Ah Fatt Kelong

TC finally managed to persude me to go kelong fishing this coming friday. I grudingly agreed despite the short notice, only condition was that I didnt want to head back to Hotboys. Already, I had been there twice this year, and there were countless kelongs to go to, already four in the vicinity of Sibu. So it was to be decided that we would try out Ah Fatt Kelong, the first in the series of the Sibu Kelongs. From the forum, it had been given a good rating.

(if you're travelling towards the kelongs from Tg. Leman jetty. From the left is Ah Fatt, followed by HB, Ah Ngan, then Ah Yew is on the rightmost.)

The journey begins


That Friday morning saw us getting onto TC's car. He was a little late and we found that going into JB at 7+am was not a good idea. The Jam was about half an hour and by the time we touched down to JB, I thought it was about 8pm. We had a quick Mac bf near to the one in Carrefour. But we were going to be ready late, (eta 10.30am). TC made a call to inform and it didn't seem to be a problem. There was an 11am boat. So, the timing was quite ok. Soon we were on the boat heading for the kelong.

Girl and Puffer = Power Puff Girl


Lots of this fish (selar papan)


My first rabbit fish


TC's first rabbit


My bream


Upon reaching the kelong, we unpacked and set about to do some easy fishing. TC got the first catch of the day with a kunning? like fish. I took a little longer but got quite a nice bream on my first catch. Not to bad. Bait for the day was sotong. The kelong sotong seemed effective and our icebox were soon piling up the body counts.

My two todaks for the trip


One pic with my todak for his luck (He was indeed lucky the next day)


But I wasn't quite satisfied in getting the same type of fishes and after a while, I rigged up my todak rig in an attempt to get my very first one. For some unknown reason, Mr todak wasn't interested in my bait fish on float. I thot about this for a while and decided to make the offering more juicy by filleting the fish and pegging it onto my gang hooks. The effect of the change was almost immediate. The moment the bait hit the water, a todak struck and dragged the line out from my almost free spool. The zinging sound was very exciting and in my haste and clumsiness, I took too long to strike and todak managed to come loose after some acrobatic jumps. But that fueled our hopes of hitting a todak that day, and I tried again and todak come round again for a second helping. This time round, I was a little more rehearsed, and did everything quite rightly. Locked bail, tighten drag, reeled in. And in a smooth swipe, my first todak landed on the deck, and I was all smiles all over. But the todak was a fiesty fighter and its awesome teeths were quite a dangerous weapon against anyone trying to get near. Someone told us that we need to give mr todak a few whack with the piece of solid wood on the floor. He did it for us and we were shocked that we had to cobble the poor fish senseless. But better him than us.

So, pictures were taken. Todak was rather large, I thought about 2 feet. Quite an impressive catch. TC now was all fired up about todak catching and abandoned his easy game of catching tiny fishes. I rigged up a set for him and off he had a go at todak fishing. Meanwhile, I managed to get another todak on hook and got it on the deck without much problems. TC got a few todaks having a go at the bait but he wasn't able to complete the action and the todaks managed to elude him for that day. I ran out of rig and that was the end of todak fishing that day.

Dinner


My first sotong for the night


TC's first sotong


Very soon, it was dusk and after dinner, I rigged up my sotong jig and the white rabbit jig for wolf herrings. But there was no luck for wolf herrings that night. I casted a few tenths of times, but no strikes at all. TC also had a go but also no luck. We went back to sotong jigging. Someone catch the first sotong effortlessly, like just trying for about 5 minutes. So, all sotong jigs went down the well and very soon, everyone was trying for one. But sotong was not in season, and the catches were quite few. I myself only got 2, and TC happily did manage his first one.

It started to drizzle and soon fishing was impossible. We went to catch some sleep hoping to come back to the fishing later in the night. I woke up and fished for a while, trying for more sotongs, but still no luck at all. The water in the night was full of todaks, looking for supper. I didn't want to do any messy fishing as we had taken our baths. But the rain came again and we had to abandon the idea of fishing at night. But the good thing was that we managed to have a good night sleep.

