Ponggol 17 and Safra Club

Went back to Ponggol 17 today to try my luck again. Got there around 11.30am, after D's swimming. Seemed to have lesser people today, and high tide was to be at 3pm. Weather was hot like hell, and I got a very lobster red tan after about 3 hours there. Fishing was poor and there was no action at all, for everyone along the row. At 2.30pm, I had enough of the dosage of UV, and decided to move somewhere else.

I drove back to Changi V to replenish my bait. Get got another pack of sarong worms for convenience. From there, I was thinking of fishing around the area, but the place was packed with the sunday crowd. I drove away and thought maybe I should try tanah merah canal again. But when I got there, there was this stupid car parked right in front of the entrance. Seeing that there were cars behind me, and I was then blocking the whole road, I drove away and tried another place.

Near to the the canal, there was another road into some sort of club (safra club). I had never tried that place before. I went in to take a look, and the place looked great. But problem was, there wasn't any place to park. I turned out and drove away, maybe heading for East coast area. But half way, just next to the laguna club, there was another canal that looked good. But there was already a malay couple fishing there, and the space was limited. I decided to turn back to the safra club and see if there was any chance of a parking space.

When I was there again, an earlier space taken by another car was empty just near to the gate to the club. I tried my luck and parked there. I was testing to see if the guard would come and shoo me away. But he didn't. So, I unloaded all the stuff and went about trying the place.







The place was very cooling was lots of shade. By the canal, there was another family fishing. But from the looks of it, they didn't have any luck. The water was very choppy due to the strong wind. I didn't think that the fishing would be good. When I got my rod up, I could see it moving alot, but it was due to the strong current. D found the place rather fun, as there was a "sand mountain" and sea shells for her to pick.

Beside my light tackle, I rigged up a bottom rig with my rapala. But still no luck. I took out my luring rod (the shakespeare) and tried some luring. It had been awhile since I lured. I had these minnows that I got the last time that I hadn't gotten it wet yet. But no luck with luring too.





Midway, I got lucky and my light tackle was jerking strongly. I reeled in, and there was this tripod fish (Short-nosed Tripodfish). What a relief, broke my zero. After another 15 minutes, the rod jerked a little. I reeled in and found a plastic bag...and beside it, a small tiny pink ear emperor (but this one got a black spot..not so sure) [edit:Spangled Emperor]. Both fish were released after photos. But the pink ear, it got hooked in the eye, poor thing.

I left the place about 6.30pm. By that time, already very exhausted from a long day of fishing. Not good catch, but at least, no zero.

Changi Beach

Another "better finish assignment or else" day. I had two to complete and had wanted to do all 2 together but decided to wrap up at 1. The amount of work to do was just too much. So, needless to say, needed some fishing to destress. But the weather was turning bad, with dark clouds all across. Too bad. High tide was almost exactly at three. Originally intended to fish behind my block, but given the rain, no chance. Drove out and decided to head for changi village to get bait.





Upon reaching there, surprisingly, there was no rain in that region. I thought to try out the changi beach area, just behind the changi point ferry terminal where I got my ribbon before. That place is a beach front, and this would be the first time I would be fishing from the beach.



The area wass nice and clean and not crowded. About some 200 metres away, I could see many surf casting rods all lined up. Might be better action further up. But since D wanted to play sand and I had promised her since last week, this place would do.



I got some live prawns and a pack of worms. My big tackle didn't have much luck and dragged in alot of sea weed. I decided to do more of the small rod, and not too long after I cast, I hooked on a fish. As I was pulling in, the fish felt strong. When it is out of the water, this one is quite the "giant" of all sillagos that I had caught before. It is about 2 plam size. Not bad for my first time here. I tried to keep it alive in my small pail, thinking maybe to keep it in the tank. But after about an hour, it turn topside down. Well, decided to CnK (catch and kill) and put it into the icebox. Thereafter, no more luck with the light tackle. Shore fishing need to cast far to go further from the wavy water near the beach. I just couldn't throw far enough. I guessed I must had been lucky with the first fish.



