1st Boat Fishing Trip

I chanced upon a post on the forum asking for people to join in a cost sharing boat trip around changi. I had been waiting for the longest time to be invited, but unfortunately, I didn't have that many fishing friends who have the time to make one. So, I thought to just invite myself and try out for a first hand experience. From what I read of the CRs, usually the catches were quite productive.

The contact person was Salleh. At first, I was quite apprehensive that I might have to fish for the whole day on the boat with a bunch of Mat rockers. But my fears were quickly dispelled when I finally met them face to face that Sat morning. Salleh turned out a be quite a easy going, joker type fatherly person. He certainly took very good care of the arrangments and all. With him that morning, I also came to know Joseph. During the trip, he was very helpful with teaching me how to do a proper boating heavy duty rig, and re-tied one for me.

Starting Point (Changi ferry terminal)


Most of the gang


We proceeded to the boat, to wait for another 3 person. To my utmost surprise, it was none other than Des T, the fishing legend in the forum, quite fondly known as the todak killer. :). He came along with Jeffrey and Jonathan. I was also to find out that Jonathan was no other than Nimo, also from the FK forum. He had many a catch report on his fishing trips to Kelongs. Jeffrey, I am not too sure if he was from FK...but he was a very decent and gentlemanly guy. During the trip, he turned out to be the champion with 3 good catches.

Off we go a fishing..


Refueling point


We got Ice and Prawns from here


Live Prawn bait well


We set off from the jetty around 8.15am in high spirits. Ah Pong turned out to be quite a stylo milo boatman, with Oakly sunglasses no less.:P Certainly, the expectation was that we would be catching lots of fish. The weather was very cooling during that time and the trip was very breezey and enjoyable. My initial fears of me not being able to hold up with the constant boat rocking was soon unfounded. It turned out that I was quite adaptable during the whole duration. Although after my return, while I was having dinner, I was still feeling that everything was moving up and down.

Desmond yellow vibrator


Desmond was feeling experimental and came with a niffy yellowish gadget. Plonked in a small AAA battery, and the whole thing was set vibrating. The main idea was that it would attract fishes to come investigate the source of the vibration. The gadget look like a tiny submarine, and it was rather useful with its double purpose as a weight.

My JigWrex in action


I was using my JigWrex for the first time on my Freams. However, my freams was spooled with a 25lbs mono. After having been used to braid for some time, I was quite unused to using Mono again. I totally couldn't feel anything bites or nibbles at all. Furthermore, I was using a PE2-4, quite stiff from my regular fishing. For the whole day, the fishing experience was like dropping a line and waiting and waiting.

First spot, Jeffrey was the first to start the fish body count, and hauled up 2 nice Grunters, one after the other. The rest of us didn't get anything. Boatman had a hit with a grouper. This Boatman seemed very experienced with getting groupers. He got a couple during the trip. After a while, changed spot. This spot changing would happen quite a lot of times, especially about 10 mins into the spot with no fishes.

I got something that was pulling out my line. However, the old hands knew that it wasn't a fish from the constant pull. I had snagged my rig on some coral rocks, and Joseph helped me to snap the line. Leaving it like this, it would spool and empty the reel in no time, due to the drifting boat.

The heat...the heat...


The weather came out really really hot, and we were all getting charred from the UV heat wave. It was something like 35C. Soon, everyone was huddled together under the shady side with the fishing. I really need to stop going fishing with my t-shirt and shorts. The rest of the regulars were donned out in body covering attire. I also need to get that fishing hat with the Japanese soldier look, that have the trailing cloth behind for the ears and neck.

Desmond changed tactics and whipped up a funny looking contraption that look like a pair of green chopsticks. (Darn, forgot to get a pic). According to him, it was meant as a snaggless weight. How resourceful of him. He sure had many bags of tricks up his sleeves.

Sotong hiding under debris


During our constant movement from one spot to another, there were 2 interesting sightings. One was that of a small queenfish hiding under a coconut. (hmm, maybe indian Queenie). The other was that of a "smart" green eye sotong taking shade from the blazing heat under some floating debris.

Joseph with his Grouper


You hook me, I bite you


Jeffrey with his nice "dunno what" shark


"Dunno what" shark


Desmond biggest fish. See his happy face


Salleh with a nice Grouper. This pic is good enough for a Fishing Magazine Cover.