TC's first todak (garfish)


video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bdQqN-5CUY

The next morning, I thought we woke around 7am. TC was again doing his easy tiny fish fishing. After breakfast, I told him to setup the float to try for todaks again. A wanted to have a go too and I rigged up for everyone. TC was dead lucky this time, I manged to capture his crowning glory moment on video. Todak came and struck. Reel went zinging and TC in his clumsiness did get the todak hook set and was soon reeling it in. But on the way, the line went round someone's rod and around a pole. Poor todak was hanging in mid air struggling while he took quite a while to untangle the line. But luck was on his side, and todak didn't escape and very soon it was on deck. This memory would be permanently etched into his mind and I foresee that he would soon be visiting tackle shops for more accessories.

Where is my todak?


A didn't have any luck and suddenly, the todaks went quiet and didn't want to take the bait. Sun was out and the weather soon got quite hot for fishing. A gave up soon after, but resolved to take her revenge on the next trip. We packed up, laid out the fishes for a final photo and went for baths.

My total catches


Total loot


Girl catching todak with bare hands


Eric and Jennifer


Very surprisingly, I met Eric again on the kelong when the next batch arrived. Was it fate or what, but 3 times I had been to kelong, 3 times I met him. I finally got all their names correct and it was quite embarassing that I kept calling them the wrong names. So they were Dalphin (Eric's wife), Jennifer and her daughter Jamie. D had fun with some of his niece and nephews.

We left the kelong around 1pm and from the jetty made our way back to JB. Due to the Jam again, we only reached home around 6pm.

Karaoke "room"


Easy fishing corner


Wash basins


Bedrooms


Sotong well


Dining area


Toilet


Sibu island in the background

Secret spot KBL, ACK and Emperor

Yesterday, I had gone to the secret spot to try some fishing again. However, tide was low and fishing with live prawns didn't seem to work. Water was very choppy and full of algae. Pulled up the line, and it would be all choked with Algae. After a while, I gave up. It had not been very good experience fishing here, having tried this place like for 3 times.





Today, Andrew wanted to see the secret spot but he could only make it in the afternoon around 4.30pm. I had actually fished a little at Bottle Tree (high tide but stinky water), and then a little more at Tanah Merah Canel (Low tide, no fish). At 4.30pm, low tide again at that time, but anyway, just to bring him for a look see. Thinking that thte canel was no good, I brought him to the other place nearer from the entrance. I had gotten 200 gms of live prawns. But unfortunately, I had forgotten my pump. Prawns all died in a short while and we had to put it into the icebox to use it as dead prawn meat. Since tide was low, the whole water breaker was exposed. We had to walk down the slope, get on the water breaker and cast from there. Quite slippery and dangerous. What's worse was that the place was very sangkokey. Cast, sink, sangkok. I lost 2 rigs on my surfleader. A and E too. After a while, we decided that that place was quite impossible. I brought them then to the canel area. Surprisely, it looked quite like a good spot to them. A and E rigged up and cast. The moment A casted, less than 5 seconds, he pulled up something, a wrasse. I was like shocked beyond belief. Wow, these guys could really work magic. So, the whole session was quite interesting in fact, and I myself did get some fishes (catfishes again, and 1 miserable Pasir pasir). Andrew and Elyn got quite a few good fishes, like a nice 500g ACK, a baby KBL, a spangled emperor, some pasir pasir, a warby (what was that? Need to check. [edit: Wua Bee = silver biddy. Got before :)]), a wrasse. I was totally impressed. I asked A to pass me his own rig to try out. (got the Pasir pasir). There was something in the way that the rig was crafted. And oh, yeah, peel off the prawn shell! A lesson learnt.

We stayed till around 7.30pm and by then, it was really dark. I turned on the car to get the lights. But rigging and casting was quite difficult. We decided to pack up and go for dinner. I was quite worried that the gate would be closed, but my fears were unfounded. The gate was just as wide open and we moved out of the place without any incident.

A very interesting day. My best today only a small Pasir pasir, but better than nothing. Seemed that I had a long way to go in my fishing quest.

Finally, Something New

The bad spell continued last night at Changi boardwalk. Thinking that the last time was due to the bad timing (low tide), I wanted to try it again during the high tide period. As usual, picked up bait at Changi V. The tackle shop was packed, due to the start of the school hols. But going down to the boardwalk, it was quite ok, although very limited space I got prawns and worms but the whole night, barely any bites. Gave up and returned home empty handed.







