Road To Becoming A Fly Fisherman

My fly fishing rod had only been sparingly used ever since I bought it some weeks ago. Today, I wanted to do more pracitising at it and went to LPR after D's swimming lesson.

It was hard to find a big enough area where I would not pose a danger to passer-bys with my flying hook and line. My technique was still quite raw and I couldn't do my cast properly and spent like half hour trying and trying. It was Roll cast and False cast practises. Even though I had a fly at the end of my line, it wasn't catching anything. I was mainly focusing on the casting part and didn't try to animate the fly too much.

Fly casting was hard work and I worked up a good sweat under the hot sun. But the weather took a turn and suddenly, rain appeared to be coming. I stop my fly casting and changed to my spin rod. With the charlie that was given by Jimmy, I tossed it out. But the execution was miss timed and my lines didn't go quite far. But to my surprise when I started luring it, I got a hit immediately. It was as though that the PB was eyeing it and when it started moving, it decided to go for it.







It was a small PB and I quickly put it into a plastic bag, thinking to give to ZW later. I brought it home and put it into my temporary tank. But I made the silly mistake of changing the water entirely thinking that PBs were quite hardy. But I think there must have been a drastic change in the PH, and the PB died shortly after. (after 3 hours)

Late afternoon, I had to run some errands of returning library books and all. When all was done, it was around 6. I had the urge to run to a reservoir to attempt to get a fish on my fly rod. OC said can because I bought her a new scissors, so I zoomed to macritche and started on my fly fishing.



I hadn't successfully got a fish here except for the big one that got away before I could photograph it. I used the fly that I had tied as a demonstration at LSR. The passer-bys were all eyeing me like some alien from outer space. I heard many people asking "what's that fellow doing?". Casting away for around 20 minutes, I suddenly had a nip at my fly. To my delight, there was a huge PB just about 10-15 metres away from me. I hastily tried to cast over to the region again but my fly line got all entangled in my Kan cheongness and I had to waste time unraveling it. When I next cast again, I couldn't see the PB anymore. But after trying for 2 times, wham! and I got a hit. I was so excited that I shouted out to A and everyone walking pass. But the excitement was short-lived. I was holding on to the fly line and didn't know how to control the fish with it. The fish exerted a strong pull and broke my 8lb leader! I was dumbfounded. First time I had a PB breaking my 8lb leader.



But the whole episode gave me hope although I was sore from the chance of scoring a first on my fly fishing rod. I hastily tied another fly, this time using the gotcha that Jimmy gave me.





It was back to casting and casting again and my hopes were raised when I saw some smaller PB giving chase. But it was only another 15mins when I got a hit again. This time, not a small one as well. Again, I was inexperienced at how to control the fish. In my clumisness, I accidentally released all the spare fly line at my feet and the fish had a moment of free run with the hook in the mouth. This would usually be a critical mistake for fishing. But luckily the slack didn't cost me my fish and the hook up was firm. I shouted for the camera and slowly coaxed the fish to the bank. Holding on to the leader, I had landed it.

With that, I have now become a full fledged fly fisherman :). All without much lessons or coaching. It was also the first time I had a fish photographed at Macritche resrrvoir. My previous attempts here were quite fruitless but my opinion of this place had changed. In a short time alone, I saw so many PBs. There would definitely be more sessions here to come.

KFC - Rakit Kong Kong

This rakit was discovered last week and I was all curious to go try it. The weekend, seeing that nothing was planned, ZW and I decided to pay it a visit. A last minute call to TC saw that he was interested too. Another call to IZ, and he was on as well. I was hoping that the water here would be better. If you look at the map, this place is further south of the Rakit at Sg Layang and nearer to the open sea at Tekong. Reaching there around 8am, we were rather early and there wasn't much people at the restaurant. We saw an uncle and asked him on we could get over to fish at the rakit. Luckily Jean was with us and the communication problem was solved. Very soon, we boarded a small boat that took us over in less than a minute.

How much the fishing cost

Machiam some rock band

Aircraft carrier style Rakit

This lady...everything also catch!

The Rakit was a longish one and at the centre, was a sheltered area for shade and cover from rain. We were the only ones there at that time although more people came to join us around 12pm. That day, it was quite overcast with a hint of rain. But the rain didn't come and the fishing was again rather pleasant under a shady sky. Water was however of the greenish type with lots of cloudy sendiments. We also spied lots of jelly fishes swimming around. Not very good sign for fishing waters.

My stingray!

Yay, no more naggin about stingray

Stingray letting out the babies in the stomach

However IZ had a surprise catch and got a smallish brown stingray. Jean had been nagging about stingray from him for the longest time and today, the command was fulfilled. We were thinking that the stingray was a baby one and had actually wanted to release it. But the hook was swallowed deep and we couldn't save it. And then right before our eyes, we saw the stingray releasing its baby from itself before it died. I remember reading about this and seeing it happening was quite a touching experience.

This boatman had a long net cutting across the river :(

This girl can catch anything!

No one knew what fish this was

After that, although the fishing wasn't too good, Jean scooped up plenty of interesting little fishes to our amusement.

TC had a run of catches of catfishes at a particular sport. His rod was always the one with the bells ringing and him running to the action. Although catfishes were not rated highly in terms of catches, they do put up a decent fight. He also caught one or two stingray as well as some of the other folks. It looked like stingrays of this specie was quite common here.

Interesting way to harvest clams

This doggie is so scared of people

1 stingray to his record

Hey, there is a Kelong there!

Bye bye Rakit.

The tide came up and then went down without the water improving. We were puzzled how it was that the water would be better at the layang rakit? We were thinking that it might just be this particular timing that the fishing was poor.

