Luring at Secret Place

There was a meetup at CV, and it was a good time to go back to Secret Place for some recce. The last time, the way via the normal entrance to the sea was blocked. I wanted to see if it was reopened again after all these months.

The road in seemed better now, as the contruction was nearing its end. There was a possible route to the sea, but I could only stop the car a distance away and trekked a little to get to the water.

The beach here was nice and relatively clean. However, while I was setting up, I was attacked by sand flies. A and D got it too. The bites were terrible. I had got more than 10 bites on both my legs and 1 on my arm. D got about 5, and A also about 5. Got to be more alert about them next time. We were like, "oh, sand flies..." and had still hung around the area. :(

I spent about 1 hour luring with my Crystal Minnow, but it was largely fruitless. My rod was only a 6 footer, and I couldn't cast too far. Use the cow strength a bit more, I would get birdnest on my rod. It happened 2 or 3 times, and I had to waste time untangling the mess.

I spied a small fish scattering away, and that brought my hopes up a little. During the hour session, there was a definite bite. Unfortunately, it didn't connect. In my haste to cast again, I hit out a little too hard, and ended with a "5 minute to untangle" birdnest. After that, nothing much except for algae and seaweed.

As I was going off, a group of malays came in with long rods. I suppose they were planning to camp the night here. It was already 6+pm. Seeing my time was up, I packed to go.

Girl with coconut sapling

Bream

Felt a little sick today, and weather wasn't that great. Got flu virus going around, and my body was resisting to fall sick. Bones were aching a little and generally, didn't feel great. It was drizzling in Woodlands, but I packed my stuff just in case. Only thing that I did not bring was the icebox. I half suspected that the weather in the East should be better, if not raining. True enough, by the time I drove to CV, the rain was very slight. I got some prawn meat from Riverland and drove down to Secret place, hoping that the gate would be open.

And indeed, to my pleasant surprise, it was. So happily, I zipped right in and in no time, was at my favourite corner by the canel. However, a lone man was there occupying the corner. While I was setting up, he got something, but I couldn't make it out from my angle.

Since it was still drizzling, I only setup a single rod. The rain was very slight, and from the clouds, I didn't think that it would last very long. This time round, I wanted to experiment a little and didn't want to use small hooks. I would have gotten lots of small fishes with small hooks for sure, but I wanted to target something bigger.





There were lots of bites, but due to my big hooks (size 4), I couldn't get any hookup. I was sure that if I really wanted, it would not be a problem to get at least a dozen or so pasir pasir or emperors. Lots of them here. I was only lucky one time and managed to get something of decent size. (200-300g). It was a bream. Gotten in Kelong before, but first time in Singapore waters. I was already quite satisfied with the catch. Since I didn't have an icebox, I released the fellow. Thereafter, nothing much and I packed around 6pm and moved out of the place. Kind of worried that the gate would be closed. But it was still wide opened and there wasn't any problem getting out.

After coming out, driving down the road, it started to rain. Hm, I had been lucky that the secret place was kind of the only place that wasn't raining. Well, not too bad that I still had the chance to fish a little this weekend.

Biggest Ray for the Year

I was pretty much stuck in Singapore as I only realized recently that my passport had less than 6 months validity after this Friday. So, all plans for kelong escapade was dashed. To console myself, I decided to try out Secret Spot again. The last attempt with Andrew and Elyn was quite promising. I tied some rigs with small hooks and came down after popping by CV for live prawns and dead fish meat.

On the way, saw a dog lying on the mud. Hmm, some kind of spa treatment. Seeing my car approaching, it stood up and walk away. Missed the shot of him inside the mud.

I rigged up 2 rods, lemax and light tackle. But light tackle didn't seem to work well again. I was suspecting that it could be my rod then. Might be my light action was not good for setting of small hooks. But not all was lost and I managed my first with a small wrasse.











Lemax on live prawns was having quite bit of action. I had a bell on and quite frequently, there would be sudden spurts of ringing indicating a bite. But prawns were either coming back headless or missing. However one time, I got lucky. I had thot as first that I hit a snag...and left the rod to handle my light tackle. But all of sudden, the rod took a dip and there was a strong pull. I picked up the rod and stuck and I was on to something big. It would peel my lines off the reel left and right. The rod was bending a nice parabolic and the fight was good. After 5 minutes, I managed to pull the fish up to the surface. I was hoping for a KBL, but to my surprise, it was a ray. This was to be my biggest yet, and it was quite a good fight. Seeing that the ray was quite big, I tried to pull it over to the sea wall to lift it up. Luckily I did that as while the ray was on the rocky incline, the line snapped at the swivel. (poor knotting skills) But the ray was safely landed.





Thereafter, I got a flathead and then some spangled emperors. Seeing the darkening sky, I packed and headed for CV for dinner. Very promising place, and the best was that there wasn't anyone else. I was tempted to come back here the next morning for another round. Hopefully, I would be able to get my KBL for the year by tomorrow, being the last day of the year 2006.