This morning, Gary needed to service his car at Yishun industrial park. He offered to give me a lift to simpang kiri and to pick me up for Semb fish soup with the gang later. I tried the water at the park connector start point but it was a totally bad choice. Water there was quite low and dirty. Could see many small fishes, but nothing interesting. Fishes there wouldn't touch the bread at all. (Bread was the kind bought from aquarium shop that you would use for feeding goldfishes) After his servicing (about half hour), I asked Gary to send me to the connector end. (the usual spot), as he would need to return home to pick wifey. The spot there was so much better, with high water level and better water. Lots of small fishes swimming around. Tossed the bread in and in a jiffy, could see them nibbling the bread. I setup a sabiki tied to a float. First time trying fishing with bread. Problem with bread was that it would drop easily. Not easy at all to hook the fishes as the mouths were very small. But I had a stroke of good luck, and got my very first half beak. I was so happy that I shouted out to A and D. Definitely a break from the spell of bad luck.





I setup my other Rapala rod on a size 6 paternoster. Again, baited it with bread. But the problem is that it would sink to the bottom where the fishes wouldn't touch. And also, the force of the weight pushing the bread down would dislodge the bread easily. I tried putting the line nearer to the edge so that the bread would be higher in the water column. It worked and soon I had lots of milkfishes nibbling on it. One strike during one frenzy moment and I managed to foul hooked one. Looked like size 6 was still too much for these fishes. But I was happy, again my very first mullet on bread (orh her). If my skills were good, I would think that I should be able to get a whole bag full. This place certainly had lots of it.





During our fish soup session, the guys suggested to blade. Well, simpang kiri was a good place. So, we would head back that afternoon. I brought along my rod again, just in case. Turned out that last minute, they cancelled the session. Well, I was already there. The tide was at the lowest and I could see the bottom of the canel. But the water was on the upturn. Gradually as the water filled up, I did a little more fishing, this time with sunshine white bread. With the low tide, it seemed that I was catching quite a few cat fishes. That afternoon, I got about 4 catfishes (1 about a foot long), lost 1 mullet and got another mullet. My mullet catching skills were certainly improving.

Bad Fishing Spell

A series of bad fishing spell:-

Date: 27 Oct night (4 hours bef high tide)
Location: Canel before 6 pipes where I had my lucky stingray.
Method: Rapala/LSBF, Contender/Apollo
Catches: 2 catfishes.



Date: 28 Oct evening (low tide)
Location: Car park 5.
Method: Loomis/LSBF, Rapala/Apollo
Catches: Nothing.

Date 4 Nov 06 evening (low tide)
Location: Ponggol 17th
Method: Surf leader/LSBF, Ryobi/Sabiki, Rapala/Apollo
Catches: 1 tripod

Date 5 Nov 06 morning (high tide)
Location: Bottle tree
Method: floating with adjusting rig. Worms.
Catches: Nothing.
Comments: Interestingly, saw some uncles fishing and throwing bread. Small fishes looking like "orh her" (milkfish) going for bread. Want to try fishing with bread some time in the near future.

Recce and Carpark 5

It was the eve of Deepavali and OPC cars could drive from 3pm. I took a day leave and spent the day sleeping. D had school that day, so we couldnt go far, as we had to pick her from school around 6pm. We drove out to Lim chu kang/Kranji area for some recce. It started to rain a little and that helped to clear the haze a little. I took a left at Bahtera road and wanted to check out the place again. This was the sea area around the Sarimbun Reservior. The beach there was quite dirty with quite bit of rubbish, but still fishable. However, there looked like sand flies spot and I quickly made a retreat upon spotting them. I already had quite a lot of sand flies bites from my many outings.





We drove down to Neo tiew area and entered kranji reservoir. That day, we only tried the Kranji Park near the entrance. I wanted to look see what was at the end of the park. The water today was so clear that we could see the fishes in the water. A toman here, a luo han there. Interesting! I was so tempted to run back to the car to take my fishing gear...but decided against it. There were 2 uncles catching Yabies. We stopped by the jetty to have a look, but man, it wasn't easy. We waited like for 15 minutes and still nothing from them. I gave up and went back to the car.