The house of the durian plantation

At 1.30pm, we decided to call it a day and packed and left the place. From there, we went to do some recce and even found a kelong nearby. We shall try it out soon. Driving further, we also came across a durian plantation. We were told that the season was in August. Come August, we might give this place a visit.
Read more

KFC - Kong Kong Rakit Recce

Used to be able to fish at the Jetty for free under the old restuarant management

Rakit with the white roof

We had always detoured on the Kong Kong road towards sg layang. Actually, I had been to Kong Kong many years back and even did a spot of "boat" fishing there. There is a resort/restaurant at the end of the road. They also provided facilities like rental of boats for people keen on going fishing.

I decided to revisit this place again. The management here had changed hands since and when i asked around, I was told that the boss would not allow people to fish on the Jetty. However, the staff there was ok to close one eye. But better still, there was a Rakit just minutes around the water, and there, we could fish at the cost of RM15 per pax. According to him, there were good catches there. Definitely a place for future KFC visits.

Fishing village of Kong Kong

Bustling activites here

I left the resort and went to the village Jetty to have a look around. To my surprise, there were many people holding rods and fishing stuff and boarding on boats. I was naturally curious and went to ask around about the fishing here.

The Jetty Quaint Coffee Shop. The Goreng Pisang here is damn good

Uncle telling us to contact him

We had some drinks at the coffee shop and started chatting to some guys there. However, the information was quite inconsistent and rather suspicious. According to the uncle, the boat could bring us to the rakit at the cost of RM120 per trip for 8 persons. And there will be another fee of RM120 on the return. The cost at the Rakit, would have to be checked with the Rakit owner. We asked for the Rakit contact but the uncle gave us his instead.

When asked about where the people going, they replied that they were going boat fishing. Somehow that didn't seem right as I even see small children boarding the boat heading towards the many Rakits on the water.

Map of Kong Kong
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=sing
apore&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=25.981365,40.517578&ie=UTF8&ll
=1.518553,103.997741&spn=0.015959,0.019784&t=h&z=15

Read more

KFC - Attempt at Fly Tying

My recent venture into the rarely attempted pastime of fly tying had infected fellow KFC members and naturally roused certain interest on how to tie fly. While I am not yet so experienced, I think I know enough to try to teach them how to tie a fly. We gathered at LSR this morning to attempt to have each one of us tie and fly and then testing it to see if it would work and get us a fish.

My lousily tied Chennile Charlie

People passing by must be thinking we all siao!

Another use of a fly tying vise

Luckily for us, the vise fitted nicely on the LSR park bench chair and we improvised to convert it into a fly tying bench. With the required materials that I brought, I briefly went through the process of tying a chenille charile. However, I did quite a bad job and the resultant fly wasn't too professional looking. But it was good enough as a demonstration.

Weird variations of the Chenille Charlie

The others quickly had a go at it and each came up with their own version of the fly. I told them to be free to improvise if needed. There wasn't any need to follow any steps to the letter.

With my newly tied fly, I went down to the rocks to have a go at it. And Wham! First cast, I hit a PB. How's that for Proof of concept? :D. However, the PB shooked loose nearing the bank and I lost it. At first I thought the PBs were around in numbers. But we found out later that while the water was clear, the PBs were not readily around. It took me quite a number of cast to get 4 bites later on, while the others were mainly still zero.

Finally another notch on his fishing accomplishment

ZW as normal was the first to score a good hit. He caught a big one at the corner and from where I was standing, it was putting up a good fight. Soon, a big fellow was proudly seen displayed. His fly had passed the acid test.

Patrick was still getting nothing on his 2nd attempt here at LSR. However, he kept trying and trying. And heaven rewarded his persistence and he too hit on a good size one. I was about 100m from him and I could hear a yell that he had got a PB. But he made the mistake of not setting the hook properly and the PB was lost just as he was about to lift it up to the grass patch. We all saw it and yelped in despair as the PB swam away. Too bad that he did not manage to get a pic of it. But he too passed the fly tying test :)

Pat trying out my fly rod

I also brought along my fly rod and let the guys try out fly rod casting. I was not good myself but from what I read, I tried to teach them how to cast a fly line. Most agreed that it was pretty fun.

The children that gave us power.

Man who caught the Earth Eater

ZW and I continued our PB fishing into the afternoon at Kranji after lunch but was badly put to shame by baiters that scored 3 good size PB in just 15 minutes. We had been like cast our flies for hours with no bite whatsoever. Water was still that greenish murky look that was common at Kranji. On the way back, a baiter (on worms) caught a beautiful earth eater. When can I get that on fly? :(

Read more

KFC - Ah Chong Boat Fishing

It was a chance meeting with Patrick at Team 7 while I was doing my tackle shopping. I had known Patrick from a previous Pekan Trip. When he mentioned that he would be going to local offshore, I told him to let me know about the next. So one Monday morning, I got an SMS asking me if I would be interested to try Ah Chong. Knowning that ZW was also keen in trying out boat fishing after the last try at Inu kelong, I asked him too.

Old friends and new friends

*

The date came and ZW picked up me with Chew and Patrick. We met their other friends Mike and Roger at the Terminal. Another couple joined us, Jonathan and his gf. We were soon on Ah Chong's boat moving off for our day of local offshore fishing. From my previous experience with Ah Fong, I wasn't expecting too much and only brought along my light tackle of a Black Rose. During breakfast, when the conversation got to the big monsters and heavy tackles, I was feeling rather underequipped for the battle ahead.

Spot near Seawall
Raju's boat

*

A huge catch at Ah Fong's Boat. People taking photos in the boat

*

But first spot that Ah Chong brought was to a location beside a rocky seawall. The current wasn't too strong and with a small size 2/3 weight, it was sufficent for me. I had the advantage of being more sensitive with my lighter tackle. In fact, the other boats, Ah Fong, Ah Long and Raju were also there. But the morning fishing was slow and nothing much was biting. However, the other boats caught some Queenies, and Ah Fong got one that was huge, a 7/8 kilo monster. ZW scored a nice Yellow Tail (Fusilier) on prawn meat. The rest using live prawns wasn't getting anything until Roger had an outstanding catch of a Golden Snapper, which was of a good size too. (around 2kg). After that, everyone soon started to get something.

