quickly.

Todaks kept us entertained


Eric's long awaited Queen fish! Pretty big too




Eric's lucky spot did the magic again, and he was soon the proud owner of another first, a Queen for him! This trip, it was certainly a record breaking one. At the end of the day, he was to have two Queenies under his belt, a Duri, a Kurau(Threadfin), along with some four or five todaks.

D "picked" up this juvenile Cobia from somewhere. We released it :P


Desperate for glass fish bait. Fishing from the hole


Era fishing for glass fish (our supplier)


Holy smoke. Another queen for Eric


Finally! A queen for me too


Happy family


My second queen! :))


I did a hook change to a smaller one, and did manage to catch my first todak for the year, after a long dry spell of going todakless. I also was quite happy when a Queen, similar to Eric's, went for our glassfishy bait dinner. It was a great discovery that the what we used to think of as pest glassfish turned out to be such an effective bait. At the end of the trip, I had another lucky catch of a Queen that fiestily took my tamban jig when it was almost at the surface.

So it did turn out a be a fruitful trip indeed, despite the poor catches of baitfish. We now would never look at the glass fish as a nuisance. It really did save what might had been a fishless day.

Sembawang SAFYC

Our command centre


TC called out of the blue to fish at Sembawang YC at night. It sounded interesting as I had never done that before. I didn't know that fishing was allowed there, although I had been there quite a few times for food and drinks. It should be a members only priviledge.

So the time was set to 9pm and we would met there. Reaching there, I had to sign in, and indicate that I would be there for fishing. :). No one was there, and we had the whole place to ourselves. But a few other people came later on, with long rods, and ciggie smokes.

My general feel of the place was quite positive. Tide was high, and I could see many fishes jumping around big patches of rippling in the water. Under the lights, many crabs were swimming across. Being a Jetty, it felt like a sotong place. It was also quite comfortable, as there was a table for working our rigs. A and the children sat there to play games on my phone. When they got bored, the children also used the facilities there, like the playground and the arcade. Toilet was just round the corner. Only problem was, the light was very dim. Luckily, I had my cap light with me. Better than nothing.

So, it took a while longer to setup, as the visibility wasn't very good. I first tried to do some luring with my newly bought pin minnow, hoping to get a lucky strike. But cast here and there, nothing. Caught some plastic bags, and once, stuck on the rope used for mooring. I had to wade into the ramp to ankle deep water to unravel it.

I changed rig after a while and tried to go for squid. Out came my new Yamashita to test water. But trying out a few places, like near the boats, under the jetty, near the platform. All yielded nothing.

Where my squid?


The happy fisherman


My only catch


The one that didn't get away.


TC bountiful catches


I next changed to small hooks as I wanted to see what fishes were those there seem to be abundant at the surface. Finally, when I got one, it turned out to be glass fish. The spot just below the table, seemed to be a nest. TC got his shortly after mine, and he went on to get more than 10. I didn't want to hit anymore glass fish, and change position to test the water. Few bites, but all got away. Strange. In the end, I went back to my squid jig again, but nothing was biting.

TC said he would leave after getting his 10. I also didn't want to continue anymore. It just seemed to be glassfish all the way. Maybe, it was just that the water was quite dirty here. Not a very good spot after all. So, around 11.30pm, we packed and left for home.