It was starting to get darker around 6 and I thot to fish somewhere else since I still have quite a fair bit of live prawns. But on the way, I decided to head home. It is low tide anyway...not much places that would be good for low tide fishing.



The fish was fried and smelled good as I was writing this. :)

[Pic quality is poor due to it being taken with my camera phone. Too bad about my portable camera that I had that was stolen]

Potong Pasir Canal and Punggol 17th

Wanted to try somewhere different today. Had been going to all the usual places, and with not much result. I remembered about the canal that I will pass by on the CTE. I had gone for an earlier recce, and it seemed quite promising. But the problem, it is a canal, and may turn out to be quite dirty.



After D's swimming lesson, I headed for the place around Potong Pasir. There wasn't anyone fishing at first, but later on, there came a lone guy trying under the bridge. But shortly after I rigged up, the weather turn quite a sudden turn and it started pouring. By that time, I had already rigged up my light tackle with sabiki hooks and placed it on the railings before dashing for shelter. The rain lasted about half and hour, but when I checked on the line, totally no bites at all. All the baits were still intact when I reeled in. Haz, not a good place. The water was also quite dirty as expected. Lots of floating rubbish around. I tried a bit more and gave up and decided to move somewhere else.



On the way, I thought why not try out the Punggol 17 area. The first time I was there, I was just beside the marina. From a distance, I could see many cars parked near to the sea. I didn't know how they managed to drive into the closed up area. While driving there, I noticed an opening and decided to give it a try. True enough, it turned out to be the correct way in. And along the sea wall, there were many many cars parked there, with people fishing. Interesting. I found an opening beside a family "playing" fishing and rigged up. A built some kind of make shift shelter and it was a pretty good shade.







The place was quite nice and the weather was nicely cool, though it looked like rain anytime. An hour into the fishing, I was still getting nothing. Feeling a little disappointed, I decided to cast nearer to the seawall. Well, with a little stroke of luck, I hooked up two fishes on my light tackle that I have not gotten before. [Aftenote: Fowleria Polystigma and Twostripe Cardinal] Pretty relieved that my series of bad fishing had come to an end. I released the fishes after some photos and rebaited the line. And not too long later, another strike. This time, 3 glass fish in a row. :). D got all excited and wanted to eat the fishes, and wouldn't allow me to release it. Oh well.



Suddenly, the place started to rain. And pretty heavy too. But the good thing was that the car was just beside us. So, it was easy to get in for shelter. I left the rods there and I could monitor it from the car. From the car, I noticed my Rapala twitching and I ran out to strike. I was quite lucky and I hooked up a stargazer. But it was a poisonous fish (I think) and I released it. Someone further down and gotten it earlier on and D and I went to look at it. It was also around there, that I stepped on some hooks that someone discarded. Luckily, I didn't step too hard and the hooks didn't penetrate my thick sole. And not just 1 foot, but both of my feet got hooked. Haz, very inconsiderate fishing people.



The rain was quite relentless and I decided to call it a day. But not bad for the fishing today. 3 new fishes within a day. :D

BJT Revisited

After the last 2 zeros, I was beginning to lose confidence in my fishing skills. Today, decided to go back to BJT (Bedok jetty), place where I had the good chance to land my biggest fish ever. Since the last time, it has been awhile. Nothing much had changed, the place was still clean and nice, and very crowded. I parked myself about 1/3 of the way of the jetty.

I had up my loomis, my light tackle, and my Rapala, all rigged for bottom fishing. Light tackle was as usual on tamban hooks. But what do you know, no action again. Even my light tackle wasn't catching anything. Usually that would mean that there wasn't any bait fishes around....much less for big ones. Water was very choppy, due to strong wind. Such circumstances, fishing usually would not be good, as I have observed.



I had a little shock with my newly bought Yozuri shrimp hunter. This little bugger, costed me around $18, and I just got it from HotSpot. I tried it out and on one of the throws, it got stuck and wouldn't come undone. I was quite desperate as this thing wasn't cheap at all. It struck me that maybe the lure retriever would work. I had gotten this retriever gadget long time ago, but it had never did help to retreive any lures for me. But nothing to lose, I slided it on the line and hoped for the best. After a few violent thrust, it actually worked! Goodness, that was a very close shave. Well, that 5 something of a retreiver earned my money back.