Spot near Tekong

*

We changed a couple of spots until we fished mainly at the enclosure near to Tekong. With the slower current, somehow the fishes abound there. The weather was excellent with overcast clouds and a spot of light raining in the noon time. But nothing too heavy and it was still fishable. Naturally, there was very little scorching sun which made the fishing quite cool and relaxing.

ZW's catches

*

My catches

Surprise catch of a good size Grouper (Ah Chong said "green eyed" grouper)

*

Fierce fight with Parrot on my light tackle

*

At the end of the trip, I scored a nice around 1Kg Grouper, and a 2lb (measured on boga) Parrot fish + some misc small catches. ZW scored 1 Yellow Tail, 2 small ACK, 1 Puffer. Jonathan scored an outstanding kilo plus Kaci + small fishes. Mike scored 2 or so nice snappers + others. Roger was the champion of them all with the above mentioned Golden Snapper, a nice grunter and others. Only Patrick and Chew were fishless after the trip. Patrick had a close miss with a probable Chermin at the Chermin spot.

Jonathan Catches

Powerful Kaci

*

Ah Chong said this is Ang Kuay

*

Mikes's catches

Nice ACK

*

Roger's catches

(champion 2kg Golden snapper)

*

*

He said "next fish is grunter" and it was

*

*

Total catches

*

Steam Parrot Fish. Yum!

*

*

All in all a nice outing fishing and making new friends. In the car on the way back, we were toying with the idea for a Rompin Trip in the near future. Well, my dusty heavy gear could see some action soon.

Old friends and new friends


Read more here

Fly Me To The Moon

My latest acquisition:-
2nd hand set at $300. Rod: 3 pcs Harvest (Korea made), Reel: Orvis BattenKill 3/4 Large arbor. Line 4 weight.

I had succumbed to the dark side, where anglers fear to thread. Although not yet officially a fly angler, my gears are ready to rock and roll. Just need to add fish.

What Happened To My Flies?

Last week, I had quite a number in the group going to LSR to test out my wonder flies that I was so lucky with. I had tied some flies before hand and handed it out to them in anticipation of them catching plenty of PBs. However, that time round the fishing was very poor. Unlike the previous week where we could see small PBs chasing the flies, this time the flies were just swimming and getting wet without any action. Water also didn't look as clear with kind of a murky look. However, there were some experts at the Jetty and they got some impressive catches of a big PB and later on a humongous Mummy Toman. Seemed that he was using Yozuri surface cruiser.



"I am taking video arh"


"How shall we cook this fish arh?"


This week, ZW and I went LSR again to try flies one more time. Unfortunately, again the water very bad. And it started to rain. We all moved to the Jetty shelter. Kind of repeat of last week. After the rain stopped a little, I cast out my clouser again and got a big take. Up came a good sized PB. So my flies still got a bit of juice and can still work. I noticed that the fishes would bite after the rain. ZW got some small ones and managed to bring back one to put into his aquarium.



A father and son team were fishing on our left side and the boy was very lucky today. They were casting out a float rig with a fly (white feather with bright yellow body). The boy caught a two palm sized PB and later topped it with another big PB. His father was certainly very proud of him.

KFC - Ed Pro Pond

It was recently made known to me that there was a local fishing pond at Pasir Ris farmway 3, near to the places where there were many aquarium and dog farms. I was asked by a forum friend to meet there so I stepped into Ed Pro Pond for the first time. They were doing fly fishing which I heard they had 3 takes but didn't manage to control it to land.

Ed Pro Pond consisted of 3 areas, one salt water pond, one prawning "pond" and the last and the biggest, the fresh water catch and release pond. I was quite surprised that the pond was a rather popular one well visited by people. In the short hour or so that I was there, there were numerous catches and mind you, big ones too. It was possible to catch the famous Mekong catfish without having to fly to Thailand to do so.

That night, I asked ZW if he was interested to pay it a visit. I didn't check out the price that afternoon and from what I saw on the internet, it was $50 for 5 hours. Rather expensive. But we went down anyway to have a look see and not thinking to touch water at all. When we arrived, we read on the notice that it was possible to fish for 2 hrs for $15 at the C&R pond. That wasn't too bad and we paid the money and was soon fishing for the first time at a local fishing pond.

While we were paying the money, I had a chat with the worker and discovered that flies wouldn't work at night. As for lures, it would need to be debarbed and converted to single hooks. So asking what would work, he recommended us chicken liver. Well, I had never tried this before that was as close to "fear factor" as you could get in terms of bait. But the bait was cheap at $1 a big pack. So we decided to do fresh water "baiting". Something that you could not do legally in singapore.

1st Landed Patin ever (helper said 5kg)

My 2nd Patin that was lost

True enough to the worker's words. I had barely parked my rod for 10 minutes and out shot my lines. I had anticipated it and had purposely loosen my drag. If I hadn't done so, my rod would have flown into the water. The fight was hard and intense and soon (about 5 minutes), a Patin surfaced. Wahoo, my very first Patin ever. Helper came over to lift it out for photo taking and soon it was released back into the water. I re-rigged and toss out to the water again. As I was helping ZW with his rig, my rod again "flew" a little before lines went spooling out. Wah, another take. I fought it but it felt smaller this round. It was yet another Patin. Seems like Chicken Liver = Patin over here. But as it was near the edge for us to lift up, it sudenly thrashed and splashed into the water again. And this time, the hook came out and I lost it.