The Picanto people wanted to meet up at CV that night and I popped over to CV after picking up D. We had dinner, picked up some bait. Gary and Irene came over too for dinner and we sat with them till they were done. From there, up the road and parked at carpark 5. The place was quite empty and we got a seat, put out some floor mat and we were in business.

I rigged up a single rod with my loomis and cast out just for luck. Through the short night, 1 miss, 1 catch (a sembilang) and another miss. We packed around 11.30pm as we had to go JB the next day.

Secret Spot Pasir2

Finally got some time to try out the secret spot seriously. The day before, I was there was with Picanto friends , and didn't have time to fish properly. TC had been asking me to bring him wet his new rod and reels and today, being a Sunday, it felt like a good idea to revisit this promising location. I had spotted quite a lot of bait fishes around yesterday, so it should be good.

We passed through CV to pick up some baits and stuff and reached the place around 10am. Due to the haze, it was quite cloudy and not hot at all. There were 3 uncles fishing that location, and we parked ourselves just beside the canel.





Out went 2 rods, one on size 4 apollo and the other light tackle on tamban hooks. However, the tamban hooks were quite big and due to that, I concentrated on the main rod. Today, bait was mainly worms. We bought a pack of bread too, but found that the fishes were not taking, so ended up didn't use it. There were bites after bites, but everytime I struck, nothing. Thinking that the fishes were smaller than I expected, I downsized the hooks until I was using about size 8. And this was to go on for the next 3 hours. It was only due to my strong persistence that I finally got a small pasir pasir on size 8 hooks.

TC had given up by then and went under the tree for shade. After getting the small fish, I had enough and we packed and headed for home. Very strange experience today. Usually with this amount of bites, I should have gotten quite a fair bit of fishes, even if they were to be small ones.

Too bad for this place here. It had looked so promising. Wondering if I was doing something wrong.

Changi Car Park 4

After D's swimming lesson today, we went down to changi car park 4 for D to get her lunch, and some lunchtime fishing for me. I had not been to this car park before, but it was actually just a short distance away from the Car park 5. Today, it was rather quiet and empty, due to the fasting month. It went to show that most park users were Malays. :P.



But the water was infested with seaweed. I would pull up chunks of seaweed wrapped around my live prawns. I was using a running sinker but decided to take out the sinker and let the prawn float weightless around. After setting that up, I rigged up my light tackle to test out the water.









For the sabiki rig, I had to try to cast far, away from the algae. Luckily it worked sometimes and I managed to myself 2 sillagos, 1 tripod, 1 sembilang (cat fish). I missed a silvery kind of fish. (Sigh, I like silvery fishes). My rod with the live prawn managed to get a 500g thereabout Gemang (cat fish). Strangely, it was caught using the exact method at Car park 5. ie running sinker, circle hook, live prawns.

2 uncles were walking around when they saw me caught the gemang. They returned a short while later and I could hear them exclaimed that I got another one when I hit the tripod. They must had been impressed. But sadly, I had been catching quite a bit of sillagos, tripods and catfishes. Very tired of it.

I stopped around 2pm and had wanted to head home. My homework was weighing heavily on my mind. I got lazy on Sat and didn't do anything and the dreaded dateline was creeping nearer. But since we were near to the secret place, I decided to do some recceing to see if I could find if there was any way to route to the secret place. The original easy route had been blocked by some new construction. I drove around, trying various route but no luck. But to my surprise, I saw a few cars inside the area. There must then be another road in after all. After some failed exploration, it occurred to me that it might accessible via another entrance. I head out and drove down the road and tried a few different entrances. And Bingo! I managed to find it and confirmed that it was correct when I passed by some people with fishing rods. :).









I drove around and managed to re-route to the original secret place. But the road was quite rough and I might not want to bring the whole gang there. After the trip, my car was very dusty and the tires definitley looked 4WD. There was another spot that looked quite clean and nice. I thought that might be a better choice as there was no need to drive too deep in.







