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.

$8 fishing

I was doing some tackle shopping at Beach road when Andrew asked if there was any fishing tonight. Nothing was planned yet, and the weather was so wet. But I said to meet him for dinner at CV and we could go do some light fishing, weather permitting.

To our surprise, when we arrived around the vicinity, there wasn't any rain at all. At CV, seeing that Andrew had yet to arrive, I continued my tackle shopping at the shops there. I finally settled for my heavy tackle, and was all set for any sail fishing in the near future. But that really put a hole in my pocket.

The idea at first was to go broadwalk. But we had been there quite a few times. Wanting to try something different, and being the low tide, I suggested yacht club. Yeah, the fee was a ridiculous $8 per rod, but I thought that was the best location given the low tide.

Reaching there, we were shocked to see so many anglers. Looked like $8 was still quite cheap for most people. We moved all the way to the end, and was lucky to be able to get the prime spot, just next to the habour entrance to the Marina.



But prime spot or not, we didn't have much action. I did manage to get a good sizable bite, but due to my loose drag and my clumsy reaction, fish ran into a snag and couldn't be dislodged. It was probably a Grouper, as there are many Groupers lurking at that location. Seeing no chance, we snapped the line to try again.

AD took out his newly acquired slim max and got a Glass fish for christening. Thereafter I got an Emperor. Seeing that we didn't have any icebox, I released the fellow. AD finished up with a catch of a Kuku just under the jetty. We had a hard time trying to disgorge the hook from the mouth. After accomplishing that, we released it too.

Around 1.30am, my line got snagged and had to be snapped. After that, we called it a day. Not very fruitful despite the prime spot, but some activity nevertheless.

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.