ZW got a take

ZW was impressed and soon he too was on one. But his lines were not tied well, and the hook came off. His second take, he didn't fight well and tighten the drag too hard. The mainline broke (20lb) and fish was lost. 3rd time, he was better trained and he finally managed to land one. But as I was helping to try boga the fish for photo taking, the helper came over. I thought he was helping us but he just unhooked the fish and let it go. Argh! Poor ZW didn't have any photo to show for that catch. But it was videoed, luckily.

Helper with the 6kg Pacu

Time past very quickly and our 2hrs were up. As were were leaving, the neighbouring group (which was rather quiet) had a big hit. This time, it was not a Patin but a huge 6 kg Pacu. It was definitely an interesting short session, and a very good training ground on how to handle big catches. At $15, I think it was quite worth the experience.

Read more

KFC - Trip to St John

Many of us in the group haven't had the chance to visit St John island, despite having stayed in Singapore for years. Actually, there wasn't much to do there as well, except to fish. As I expected, fishing wasn't a very comfortable as there were not many shelters around, and the promising area was to do the fishing at the so called "causeway". This is the dam like area cutting across the island channel of water. The current there would be quite strong during the changing of tides.

Disembarking from the Jetty

So it was that a trip was planned to visit this island. In terms of logistics, it was easier as the ferry terminal have regular runs of ferry to St John, then to Kusu and back to Singapore every 2 hours or so during Sun. I was pleasantly surprised to see the famous Des T from fishingkaki forum leading a group to St John to catch his favourite fish ie Todak.

The "Causeway"

Our group met quite punctually and we were soon on the ferry to St John. The trip there wasn't long and we were there in like 15 minutes. From there, we headed for the "causeway". But the place was hot and burning, and we walked further down to park ourselves on the road under a shady rock. We were all impressed with the clarity of the water, and Tambans were immediately sighted when we disembarked form the Jetty.

My aim for this trip was to experiment on my flies to see if they would indeed catch anything. We did have some bites from todaks on the surface of the water, but other than that, hardly anything else. I skirted it around the rocks but no groupers were interested in it. What did work was sending out live prawns on float and some of us managed to catch some todaks. It was however not easy to get them.

First Todak!

Pat was first to draw first blood and get a small todak to his credit. Todaks were definitely around although not in large numbers. After that opening number, we got more confident to proceed on.

White St John Island Ninja

Ooh...this is how it feels to get big fish

Landed and approved by master fisherman

ZW the todak master as usual had all the todak luck and he was soon fighting a big one a the other end of the line. IZ had a chance to play with it for a while to refresh his memory of how fighting a todak was like. WL (IZ's friend) also experienced a bit of the excitement of having a big todak on the line. ZW got the todak up and after a few fotos, we released it back to the water.

St John got no fish, only Hermie the Hermit crab

Lunch time. Eating like construction workers

I also Got!!

Wah, my fish so big wor!

All fueled up by the refresher course, IZ quickly rigged up a live prawn and targetted the general area. And indeed his curse was broken this time, and he hooked on a todak that was larger than all that he ever caught. As he was using my light rod, the fight was pretty intense. When the todak was landed, he was all smiles after having a dry spell of going todakless for 6 months already.

PPPPIAK!

I didn't have much luck in luring/flying and even though I tried here and there, no monster came to bite my offerings. The sun was indeed getting to my head, and fishing was tough work here. I also had an accident while flinging out my lure and it caught a branch and broke my green arrow into two. Boo hoo....now I can buy a new rod. :P

Toot toot....walk somemore

So, despite an eventful day of big todaks, there were nothing much else from the clear blue sea. It was just such a waste as the water was ready good, something that cannot be seen in Singapore. Only other interesting fishes that I saw were a large group of half beaks, and a small group of mullets swimming around here. Our kaya bread didn't work as it wasn't branded one like Ya Kun. Haz. Strangely, all of us didn't even try bottom fishing.

Read it here

So Many Fishes, So Little Time

My smallest PB ever


As planned, I met ZW for a short PB session. Pat had to work and couldn't join us. Objective was to help them get their very first PB in Singapore. A came along with his Dr Ng and a few other children. Naturally, the children all had great fun playing with each other.

His catches got bigger and bigger






Peering into the water, I was wondering if the small PBs were still around. After a few casts, my doubts disappered and we confirmed that they were still there in numbers. ZW soon landed his first ever PB, breaking the curse of the zero for Singapore fishing. Although small, it was already an achievement. We started counting the score but when I got to 4:3 or something, we totally lost count. There were too many catches, but small ones. A also managed to land one or two.

Urgh..so heavy


I gave my Papa power one to catch this


At the end of the session, I was a little disappointed that we didn't hit any large ones, as those would really put up a good fight. But given the effectiveness of the technique, it was only a matter of time.

The mischiveous Dr Ng


A beautiful fly that I need to learn how to make. It was very effective

Fly by Night

My first attempt in the proper tying of flies using the correct techniques, after spending an obscene amount of tuition fee. However my skills are still far off. Hopefully, it will improve with time. I am seriously lacking a proper pair of good scissors. Couldn't snip off the tiny strands of streamers at the joint. >:(

Work in progress


Accident! The vise "kelp" me. Don't play play. Fly tying is dangerous


My Fly tying bible (by Peter Gathercole). Look like the picture?


A charlie using pink mono scrape lines

KFC - Trip To Sister Island

Once a upon a time, there were two sisters (dunno pretty or not). One day, pirates came and wanted to marry one (the prettier one, I suppose). They all not happy and fell into the sea and died. Then 2 islands sprung up and became Sister Island. This is a brief agak agak history of how Sister island came about from what I read from the internet.

Marina South Ferry Pier

Being quite an unknown island of Singapore, my first thought was that there must have lots of fish. So when we were unsuccessful in getting our bums to Sibu Kelong due to "everyone wants to go Sibu Kelong at the start of school holiday syndrome", I was hoping that this would be a good alternative. Being in Singapore, it would be easier to get to. However, there are no operating ferry to bring people there. From what I gathered, a private boat needed to be chartered.

