Labrador Park

It had been a very long while since I was here. ZW and I did the crazy thing of trying out luring on friday nite, and then back here again to try out the Jetty the next day. I was hopeful of hitting a possible chermin, and we dropped by Regal Tang to get ammos(live prawns).

We reached there around 4.30pm, by which time the sun wasn't so hot. Water looked good and some folks were getting good strings of Tambans consistently. Not sure what's wrong with ZW and my tamban rigs. We just weren't hitting them and the people next to us were like filling in their iceboxes. I sheepishly swallowed my pride and asked the lady what's her secret. Apparently, it was no other than using the "unbranded" tamban hooks of size 3-4. Mine was a elephant size of 8 and hence can only catch elephant fish. ZW was using another type of brand. Tambans here are brand conscious.

We let out some bottom with live prawns and did the waiting game. ZW also tried a floating rig. At the end of the day, all were unproductive. Although there were some signs of some sea monsters killing our live prawns, we didn't bring anything up from the deep blue sea.

Some someone caught a small green eye(sotong) and that proved to me that eging was still quite possible, although tedious here.

*Sigh*

Lab Park - Search for Mas Selamat

Psst...seen him anywhere?


Bite me, todaks!


TC wanted to try Lab Park so there we went. I wasn't too hopeful as the past few trips had been quite a bummer. However, today was a tad different. There were army personnels everywhere, searching for the elusive Mas Selamat Kestari, the JI terror fugitive. Even at the Jetty. No wonder no one was "testing" water to fish at the aisle for the fear of the $5000 fine.

As expected nothing productive, except for the resident todaks chasing my lures. Darn, how to catch a todak on lure, I wonder?

Lab Park part 2

Jess called and asked if I was fishing. Seeing their interest to join me, I said to try Lab Park. Yesterday's session was short and Lab Park was a comfy place to meet. But at 2pm, the weather was a scorching hot day. Jess came with her four new tenants from china. Two of them were rather keen in fishing. We started mainly around the Jetty entrance at the beginning for shade. But from that angle, we had to tussle with rocks and shallow water as the tide was low at 2. One of the boys did manage to get a wrasse. Not bad under the conditions.

Two of the boys that loved fishing


A cardinal (was released)


Unusual sight of a fly fisherman here


Nice looking fish by Shawn


Tiny grouper. Just nice for my tank


Grouper take away in large Macdonalds cup


But at 4, the water started to come up. The weather then was quite breezy and overcast. We moved to the Jetty area to continue. I spied todaks around the area, and tried to get them on float. But the todaks here were intelligent and were very cautious about dead prawns floating around them. However, I did manage 2 runs, but unfortunately they lost connection. Shawn and boys had some small fishes although the fishing was rather difficult. We keep one of the small groupers alive and I brought it back to keep my archer company :)

End of the day, I the so called "expert" was fishless. :(

Lab Park post renovation visit

I had heard that the Lab Park Jetty was reopening after the CNY holidays. I wanted to do some luring and took the opportunity to go for a look see to check out what had changed for the Jetty.

Still closed at night

$5000!

Spankling floor


Reaching there around 6pm, apparently nothing much had changed. Only visible change was the flooring, which had a new coating of cement. The rules were still the same: No fishing on the main aisle (fine $5000!) and the jetty would be closed at 8pm.

The jetty was not the best place to be luring due to the height from the water. But nevertheless, I rigged up my new luring rig to try out. Out went my favourite crystal minnow for some swim but nothing was biting. I tried some squidding with my new Yozuri Q tiny jig, but again nothing too. But the water looked good though...the bluish green type. I spied quite a number of todaks hanging around too.

The sky turned dark rather quickly and seeing that the time was up, I packed. On the way out, saw the Jiaga coming in to shoo people out before he locked the gate for the night. Strangely, like some people didn't know and at 7.50pm, I still see some of them coming in with all their fishing barangs.

Dragon Tooth Gate

What eating too much candy will do to your tooth


I hadn't really try out the new Lab Park Extension during the day, and decided to swing by. But reaching there, people was jammed packed with people, and scorching hot. The new extension was pretty shelterless, and hence I walked a little down the towards the old park.