We stopped at a corner beside the canel that cut across the 2 sections of the area. As it was low tide, D and A wanted to picked top shells. I obliged and at the same time, rigged up my 6 footer to try the water. A picked up a stranded Scat trapped in the low tide and release it into the sea. But luck was not with me and I got snagged 2 times without catching anything. Due to the un-prepareness, I decided to stop and made our way out. Next week high tide might be better.

Surfcasting at Labrador

I had a chance meeting with Gary at AquaStar, and we agreed to meet up later for dinner. He had just bought some fishes and had to run back to release it into his chapalang tank. I said ok, and decided to meet at Labrador Park. I reached there around 5ish and setup my long rod. The tide was really low and you could see the rocks extending quite a few 10/20 metres from the sea wall. No wonder my light tackle here would always get sangkut. The air was particularly hazy that day and actually, it was quite bad to be out in the open. But it being the mooncake festival, there were scores of gathering with lanterns and sparkle sticks.



Using my surfleader was quite a different story. I was able to cast quite far and no problems with snags. I had gotten some worms and was primarily using them. But throughout the evening, no catches at all. The only one being a lucky catch of a 10 cm long Yellowbar Sandperch. The size 1 hook went through its mouth and out the gills, without piercing him at all. Really didn't know how this was at all possible. Indeed, it would require a good technique to perform this trick. :P As this was my first sandperch, I was satisfied.

I was hoping that with my long rod, it would be productive. But I heard that they were moving some corals at that area. Due to the that, the jetty was closed for night fishing. It might be because of this that the fishes weren't there. It was quite bad as I could pull back untouched worms on my hooks, after 20 minutes.

Gary came as it started to get dark. We chatted a while and packed and moved off for dinner. I brought him to c328 to intro him the most popular fish shop in the whole of singapore. For a aquarium fanatic like him, it was an eye opener.

Kranji Reservoir

I swore that I wasn't thinking of the F word, but today being Children day, D got to choose where to go. I had lots of leave anyway and I took the day off to spend more time with her. She initially wanted to do Wild Wild Wet, but I didn't see any fun in being Wild and Wet. And it would be very expensive for the whole gang to enter but not swim. Her second choice being wanting to go reservoir to catch fishes with her primitive net the old fashion way. That sounded like a good idea and F is for fishing. I tugged along a single rod and my luring barangs.

We made our way to Kranji and I realized that there was another fishing ground at the reservoir that was permitted to fish. We had not been there before so trying it out was a pretty good idea. From looks of it, it was much cleaner than the other area and quite comfy too. Furthermore, there was a jetty to fish from. We settled down on a chair under a shady tree and D went to do her net and tiny fish thing, while I tried some luring from the jetty.



The luring was mostly throw, nothing, throw nothing. No strikes at all. But an hour later, I spied a school of about 50 juvenile tomans swimming around the Jetty. It was an interesting sight as I didn't know that tomans actually do the schooling thing. Wasting no time, I cast my lure over slightly beyond the school and pulled it through the area of activity. Sure enough, there was a hookup and I managed a single catch by foul hooking its body. As I did not had any pliers, (lost at the kelong), I wasted some precious time to unhook the fish with my scissors. By the time I got back to the Jetty spot, the school had moved on further down. Cast again, an another strike. But it got lost on the way in. Another cast, yet another strike. As I was reeling in, D and I saw 2 giant toman of about 4 ft in length going after the baby one on the hook. I shhssed D and asked her to keep quiet. I paused the pulling in and waited. Hmm, I wasn't too sure if the momma and pappa toman were actually looking to attack or protect. If they attacked, I wasn't too sure that my 10 lbs fireline would be able to take it. But as I waited for 5 minutes, they didn't appear again. So, probably were protecting the school. Interesting. After I unhook the 2nd toman and got back to the spot, the school was no where to be found. Had it not been, I could easily had gotten 10 or more.

After that, no more action. I did some trying on my deep diver and feather jig. But nothing. I did spied some giant sucker fish coming up to the surface for air. But I didn't think that the lure was going to attract them, they being the scavenger sort of fish.

Another family came and did some baiter in broad day light. D irritated them by reading the "No baiting" sign at the park. D soon got bored of playing around the area and we packed and moved to Yishun for some drinks. The 2 baby tomans, I released it as I didn't have any use for it. D wanted to keep them but I said No. Good interesting luring experience today