We brought so many things, that even need trolley

While waiting, let's play badminton

Dog goes a riding on a bumboat

Karen forgot to take passport

This little girl was so quiet, I didn't even hear her speak after telling me her name

Ini mini miney mo, which island shall we go?

Going fishing makes me happy

It was rather challenging to fill up the boat space to spread the cost so that it would be cheap. Information was also not easy to find. However, all things worked out at the last minute and I managed to find 24 fishing siao people, and 2 boats that were surprisingly cheaper than the fare to St island. This time round, even a "cute cute little" dog came to join us.

The bigger island jetty already got people there!

We went to the smaller one instead loh

Wah, water was SO clear

Walking nearer to the toilet

We managed to meet up by 9am like clockwork, and were soon loading up to the bumboat to get to Sister Island. Actually it wasnt very far from Singapore, and we reached it in no time. But boatman said that the bigger sister island was quite filled with people and we decided to go to the smaller island island. At first glance I was immediately excited about the potential of the fishing here. Water was as clear as a screen protector, we could even see the little fishes swimming around. Tambans were sighted and that meant that the fishing couldn't be that bad and I had wasted my money getting live prawns.

Beautiful beach here. We were the only ones

Let's setup command post here

Rare sight of nice water

Breakwater from one of the two lagoons

Stand here fish also shiok

Nice fine sand

Shall we look for treasure?

We moved deeper into the island and parked ourselves near to the toilet. However, that was quite bad for the fishing as we fished mostly at the Jetty. So, I was quite away from the non fishing group and didn't get much pictures of the "dunno what activity" they were doing. But we had the whole island to ourselves and it felt like we own the island. The only trouble wa an old monkey that wasn't happy that "cute cute doggie" was here.

Alan's family discover fishing!

We quickly setup and moved to the Jetty to fish. Alan, after some fishing tips from me, managed his first Tamban with his family. They were all shouting "big fish big fish". Luckily no people on the island otherwise they sure to laugh until drop into the sea. Current got very strong around the mid day and our lines were all drifting out fast and couldn't hit the bottom. Bottom fishing wasn't good as our sinkers kept getting snagged on the rocks.

Nice beach. No need to go phuket already. Even doggie also having good time

ZW, the todak master

The todak loving gang quickly sent out their offerings to the todak gods here. IZ was especially stressed to get a todak as he was todakless for a very long time already. But todak fishing here wasn't that great and there were only a few hits. IZ lost 2, especially one that J was fighting for a while and lost it when the rod was passed to him. Tomorrow, his ears sue become swollen.The "todak king" aka ZW nevertheless was able to get 2 todaks despite the "advanced" level todak fishing.

Little children fishing

I.want.to.get.the.biggest.fish.

Our cooks conjuring up good food

Yum!

How many CHOPSTICKS?

Patrick & fam fishing under the coconut tree. Ros with a Sergent fish

A tuskfish (kind of a parrot)

Other than Tambans, we managed to get some small fishes with small hooks and prawn meat. I was using too big a hook and didn't fare very well. They will mostly snatch my bait away and left me with an empty hook. Small specimens from the bottom were quite commonly Parrot fishes. http://www.handlinefishing.com/whatsthisfish/wrasses/anchortuskfish.htm

Strange looking "holy" tree

Group 1 leaving the island

Group 2 got stranded by doggie who doesn't want to go home

Next time, we take this boat (it's raining in Singapore)

Time passed very fast and very soon, it was time to leave. We definitely didnt' get enough of the fishing, but had to leave due to our cars coupon expiring. In fact, Marcus was to get a little fine for exceeding his coupons by 10 mins. There was a small incident when our "cute cute dog" refused to board the ferry. When TC wanted to carry him, he turned around and chomped off a little part of TC for him to remember this Sister island trip. He wanted to run away to stay with the pretty monkey. But after we reminded him of his favourite dog food, he decided to get on the ferry to return home.

All in all, it was a nice day for just relaxation and camping. Weather man bluffed us said rain...but the weather there was bright and sunny. However in terms of fishing, I was greatly disappointed. The water looked so good but was devoid of big fishes. Another example of how bad fishing in Singapre had gotten in recent times. i.want.my.big.fish......*sigh*

Read more

Return to LSR

Of late, I hadn't been productive in LSR ever since the construction started. Thinking that the construction had affected the water, I didn't try very hard in PB fishing. The few times that I brought ZW for fresh water fishing, we didn't get anything.

But just last week when the sun was shining brightly, I discovered to my utmost surprise that there were indeed plently of baby PBs around. From the clear water, I could see them zooming into my lure. But since the lure was much bigger than them, there wasn't any hookup. Intrigued, I decided to come back this morning to try again.

Knowing that PBs are best gotten on flies, I decided to swap my lures for flies. Since they are small, the hookup chances might be better. Indeed in a 40 minutes session, I got quite a number of bites, and even gotten a small PB. Later, the fly got stuck onto a rock and I burst my line.



I returned home and decided to put my long acquired fly tying vise to use. It had been sitting in my cupboard for the longest time since I bought it last year. Following some instruction from the internet, I tied 2 poorly done charlie. One even was not knotted properly and the lines came loose. Nevertheless, I was eager to put them to the water to test test. Wife was displeased and give me just a window of half an hour or else.

It was raining earlier on, but when I reached LSR, the rain had stopped. But the seats were rather wet. I hastily setup my rod (and I even missed one guide). Water was not as clear as before in the morning. Out when my fly #1 and in 10 minutes, I had a hookup. However on the way up, I dropped it. Guy fishing next to me gave me a smile. I noted that he was doing bottom as well as doing some casting with a yellow fly once a while.