I managed to find a little spot between two surfcasters just at the Dragon Tooth Gate sculpture, and did some fishing with prawn meat. But totally zero bites at all. And also nothing despite downsizing my hooks all the way to size 8. The terrain here also very trickly. Throw too near, sangkot as there are lots of rocks just in front of the railings. So need to cast far. Water was choppy and I couldn't feel any bites throughout the afternoon. But I spied some small todaks jumping around the water, which was a good sign. Water was quite clear too.

Actually a nice luring spot, standing on the rock


After a while, surfcaster on the right left. I decided to do some luring. So climbed over the railings and stood on the rock for some casting. First cast, saw a todak following my lure. Quite encouraging. But after that, cast and cast and nothing was biting.

The weather took a sudden turn, and started raining cats and dogs. I hardly had time to pack, and we were all soaked to the skin. But the children found it fun and was quite an experience.

*Sigh* Another fishless day.

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.

Squid Fishing - Lab Park

I had been on this quest to hunt for squidable locations in Singapore. Ponggol Jetty, tried. Next in line, was the Lab Park that I frequent. This time there, main target was to get a squid. My largest squid in Singapore was a measly puny sized one.

High tide today was around 10pm. So reaching there, I was expecting to see exposed rocks in the afternoon. Surprisingly, the low tide itself was rather high. Current was slow, and casting a float, it would stay in the general area for perhaps 10 mins.




I rigged up my Yamashita and went around hunting for squid at the Jetty. Not long into the fishing, someone caught a very nice sized Chermin (~2-3kg). I was full of envy.

I had gotten live prawns today, since it had been sometime since I had fished with live prawns. (not counting the boat trip). So, I setup a float, with a metre long leader on live prawns and tossed it out, chanting for "chermin, please come". But float got no business, and the most was just drifting here and there.

My squidding attempt, did not seem promising at first. Totally no taps or anything. But about 15 mins into it, I suddenly saw with my eyes, a squid going after my yamashita. Yeehaa. But unfortunately, this squid quite smart, and didn't grab my lure. After a while, it was lost. Arrgh.

Biggest Squid in Singapore to date


And another time, while meddling with my float rig, I saw another squid going for my live prawn. Wow! This time, I rig up my Yozuri, orange 3 one, and cast it out. I thought that my jig might be too big, hence no bite. About 10 minutes later, a tap was felt. But I wasn't too sure, as the place was quite snaggy with weeds. It might just be weeds. But pulling in the line, yahoo!, a squid. But the squid was only caught on 1 tentacle, and I was quite worried that I would lost it. But luckily, the hookup held, and I managed to swing it over the fence, and onto my things. Bad mistake. Black ink all squirt out and mess up my belongings.

Excited children exploring the squid


Some people were passing by and were quite delighted to see a live squid being caught. Of these, there was a lady with 2 pri school children. They were so excited, that I offered them to touch the squid and take some pictures. In fact, they asked lots of questions, and hang around to see me catch another. Stressed! But after that, squids all gone. Totally no bite at all.

The jetty became dark, and would be closed soon. I moved all my rods to the Park area to continue fishing. But the Park was dim, and fishing became quite difficult. My Yozuri got caught in a snag, and was lost since it was only an 8 lb leader. Ouch. I had been losing quite a fair bit of lures, hurting my pocket.

Splish Splash - Lab Park

This morning, went down to SLS to look for my phone charger. Eventually found it, but I had to get the original O2 one, otherwise there was a chance that it would not work again. All my road trips, I had this problem with my phone not being able to charge in the car, running the risk of my phone going low batt in Malaysia. New charger seemed to work well, and problem was solved.



Since I was around Beach road, I dropped by for some tackle shopping. The weather was quite good, I got a pack of prawns from Joe Tackle to do some light fishing later. However, the prawns from Joe didn't look like the usual ones I got from CV. The prawns were more whitish and costed $3. Nevertheless, I bought a pack. Driving aimlessly around, I decided to head for Lab Park to try out some other fishing technique.



This time, we settled down on the left side. First, I tried to do floating, but it wasn't successful. The waves were strong, and the float was back to the rocky banks in no time. I next rigged up my newly bought ranggong. From my boat fishing, I realized that these niffy gadgets were quite necessary, especially when the current was strong. Strong current = line twist. Ranggong was designed to minimise this. Futhermore, it looked quite pretty, with the shiny beads and all.