Midway, I got a little lucky and brought up 1 silver sillago. Well, that gave a little confidence back to my wounded ego and I continued trying, using up all my prawns and sarong worms. However, no luck thereafter. Towards the end, D told me that further up the jetty, people were catching tambans. Well, I took my light tackle and moved to the end of the jetty and tried to get myself some tambans. However, no luck, as my sabiki was baited. I think tambans wouldn't touch the tamban hooks if it was baited. Heaving a sigh, I gave up. I proceeded to pack and headed for home.

On the way out, I bumped into Yinncheah with her bunch of friends. However, at that time, I was quite exhausted (around 1am) and didn't have the brain juice to make good talk. Since she was with friends, I just made some passing remarks, said my bye byes and made my way home. But actually, I should have spoken more to her and asked about her job now. Well, maybe there will be another time.

Car Park Double 0

I had been quite confident about catching small fishes lately, and didn't expect to get zero. But today's session again proved me wrong. Went to car park 5 again for another session after the relative success the last time. From what I read, this place was full of weeds, and at the last location, it was true. So, I thought of moving nearer to the car park itself. Today being a friday, it wasn't packed, and there were lots of space. I rigged up my main for an apollo with live prawns, my light tackle with sarong, and my 6 foot on floating with sarong on sabiki with a slighly bigger hooks. Timing was just nice, with high tide around 8pm. That place, every 5 minute or so, there would be an aeroplane flying pass, making quite a loud din.



But thoughout the session, nothing. Big fat zero. Sea was kind of choppy. My light tackle couldn't even get anything. But my live prawns were being attacked, even though my bells were not going off. Strange. Might be crabs.

Even though, the place was nice and clean, the fishing was terrible. It had been a while since I have had good fishing. Hopefully, tomorrow would be a better day. :(

Admiralty West Zero

This afternoon, I had online chat session for my class, so couldn't go anywhere. After the chat, it was already 5+pm. So, thot of just doing a quickie at the back of the house. This time, trying the spot that is nearer to the causeway itself. From there, could see heavy buildup of traffic, not uncommon at this time.

I used the fish meat from yesterday's catch. But from the looks of it, it didn't look too fresh. True enough, no fishes were touching the bait, although I see lots of small fishes jumping around the water. Furthermore, the area nearer to the structure was so dirty, that when I lifted the rig up, the bait turned black with oily substance. Yucks. And I kept pulling up plastic bags after plastic bags. No wonder the rest of the fishing people were further up, nearer to the jetty side.

After an hour, I gave up and packed. Around then, there were lots of people around me. I thought they must be like waiting for the causeway jam to subside. Anyway, even my trusty light tackle wasn't getting anything at all. So, no point to carry on. Went to show that the freshness of the bait was important, else can forget about fishing.

Sigh. Bad fishing weekend.

[Afternote: Darn...came home and discover that my cheap all in one camera was missing. Could it have been stolen while I was fishing???.....]

Boring Cats

Today, went to bottle tree again for comfortable and near fishing. Wanted somewhere where D can blade or play with her scooter. This time, I taught D how to cast a spinning rod and she did managed a few good throws. We got the usual catfishes, glass fish, couple of tripods and 1 sillago. But it was my most boring fishing ever. Same old fishes, after a while, it gets unchallenging. Still no luck at all on my regular rod. But today, I tried something different, by using market sotong as bait. Actually it worked just as well. Live prawns would have been a waste. No pics for today as nothing new to show.

A very friendly mother and little son came to look at our fishes and were so impressed with our catches. I told her some of the names of the fishes and they looked attentively on how we baited the hooks and unhook the fishes. :). Malay family came and setup beside us. Also very friendly, and asked about our catches. Seems that here have lots of catfishes. A man on bicycle said he saw us a few times. Friendly chap, and wanted to show us a video of someone catching a big catfish the other day. I didn't see it cos I had to go attend to my rod.