I tried again and in yet another 10 minutes, I had an electrifying hit. WHAM! Something that I hadn't experienced for a long time. The hookup was solid as the fish was big. Enjoying the fight, I eventually subdued it on my 6lb line/8lb leader and brought it up to the grass patch for some photo taking. All these within the allocated wife allowed time. The rest of the folks fishing were so stunned to see this guy coming, and leaving with a catch in 20 minutes flat, while they were still tossing out their lures. Above fishes all returned back to the water to fight another day.

My girl was so impressed and asked me to tie more flies to sell on the internet. haha.

KFC - Inu Kelong

We had originally planned this to be a small group recce trip to Inu Kelong. But a last minute chit chat with IZ over MSN saw him interested to come along with Jean. That sat saw us heading up to Penyabong in a group of five. TC came slightly late from the planned meet up time and we only left the popular SHELL station at around 7am. The distance was slightly longer than going to Sibu, and my estimate was that we would reach there in about 3 hours. We had a quick simple breakfast at around 9.15 at the Mersing bridge. From there,we finally reached the Penyabong jetty slightly before 10am.

Countryside road

At the road end

The Jetty was the same one for going to Acheh Kelong, so I was already familiar with it. As expected, the scenary was beautiful and clean and well maintained. During the drive in the long curvy country side road towards the Jetty, we saw plentiful of cows and sheeps and also alot of cow dung on the road. Some places are out-right postcard beautiful and quite a surprise that we can see such places in Malaysia other than going to expensive island resorts.

A simple coffee shop here

..and a fish loading bay

Walking to the Jetty end

IZ, better get me this size of stingray or I don't friend you

Someone's queen

Going up the boat

Simon, the kelong owner, met us at the Jetty. Simon was a chatty and friendly person and really put us at ease and made the trip as enjoyable as possible for us. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we were the only group on the Kelong. Another group had cancelled the trip leaving us to the entire kelong. We loaded up and was soon on the boat heading to the Kelong. The boat ride to the Kelong was only about 15 minutes.

View of the Kelong

Our spacious hall for the night

Looking towards the kitchen and dining room

Nice island backdrop

Wah! So many todaks here

Making salted fish

Jean drew first blood

Nice fusilier (Yellow tail) from IZ

Getting lunch ready

Reaching there, we unpacked leisurely with no stress whatsoever. It was so nice to be fishing at a spot where there was no one else.The peace and quiet was definitely worth the long trip up here and better than any expensive resort. As the Kelong was near to the island, we could also hear birds chirping. However, the water depth was quite alright and not too shallow. The height of the Kelong from the water was very high for some reason even when the tide came up.

Todaks waiting for lunch too

We saw lots of todaks around the kelong. But the todaks there were very smart, the type that go to university. It wasn't easy to trick them to take our bait. Even a sprightly kicking tamban was eyed with caution. It was only once a while that they would go for it, and we mostly ended up with the todak throwing off the hook and escaping with our baits. But the good thng was that it was easy to get Tambans here and we quickly filled up our DIY bait well and had ample baits throughout the stay. Only problem was that our air pump ran out of battery and the fishes died from lack of air. Jean was our faithful bait supplier and made sure that we were always loaded up with our ammunitions for todak hunting.

My only catch of a blur todak on lure

ZW and I did some luring as well. Despite the todaks taking an interest in my lure, they would turn away at the last moment due to the very clear water. But during one of the "last moment" turning away, I managed to latch on a todak at the tail end. Shook and jumped all it could, the hook up was strong. I landed it and took some pictures and then released it back to the water to grow bigger.

On the boat ride to the Kelong, Simon was asking if we would like to do boat fishing. As a value added service, he only charged us RM100 for the boat. That would work out to be RM20 per pax, very cheap indeed. As the others had not yet been on boat fishing before, it was good opportunity to try it out.

Four amigos going boat fishing

Gentlemen, drop your lines

Therefore at around 3.30pm, we boarded the boat setting out for most of our first boat fishing. Since we didn't have live baits, we were only armed with simple apollo rigs with dead sotong and prawn meat. The boatman was just glad to be out with us, away from his boss. Despite his boss telling him not to go too far, he actually brought us to various spots for fishing. On the way, it rained a little, but nothing heavy to dampen our spirit.

TC flying grouper. It got angry and bit my rod as revenge

After photo shot, was let off with a warning

I got another fish. Fishing so easy

I also have. Mine bigger

So cute. Can we bring it back?

Haha..my first catch of the smallest grouper in the world

Beautiful island backdrop


Finally caught a grouper too

Only expert can get this

ZW got a bite!

Nice ACK

We had so much fun!

TC was first to draw first blood with a "flying" grouper. He was reeling in so hard that we all thought that he had landed a monster.But out came a tiny grouper that flew out of the water with such a force that it jettison into the sky and almost landed on our heads.Luckily the boat had a sun cover else it would knock me on the head as I was standing next to him. He again took the second and thirdfish and was sniggering at us lousy fisherman. But after that, we all started to have some catches of mostly small groupers and breams. Jean was last to get her first catch of a tiny baby grouper. The prize catch of the trip was a respectable ACK (John snapper) by ZW. TC too landed his favourite fish, a decent Leng Chiam (Emperor).

Group photo of first boat fishing

The fishes that didn't get away

Dinner time

We went back around 6.30pm just in time to rest before going for dinner. At that time, it started to rain. Dinner was a unusual spread of steamboat, first ever I had on a Kelong. It was nice and we were all well serviced by the staff there seeing if the food was alright; if we had enough rice and so on. Another group of 12 had joined usbut they were just staying over at the kelong from another boat fishing trip, It was just a rest and sleeping stop for them. As it was raining, and we mainly just took our time to eat, rest and relax.

Nice kelong view. Over here, the stars were extra bright

Rain stopped at around 10-11pm, and we continued to fish. We saw lots of small fish activity but was unable to interest them withanything. Casting out dead Tambans also didn't get us anything. Luring was a complete non action. During all out attempts, we sangkot quite a few lures on the Kelong stilts. Next morning, Simon was so kind to climb down the stilts to retrieve it for us. And there were like 6-7 lures that he had to take! Really excellent service.