The funny structure


From the rest of the trip, After Jeffrey's catch, Joseph got a nice grouper. Jeffrey got a good catch thereafter of a Shark. It circled round the water, and had ALL of our lines tangled up in a bad mess. Everyone had to re-rigged after that. Desmond, while targeting for Todaks or Queenfish, got a large Kelong Chi instead. Salleh finally got a nice Grouper, and then another Gelema. I was the last to hit the ACK, at the final spot before returning. Boatman followed with another ACK after mine. Johnathan unfortunately got no luck. However he did have a few quite bites whereby the prawns returned headless.

Salleh with his Gelema on Prawn Meat


Another boat fishing next to us.


Finally, something to show


Soon, it was times up. Salleh did a good job of distributing the catches. He was generous with me, and gave me 3 fishes to bring home to brag. I supposed that this trip was a rather unproductive one. From what I gathered from the rest, most times the catch rate would be far more than this. Probably it was due to the tide timings. Cause we were mostly fishing during the low tide. But no matter, if fishing was that easy, it wouldn't be fishing. It was an interesting experience, and something that I would certainly look forward to do again. And to get to know these fishing legends and fish alongside with them, it was a great honour.

Misc Pics:-

Approaching the fish farm at Ubin


The closest I had been near a buoy. Any closer will be "Boing"


Full battle station


Since no Todak, Desmond desparately comtemplating hitting the barge


Ah Pong the boatman, with yet another catch


Boat with the high tech instrumentation


My first fish ever for my JigWrex


Somebody's Grand Piano is in there


Fish said "Yahoo!"


Nimo planning out his next strategy, while Salleh took a toilet break


Jeffrey's Shark



Salleh's Grouper

New Stuff - Jigwrex

I had planned for my very first boat trip, and had to get a boat rod. I had been eyeing this Jigwrex from Shimano for the longest time already. Nice finishing, good design, solid looking rod. At first I thought was around $220+...but turned out that lowest in CV was $252 for a PE 2-4 one. Bit the bullet and got it. This rod would be a perfect match for my underused Freams 4500J. Finally, I was all geared up for my Sat trip.

Kelong Acheh - Sightings

Since Eric had some lessons to attend to on Sat, his original plan of going Sibu could not be carried out. He suggested to try out Acheh, from Sun - Mon. I had agreed, since I had lots of leaves to clear anyway. His Dad was supposed to be coming along, but last minute had to cancel due to him not feeling too well. I thot then to bring A and D to Acheh, since the last time, I had gone alone with TC.

Being a Sunday, there wasn't any need to beat the OPC timings. Also, the lady boss Farah said to come later as the kelong was fully occupied. It was better to wait for the previous group to leave first. So, our target was to arrive around 11+am.

D with her new Lifevest


We had a leisurely drive up, stopping at Macdonalds for Big Breakfast. Our next checkpoint was to stopover at Mersing. Eric mentioned about a tackle shop he had visited some time back. Upon arriving, we were delighted to find that it was still in business and had just opened. I bought some misc stuff, and a life jacket for D. With our frequent trips to Kelongs, I was always worrying about her falling into the water.

Busy Jetty


We reached the jetty around 11.30am. The weather then was burning hot. To my surprise, I was approached by a man asking for parking fee of RM5. I didn't have to pay the last time, and I wasn't too sure if he was pulling a fast one. Anyway, for a couple of dollars, I did not want to risk upsetting the locals. Car would be quite vulnerable for a day. So, I gingerly paid up, and we moved to the jetty end to wait out our ride.

Free fishing here.


There were scores of people fishing, and the jetty itself was quite crowded. The last time I was here was on a Friday. This was quite a mark difference in terms of the crowd and activities on the jetty. A man with a rod had a line burst from a strong strike. Wow, there must be some serious sized fish around here. (This was to be confirmed the day after).

We reached there and saw the Farah sitting at her favourite corner. We wanted to have the room next to the big casting area, so we were told to wait till they move out later. Not to waste time, we setup our rods and proceed to test out the water condition.

Tiny Todak


Tambans again seemed to be scarce. "Orange" fish also not that abundant, though they are around. Eric, as usual caught the first fish. A tiny todak on his tamban hooks. I also got a take of todak that went for my fish I caught on jig. With quick thinking, I yanked the lines to set the hook and quickly hauled it up before the line break. Strangely, that was to be the only todak that I caught the whole trip. (on a thin tamban #6 jig). I noticed a strange phenonemon this time round. The todaks were quite receptive to taking the "orange" fish. In fact, it was quite guaranteed that they would take a floating rig with it as bait. Given the poor tamban fishing, I tried to have some fun with todaks. I had quite a number of takes but somehow, I couldn't manage to get any. The lines would usually burst. Tying steel leader also didn't seem to help. Even they would burst. This was really baffling.