Car Park 5

Spent the whole morning cracking my head for my assignment. I was duly exhausted by 2pm and needed some fishing relaxation for myself as a reward. Headed for changi today as I was around the area. High tide is midnight today, but I couldn't fish till then as I had to wake up early tomorrow for a drive up to Malaysia with some forum friends. So, I had to find somewhere that is fishable during the low tide. Changi car park 5 seems to fit the bill and I got myself there around 5pm+, after a hearty dinner at Changi V.



I parked myself to the very end in front of the SAF jetty. There is a sign there saying no fishing 20 metres from the fence. Well, the last seat next to the jetty was around 20 metres, so ok. I setup my rod and stuff, under the scrutiny of the army guards (with rifles) and a policeman there







By the end of the day, I got a few catches on my light tackle. My loomis rod got a 3 bites (bells were ringing) but I couldn't strike any fish up. Quite a good sign. My first fish is a very decent nasi lemak kind of fish. I like :)[Afternote: Common Silver Biddy, Slender Mojarra]. My second fish was a oriental sillago. Hmm, been some time since I had gotten this. Good, no cat fish. But what do you know, my next fish is a cat fish. But this particular cat has got an eel like tail. [Afternote: Black Eeltail Catfish] A different variety. A said it was good to eat. Oh well. My last 2 was the Pink ear emperor that I got from taneh merah before. Not bad.

Towards the end, someone came and park himself between me and the fence. Kind of inconsiderate, as he will surely cross my line being so near. Hey, I thot no fishing within 20 metres of the fence?? I saw the guard walking to the man, but he didn't say anything. He set up his rod and casted very near to my spot. I retreived my line and for his sake, cast straighter out towards the sea. Previously, I was trying out the spot nearer to the bottom of the jetty. Unfortunately, I ended up crossing my line with my heavy rod. After struggling to untangle my line, I decided to stop and wanted to pack. Man at the fence now suddenly got approached by the policeman on duty. He had a few words with him, probably to tell him that there is no fishing allowed there. :). The man then packed and moved somewhere else. But by that time, my line was too tangled up and I sniped it off and decided to go home.

I gave my remaining prawns to the malay guys at the chair next to me. Well, they were very friendly after that.

Raining Cats and More Cats...

Today, being Daddy's day, I got to choose where I wanted to go. Since I had to be back early for my chat session for my course, somewhere near and convenient would have to do. So, I went back to bottle tree again to continue trying out the area. D got along her scooter and went to have fun on her own. The bench near the front was occupied and we walked deeper into the canal to get the next seat that was like 200 metres away. Some previous group of people had camped around the area, evident from all the bbq stuff and left a terrible mess, burnt bits and litter all around. Some people are just so damn inconsiderate.





A while into the fishing, there came a sudden downpour and we were all caught in the rain. Luckily A went back to the car to get umbrellas. The thing about the place here was that there wasn't any shelter for the whole stretch of the park. We hid behind the umbrellas and everything got wet. But anyway, it was ok as most of the stuff were waterproof. The rain ended about half hour later and we got back to the fishing soon enough.



This time, we kept getting small catfishes on every cast. There were some Glass Fish too, and A was fortunate enough to get a decent 1 foot Greenback Mullet. But all the fish were on the light jigging rod with sabiki hooks. Over here, easy to get. We got almost 20 cat fishes in all.

I still had no luck with my floats on my other rods. This time round, I also tried the cable car method. But after leaving the live bait on the rig, it was still alive 1 hour later, with no catches. We spied some decent foot size batty kind of fishes near the edge, but couldn't seem to get their interest in our baits.

I have improved my fishing skills to the extent that I could almost guarantee small catches. In fact, it is rather easy. Just use the sabiki hooks (very small hooks), bait with prawn meat, cast, and wait. With my slow action light tackle, most of the time, they will hook themselves. Don't even need to strike. However I still don't have much skills when comes to catching big fishes, or table size fishes near the surface for that matter. Guess more experiments would be needed.