The woman that caught the most fish!

Early next morning, ZW and I woke up at around 5am to see if we can get some catches on our lure. Again nothing. But I tossed out my tamban rig with some sotong and prawn meat. Suddenly my little tamban rod took a very strong bend. Up came 2 big Selars, one of which was two palms long. The commotion also woke up the rest. It was quite effective to use sotong meat and catching small fishes from then on. Tambans that morning was also plentiful. Jean was jokingly complaining that she "catch until sianz"...haha. At the end of the trip, she caught 3 bags full of tambans.

I finally got you!

Had to net it

As long as a rifle

Kelong cook can make the todak taste good

That morning, again the todaks came out in force. Even though most were not too big, there were the occasional large sized on circling the kelong. As luck would have it, ZW little tamban rod got a very strong hit. The todak scooted out far from the kelong and I got worried if he had enough lines for it. It went to the left of the kelong and then to the right, just like fighting a marlin. hehe. When it finally tire out, we saw it to be a very large one and was wondering how to bring it up. Kelong helper wanted to net it but it was too long for th net. I thot of the good idea to use my luring rod to assist to distribute the weight for lifting it up. With my lure, i hooked itand managed to lift it such that it was able to bend into a u-shape to get into the net. ZW was beaming cheek to cheek and it was definitely an impressive record breaking catch. We asked the kelong to cook it for us for our tea break later. The way it was prepared turned out quite tasty, although they used liberal amount of salt to mask the fishy smell.

Why the todak so smart?

My consolation prize. A Selar

I got it! (but it escaped shortly after)

Only poor IZ was unable to land any todak despite many strikes. I attributed it to his poor equipment. He missed a very good strike of what must have been a large todak. But he wasn't able to adjust the drag properly and there was too much resistance and todak did a flip and he lost it. We had to stop him from jumping into water to wrestle it with his bare hands.

We left the Kelong at about 12pm. Despite my many reminders to pack, most of them still continued to fish and fish until the last minute. :). It was certainly a rare occasion to be enjoying the fishing so much. From the Jetty, we headed out to Mersing for lunch. We first visited the Mersing tackle shop where we replenished our dwindling stock of weights and hooks. After that, TC took us to a good and cheap restaurant. Although we ordered quite a number of dishes, the amount per pax was only RM16. So cheap!

From there, we headed straight home and I decided to go back via the Tuas 2nd link. Traffic was smooth and we reached back around 6pm concluding our fruitful recce trip. This time round, ZW would bring back some better catches for his wife and not just another round of more todaks. :)

Read more

Changi Boardwalk and Senibong

A "Green eye" squid


Peaceful tranquil night


Meow meow


A rare catch of a "bak tao" (cuttlefish)


Another last minute call for a night fishing and the turnout was rather surprising. I couldn't quite think of a good place to fish except to bring the folks to Changi Boardwalk to try their luck. And when we finally reached there, we were welcome by a bunch of people that were dressed from top to toe in fishing branded attire in the midst of gaffing a squid up. Most of us hadn't really seen a live squid closeup, and it was an exciting way to start off a nite of fishing.

After the initial commotion, we setup with some hope of getting something that night. We had gotten some live prawns which I had almost erroneously ordered a batch of 1.5 kg live prawns when I meant 150g. Lucky I realized the mistake before the shop closed, otherwise we would be stuck with $50 worth of prawns. :P

Jean got a cat fish and another small fish that I couldn't ID. Being her first, she was naturally going ga ga over it. That was about our only catches as the rest of us were trying out fishing with live prawns. There were indeed some quick bites that killed our prawns or dragged our lines to the rocks. I was the only one that got lucky and managed to bring up a cuttlefish on live prawns with single hook. I was surprised myself. Looked like this place was quite a good spot for squid fishing.

My green arrow patiently waiting


TC enjoying the fishing


A beautiful Pomfret


My only catch of a "helicopter"


The next day, TC wanted to run into JB for some errands and cheap shopping. I followed along in his car with him braving the woodlands checkpoint jam. But the jam turned out quite ok with us clearing it in an hour or so. After shopping, we decided to kill some time in the afternoon to visit a paypond at Senibong, around the Permas area. After some bargaining, we managed to get a spot for RM22 per pax for 2 hours. Quite cheap as compared to Singapore pond fishing.

The fishing was slow and most people didn't have any catches. But our neighbour got a Pomfret after he arrived shortly. From my observation, he was using apollo with prawn meat. We were doing prawn spinning all the while, hoping to get some biggies. But seems like prawn meat is more effective here. I copied him and only managed to bring up a tripod fish aka "helicopter".

The 2 hours came up very quickly and we left without any catches. Seemed like I didn't have any luck doing pond fishing. This was my third time at a pond and I still hadn't gotten anything yet, despite the fact that the fishes were in the water. Anyway, I am not really a pond person.

Kranji Reservoir Green Water

Hoping to break my dry spell of a rather long fishless month, I dropped by Kranji for a spot of luring to try my luck. But reaching there, I was totally shocked to see our reservoir water filled with thick ozzy greenish particulates that totally filled the water. It was so thick that it almost felt like green paint.



But strange enough, there were even people luring in such conditions. I observed for a while to see if there were still fishes swimming in such water condition and concluded that if I were a fish, I would stay far away from such a place. Then as I was walking further down, I saw a duo of an old man and a younger man luring. To my utmost surprise, he had 3 catches gotten in a net on the floor. It blew my mind to think that they could even get any fishes here. From what I see, he was doing a mix of luring and baiting. At the end of the lure, he had an extra line linking to a hook with an oyster flesh. So strange. Wouldn't that impede the movement of the lure? But still, his results showed.