Nearing to dinner time, I had rested my rod with a float and an "orange' fish bait. It being dinner, I left the rod unattended on free spool. That was to be a serious mistake. Returning from dinner, I found the rod missing without a trace. Strange, could it have fallen in the water? Eric and I walked around the kelong trying to spot it with no luck. But the possibility of it spooling out a whole 100-200 meters of line and eventually being dragged overboard was quite unlikely. But this was to be confirmed that it was the case later....

Moon over Acheh


Big Sotong. (eh...lower part of the picture)


Foot long sotong


During the night, I took out my trusty Yozuri shrimp hunters and check out for sotongs. Given my last encounter with them, I was hoping to continue the trend of getting a few. And what you know, it worked and I pulled out my first sotong in about 5 minutes. Feeling all pysched up, Eric and D joined me in the sotong hunt. I was to have another lucky strike 5 minutes later. This time, the sotong was the biggest I had ever caught (600g). Even tightening my Record drag, I couldn't quite lift it out of the water. It shot up no less than 10 jets of water. I had to resort to using hand to pull up the line. It was then all hi5s and photo session.

Arrow Squid


But strangely, after that, all quieten down. We could see the sotongs, but for some reasons, they were not taking. I later figured out that my leader was probably too thick. I changed to a 4lbs leader, and I got 2 hits after that. One being an arrow squid. By then, it was already like 12.30am, and I crawled to bed for some shuteyes.

Beautiful morning


The next morning, I tried squidding again, but they were not quite around. Darn, there went my plans to bring back a bagful. I only managed to get one miserable piece. Daybreak, I tried some luring. But again, as with everything else, no luck. This kelong, no Emperors, no Parangs, no Barras (this time). But in the late morning, things got interesting. For some reasons, suddenly there were huge shoals of bait fishes all around the kelongs, but at a distance. We could see the birds flying around. I also spied twice a Cobia chasing the baitfishes just 30 metres from the kelong. All very good signs of a good fishing spot. But maybe just our luck, there were no interesting catches all day.



But as if to compensate, out of the blue, we saw a most unforgettable sight. Dolphins! There was like a school of them some 100-200 metres away, doing the arching motion that dolphins do. We were all dumbfounded. This was not something seen in recent years, I guessed. Dolphin sightings in Malaysia must be a very rare thing. It fact, they hung around for quite sometime, playing in the waters around us. To my good fortune, I managed to record it on video.

"Search party" for my missing rod.


The newly arrived group was making preparations to visit the island nearby. A spotted my float that I used with todak rod some 200 metres away. We were quite excited that there was a chance that I might be able to retreive the rod, if the line was still linked to it. Seeing that the boat was enroute that way, we asked if they would kindly moor to the float and attempt to get back my rod. It was indeed nice of the staff to try that. They reached the float and was pulling up my pink firelines. That gave us some hope that the rod could be gotten back. However, to our dismay, the line broke. Probably the rod was stucked solid underwater. Well, too bad. But that made it very likely that my rod was dragged overboard the kelong by a fast running todak? that spooled the entire spool of fireline and then yanked the rod over into the deep blue. Dramatic!

Tarzan with Stingray


Stingray


The Sting of the Stingray


Girl with Stingray




At the later part of the day, Eric's rod got a take with some twitching. He thought it to be a small fish, but when it surfaced, it was a Stingray. Although just a small one, it was a good story to add to our trip.

Sun came out really hot, and I soon packed. We left the kelong at about 12pm. Reaching the jetty, not sure due to what reason, a fish jumped out of the water. I was kindof seated down on the left of Eric. We were just chatting and suddenly Eric gave a Whoa! and I turned to look and managed to see a 2-3 kg fish in mid air on the way down. I would put it at a 1m jump. That was sure a jumper. Eric said that it was a triple tail. Wow.

D needed to go to the loo. While waiting for her, Eric and I sighted a monitor lizard crossing the road. Wow again.

This trip, although no commendable catches, was quite special for some really rare sightings. Eric wasn't quite in the mood to fish, being more worried about his preparations for his work. But I think all in all, it was still quite a memorable one.

The other kelong we could see from ours


Baby Tenggiri with sharp teeth


A's fingers got chewed by a baby tenggiri with sharp teeth


Yummy.


Squid 'O glasses