The water kind of turn dirty once a while when the tide brought the dirty water from the canal to the sea. We saw a dead decent fish floating downstream. D also had fun catching all manner of strange looking snails.



We left the place around 6pm so that I could hurry back to join my chat session. All in all, quite a good experience, our first fishing in the rain, with the most catches. Almost giving up on the floating method. Just what could be wrong...hmmm... Now, need to get back to my assignment...*stressed*

Time in a Bottle

D wanted to blade today, and a good place would be bottle tree village. Beside it is the sungei kiri park connector, a long stretch of flat jogging track from the bottle tree village till the other end near Yishun. Although I had fished here a few times, today would be the first time during the day. As I was parking, I spotted a few people with rods walking to the area. "Die", I thot, "should crowded". But to my surprise, I was only one of 2 groups of people fishing at the canal. The other malay family was further up, nearer to the mouth of the canal, and under the hot sun.

However, there came a big group of people shortly, doing some sort of team building sort of activity. They made hell lot of noise and was all over my area where I was fishing. Luckily after about half an hour, they moved further down the canal to where the steps were to launched their man made raft. So, I had a little peace and quiet after that.





The tide was just nice, high at about 4pm. Actually, there were lots of baitfishes around here. I rigged up my light jigging rod and caught lots of Glass Perchlet and 2 Long-tail Tripodfish fish. I think total more than 10 of the Perchlet. If I tried hard enough, I could easily get a hundred or so. The place was teaming with it. 2 or 3, I used as bait...but so far, I didn't find it effective. My other 2 rods got no luck with my live prawns. But my bottom rig did sound off my bell once, but when I struck, nothing and the prawn was gone. Other than that, not much of an action. Still can't quite figure out what was wrong with my floating setup. Up till now, nothing at all, just throwing prawns into the saltwater.

I finished up the prawns and since the fishes were not effective as bait, I gave up trying. D went to blade further down but she disappeared from sight. We got worried and A went to look for her. Ended up she bladed till rather far away (about 1 km) down the park. She got a good scolding after that.

What's My Line?

2 of my reels were running out of the lines due to my constant line snagging on the rocks. Had to respool the line, and I took the opportunity to do it today, having a bit of time off. Made a stock check today and these the lines that I had used so far.

Some personal review on the lines.
Okamoto Stella - Surprisingly thin for a 15 lbs line and so far served me very well. Low memory (tendency for line to coil around after being in the spool). Only gripe is that it is maroon in color. Yucks.

SureCatch Dynabriad - Supposedly the cheaper end of braided lines. Looked like army comscott line, limpy more like a green army colored string. Tendency to fray after repeated usage. Quite hard to snip with my scissors too. But so far is reliable and strong.

Duel Long Drive - thin, smooth and very fine line. Due to this, few times got tangled on my spool if keep the line tight while reeling in. When that happens, it is downright messy. But ok, never snap on me before.

Sufix Xcelon - Color is nice, but the memory for the line is quite high. Tends to coil around in circles easily. Other than that, it is quite ok.

Nikko Navis - Thick and rough line (but 35 lbs, quite expected). But it has the reputation of having a smaller diameter compared with other brands for the same poundage. Color is transparent.

Sufix Elite - Just got it. No comments yet, but fanciful tangerine orange color. I like:)

SunLine QueenStar - Just got it too. This one in flouro pink. :)) Quite ex for a mono line.

Backyard Cat

Took off today and decided to continue exploring my exploration of my backyard fishing area. Timing for tide was good, high at around 9-10pm. We got dinner and I set up near the jetty. Today was peaceful and quiet and not much people around, except for an indian chap walking around. But he was ok, kept quite a polite distance and I was not disturbed by it.

However around 7+pm, a van drove up and they ended up to be the workers in the jetty. We had to shifted our "camping" area to make way, but they were nice about it and very apologetic. I took the chance to ask if he could retrieve my line that got badly thrown and was stuck at the fence. It so happen to have rigged up my berkley peeler crab. Must be an ususal sight for him. But the funny thing was that he unravelled the line and threw it back to the sea. *sigh*. I had earlier snipped off the line and was not linked to it in anyway. Well...