I casted out far, beyond the rocks. This area was the place that I had snagged so many times. Within minutes, I definitely felt some bites. Pulling up the lines, baits all gone. Just like fishing at the other end. It might be those wrasses again. I rebaited and casted out once more. Finally, there was quite a strong tap. I struck and was delighted to feel some wriggling at the other end of the line. Retrieved it back, there was a beautiful "Butterfly whiptail". I took some pics and decided to release the fellow.





Almost all of a sudden, the waves became very strong and choppy. The high tide today was very high, and due to the high water level, the waves were breaking up the banks of the park, and splashing sea water on people passing by. I couldn't quite fish, without getting wet. Seeing the situation, I decided to call it a day. Not too bad for a short fishing, since I already had a fish.

Small fish action - Lab Park

I think today I solved a great mystery of life. That of: What has been eating my bait in Lab Park when I go there fishing, before getting my lines snagged in the merciless rocks. After D swimming lessons, tide was a good timing at about 2.30pm. So natuarlly, good for an afternoon spot of fishing. But the problem was (and a big one), it would be too darn hot. Lab Park seems to fit the bill for a shady and comfortable place. Only if I don't get snagged, that is.



Reaching there at around 11.30am, the rocks were all exposed. I thought of fishing near at the Park end, near to the Jetty. From the low water, there was a section where the rocks were quite sparse. From that angle, I could cast near to the Jetty at the mid section. Also from the low water, I could see where the algaes were growing. Not a bad place I would say.





I rigged up a size 8, small hook apollo and baited with some prawn meat from yesterday's leftovers. First cast, already got bites. But pulling up the lines, baits all gone. I did some experiment, and I found that the baits were eaten up in 10-20 secs flat after the rig hit the water. That was some mightly fast action. My suspicions were that there must be very small fishes that were doing that. I changed the rig to a size 3 tamban jig, and baited with prawn meat again. This time round, same bites, but I managed to catch the culprit. Pulling up the line, a Wrasse. I was to go on to get a few more, 1 of which was a fairly big one (Seagrass Tuskfish). No wonder I couldn't even get these fellows on a size 8 hook. Their mouths were super tiny, and even a size 8 wouldn't fit.



I also did a spot of experimentation with grubs. With my apollo rig, I pinched 2 white grubs on it and lure it back and forth. But unfortunately, nothing at all.



At the end of the session, I counted 6 in total. I also got a silvery fish, but the lead weight got snagged at the sea wall. I yanked it free, but the fish fell off and dropped on the sea wall to roll back to the sea. Lucky bugger. Couldn't quite ID the fish, but it looked like a Gelema.





Andrew gave a tinkle and asked to go for Shermaine's WuShu competition at Toa Payoh. We packed and met him there. There was a drinks machine featuring a "mystery" drink. My curiosity was piqued, and I slotted coins for one. Out came a Marinda Orange. :)



Wushu comp was interesting, and there was an outstanding girl that scored 9.5/10. Fantastic. Another highlight was a tiny boy (Looked P3), and he did a very impressive combo of Kungfu stance. I think he scored like 8 or there about.

Recce - Ponggol Right, and a First at Lab Park!

I had gotten tired of getting Peacocks, and didn't do my usual visit to LSR. Instead, after D's swimming, I went for a quick recce at Ponggol End. I had visited the Jetty before. But I heard that to the right side, there were lots of places to fish.

Ponggol Jetty. Hot hot hot


Beach front


Leading to the river mouth


At the river mouth


Desiree was here!


True enough, it was a big area on the right side. Some beach front, ending with some sea walls leading to a wide river into Singapore. Aha, this must be the way in to the river that I would past by on the TPE. Interesting. A found some petai, and went about collecting them. I trekked further in until it got quite far away. The whole stretch was indeed a big place. But the main problem was that this was quite a rough fishing area. The Sun, would be mightly hot, and getting fried was a sure thing.

No fishing at ECP


I next move on to East Coast Park to see if I could try fishing from a sea bund. But to my surprise, there was actually a No Fishing sign. I didn't know that there was No fishing at designated area. Must be a new ruling. The explanation was for the wind surfer's safety. Hm, I quite agreed that with fishing folks around (especially with long rods), it would be a safety hazard.

D had her lunch here and we waited till she was done before continuing the search for fishing ground. Singapore is just running out of fishable areas. With not much options, I headed for Lab Park again. I think to date, this would be my most friendly and comfortable fishing place.

Best Jigging corner


My first Lab Park Tamban!