Throughout the night, nothing much, but I did see my float bobbed a couple of times, although upon pulling up, nothing. I might be rigging it wrongly..might have to balance the float with more weight to offer lesser resistance to fishes grabbing the bait. Will experiment more with it. The whole session, I got a catfish (about 1 foot) and a crab, which D thot was soooo cute. We tried to keep it but it died the next day. Not sure why..

Backyard Jetty

Came back today for another attempt. Went further down the road to where the jetty is. Jetty itself is not accessible to public, can only fish beside the main entrance. But the place itself is quite spacious, only problem is that I could only cast in one direction. There was only a small area for my 9 footer to swing. A bit to the left, would hit the tree, to the right would hit the gate. At the end of the day, I expectedly did hit the tree 1 time and the gate 2 times. Rod got a little scratched. Heart Pain.

As usual, I rigged up my Gloomis with the weight float, baited with sarong and casted. So far, I have not have any hits with this method. Beginning to wonder if I had been doing the right thing. One problem with the weight float is that the line would be very slack since the float will move around. If there was any bites, I wouldn't be able to strike well. But still, so far, even the prawns were not taken. Might there be some problem with the presentation? Need to find out more about this.

For my second rod, I rigged a sabiki hooks baited with sarong. This time, I am using a mid size hooks. Not half an hour into this, I got my first bite. Interesting fish, according to A is quite good eating.



But the fishing after this went downhill. Lots of people came around and stand around me. I really don't like that. Couldn't they see that I am fishing, and maybe would be polite to stand some distance away? This area, also lots of blanga, and chinese national workers. Some have the cheek to come and touch my rod bag. I had to ask them to go away, not very politely, cos by that time, I was already annoyed. Earlier on, he was standing right in front of me when I was baiting the worms.

But today being a Sunday, this may be the usual crowd around here. Maybe compared to lots of other places, already pretty good.

When I finally packed in the evening, I had 2 small Glass Perchlet (just like yesterday's catch, and the unknown fish (later ided as Big Goby fish) and 2 small crabs.

Fishing in My Backyard

Just "discovered" this spot. I would sometimes take a long route on the way home along admirality road via this small lane that is just along the north coast, next to the causeway bridge. It is a rather quiet place and the view from here to see Malaysia and the jam at the bridge is actually quite good. Previously, the shoreline along here was quite dirty and I had never thought that it would be suitable to fish from here.

But on my latest detour here, I noticed that they had "cleaned" up the place. Now, there is a new cemented walkway along the coast with a proper sea wall and railings. Hey, not too bad at all. The few times I passed by, the water actually looked quite clean.



Today, I decided that I would give this place a try. It is so near to my house. In fact, walk over is also quite feasible. (think it is less than 500 metres). I reached here around 3+pm and the tide was already going down. But no matter, as the water was still quite reasonably high. I setup a floating rig and casted away with my prawns. Water, from the looks of it wasn't too bad. Not choppy, small ripple..my guess is that it was quite suitable for a good outing. However no takers for my prawn on my floating. I setup another rod for bottom rig, with prawns too. But the place is a little snaggy. Few times, hooks got stuck on something, lost a few sinkers and hooks. All through the afternoon, no takers for the prawns. But from the view on top, I could see alot of small baitfishes.





Much ado about nothing, I setup my light tackle rig with sabiki jigs and baited it to try to just catch something. As expected, I managed to catch a small fish. It was later identified as a Glass Perchlet. Not bad, as I have not caught this fish before. A few moments later, another one got hooked up. Just as I was wondering if there are bigger fishes around, I sighted a table size fish swimming rather near the shore. Wow, it looked quite decent if I could catch it. But unfortunately, when I tried to reel back my floating rig, it got stuck. While I was fighting with my stucked line, it just swam away.



The place looked quite promising, just that today wasn't quite my lucky day. Will definitely give it another try again. Maybe the area nearer to the jetty would be better.