Today, I tried the Jetty, being quite a cool day. The sun wasn't very hot today, and I was able to stand there for a couple of hours. My plan was to try some jigging for Tamban. So setting up the rod, I went in search for Tambans. After trying about 10 spots , moving from one to the another, it was always coming up empty. I got quite discouraged for a while, until there were some Malays at the other end started to hit some. Wow. Given the assurance that it was quite possible, I continued to jig and jig. I moved closer to the spot to improve my chance. There were 2 young boys (around pri5/6) who were jigging for tambans too. Their Dad was just standing one corner looking. They got quite a few of the Tambans and were very successful in the jigging. All the uncles there were put to shame. I was very impressed and commended them on the good job. I sneaked closer to their spot, and managed to hit my very FIRST fish at Lab Park. A Tamban. :). Great! That broke my Zero record here. I went on then to get a few more...ending with a total of 5. But what precious 5 they were.

Queenie!


The 2 boys got lucky again, and pulled up a nice fish. A Queenie! Wow...but it was a small one. They thot it was another Tamban. I went to them and told them that it was a Queen fish and was a good catch. With their permission, I took a photo. :)

After that, all the Tamban action went dead. I had enough and move back to the seats at the park. I tried to do some baiting. But even though I cast quite far, it was still snaggy and I lost 1 or 2 rigs. I also rigged my "shaky worms" and repeated casting again no effect. My bait rig got a small bite and I quickly took the rod and gave a strike. But the problem with this place is that you cannot retrieve the line slowly, else it would surely snag. So on my quick retrieve, I wasn't sure if there was a fish. But midway, My reel did a ziiiip for 3 secs, and then went dead. Argh! There was a fish and a strong one to pull out my line like this. (drag was quite high). Another one that got away.

After that, it was getting late. I packed up and went for a celebratory dinner for my Tambans. :)

Miserable tryout again at Lab Park

I was hoping for a more fruitful trip, this being my 3rd attempt. But still, the grub was not working. There were less snags this time, as I retrieved it fairly quickly after the lure sank and hit the bottom. But tide timing was not too good. The water was already receding. I tried for a while and gave up. Things were definitely not lookin up. :(

Dismay Grouper Hunt at Jurong Park, Lab Park

Jetty at Jurong Lake


Tortoise caught by the Malay Uncle


Another dismay attempt today to get my first grouper on lure. But due to the tide timings, I had popped by Jurong Lake for an early exercise first. I had been here quite long ago, and didn't get any fish then. So, I thought given my improved skills, maybe today would be different.

I setup a Texas rig with my while grub. The Jetty was already filled with 2 other people. One was an malay uncle with 3 rods. He was using bread and doing baiting. In his keepnet, he already had some Tilapia looking fishes. I couldn't possibly get Tilapias on lure, so was hoping for a toman or PB. But this place, didn't look like a PB location. But I spied quite a number of rises, and wasn't too sure it was Toman. Throwing my rigs there didn't do anything. Throughout the whole time, I didn't see any PBs, even the tiny ones.

I cast and cast and was quite hopeless. All I got for during the 2 hours there was 2 bites, and that was it. I gave up and decided to move to Labrador again, to try for Groupers.

Reaching there, we parked ourselves at the other end, nearer to the Jetty. The weather, while being hot at Jurong Lake, turned into a very nice, all windy and cooling. That sort of weather before a rain with leaves rustling and dropping kind. But the best thing was, the rain didn't come. At least not in the Park. I thought the rainclouds moved somewhere else north.

Lab Park


Terrible Bird Nest


I was still getting snags despite all my attempts to make the grub snagless. I lost quite a bit of "shaky" worms, with hooks and sinkers in the process. The rocks in Lab Park were totally no joke. It literally eats up hooks and sinkers. All short rodders beware. This time round, the bites were totally not there. Even the tails were intact. I tried out my 7' Bass Power worms, but it wasn't too effective for salt water I think. Things turned a little better when the tide came up around 5pm. I felt quite a number of bites, but had no luck in getting a hook up. During my last cast, my rig hit onto the railings and my reel spun into a terrible birdnest. So much so that I had to snip off quite a fair bit of my firelines. After that, totally no mood. Futhermore, a big group of about 4 youngster came to my corner and took up the whole place. Once they started smoking, it was time to go. So defeated and back to the drawing board, I packed and left.