I tried to lure for a while after that but got zilch. Well, the spell had to be broken another day then.

KFC - Valentine Day Fishing

I hadn't count on this trip to happen as it was Valentine's day, and presumbly people had more romantic things to do than to visit a dirty kelong. But TC surprised me that he was game to try it and I agreed to do a re-introductory trip to Tuas Kelong seeing that he had not been fishing for a while. Since he was coming, ZW family could also ride along in his car. The day before, I also got a out-of-the-blue message from Pat that he was all cleared for the trip as well. Well, well, looked like people do like to fish on Valentine's day perhaps to have an excuse for not doing that expensive candlelight dinner.

We met as usual at the early hour to avoid the checkpoint jam. With the 3 cars, we re-grouped at the SHELL station (that people were finding hard to locate) and set off to get breakfast before hitting the Jetty. We had breakfast at the Perling coffee shop where the "parata" was sold. However, I noted that they changed the sign and it was no longer "by order". I also realized that it was quite common to see migratory birds making their way to the north from there. That must had been some north south highway for migrating birds.

"stay away from me food", hissed the monkey

Quaint JB fishing village

Boat was maxed to capacity

Up the kelong, one by one

At the Jetty, we were met by a grouchy monkey on top someone's poor car. It was proably not to happy that we were here to bring back fishes by the truck load. That was our plan as we all eagerly set off to our fishing destination.

The tide was indeed very low and when we reached the kelong, the steps were a little higher than the boat and we had to do some gymnastics to transfer all the people big and small from the boat to the kelong. However, Liman was an experienced boatman and we all got up safe and sound.

Pat and Ros trying out the fishing

My mummy is a good fisherwoman

A Chermin hauled up from the Kelong's net

One of the biggest fish for this trip

The kelong wasn't crowded at first and we only had 3 other pax on it. With the ample space, it was rather fun to fish expect that the tide was at the lowest and fishes were not around. We had enough time to prepare for the fishing as the tide would only improve around noon. The plan was to fill up our pails with some bait fish for the better fishing later. However, the Tambans were not quite around at that time, although we did get them once a while.

This climb up and down room is so fun!

I just ordered Pizza Hut (guilty look)

Behold our baby. We call him bubbles



The children had their own fun and mostly entertained themselves playing in the helper' 2nd story living quarters and playing their self made games.

Ah hong and his many catching at this kelong

The kelong help informed me that the legendary "ah hong" would be coming later. I was rather puzzled as who was this "ah hong" person and found his photo pasted on the kelong with his many impressive catches. Definitely proof that this kelong was capable of producing excellent catches.

Around 10, another big group of people came and the kelong got crowded. They were mostly using big rods and they cast their lines on top of us till we were rather squeezed for space to fish. Ah hong came later (with another big group) and it got almost impossible to enjoy the fishing with all the lines all over. I decided then to leave by 3.30pm if the fishing hadn't improve by then. Fishing in such crowded condition wasn't too enjoyable.

More porridge? (he is the porridge king, can eat 4 bowls!)

We were pressured by the ladies who were preparing our lunch to have some decent catch for lunch later. Tried as we could, all we could do was to provide 2 plateful of Tambans. Lunch was served with an impressive spread of dishes. Although the pot of porridge was filled to the brim, we managed to clean it up with nothing left.

How the expert keep their bait fishes alive

Heart stopping moment

Yet another Kitty

During lunch, there was a commotion (the only one) and someone's big rod went ballistic and line was peeling fast from it. The owner controlled it for a while but the line snapped. I was later to learn that he was on wire leader and even that couldn't hold the fish at the other end. Must have been a huge one. Other than that one time, all the other catches were mostly catfishes. Seeing how the other group do their fishing with big chunky and smelly sotong bait, it was no wonder.

Notice how the birds were all standing in line waiting for their food

A Goatfish

The lady that we met previously was doing her usual apollo fishing with prawn meat, and I must say that she was rather successful with it. Before we left, she caught a rarely seen goatfish above.

Street hawker fare at Permas Jaya

Birthday party at Jusco

Seeing the poor fishing, we spent the rest of the day doing tackle shopping and then followed by dinner at Permas. Food was cheap and good and definitely much better than the fishing we had. From there, we went to Jusco Terbrau City to do more shopping and then held a simple cake cutting ceremony for A who was celebrating her birthday today.

The fishing was rather poor today despite the promising location. There are times that I looked at the sea and lament where all the fishes were and this was definitely one of those moments. Perhaps that would be ok given that fishing was an activity that no one could predict. However, what spoilt it greatly was the overcrowded fishing condition. Nevertheless, I think it was a memorable timeout, an unusual Valentine day and hopefully our next trip should be see us bring back the truck load of fishes that we were aspiring for. :)

A Valentine Day of Fishing at Tuas Kelong

KFC - Tiram Fishing Resort

Since the last positive trip to Rakit Atan, a trip was planned for 31st Jan to do a group visit here. After some planning, the turnout was quite good and on that day, 3 other cars joined mine, making a total of 4 cars to meet at my block downstairs, starting off for a trip to Rakit Atan aka Tiram Fishing resort. For this trip, I would be meeting Patrick and Marcus for the first time, who were new to the group. XN & family came too as well as Roy, all who were new to this fishing thing. ZW entire family also came along too for this trip.

The checkpoint was a breeze that day and we cleared the checkpoint with ease. But the 4 cars convoy fell apart just coming through the checkpoint and Marcus's car went missing and didn't turn up at the designated meetup area. After some frantic calls, we located Marcus at the nearby stadium a short distance away from the shell station. I wasn't too sure where the stadium was, but was lucky to have found the place fairly easy. After picking them up, we set out on our way to Masai to have our breakfast there.

We had to wade on the beach to get up the boat

When the boat sped up, the ride was thrilling

Breakfast was a rowdy affair as we were a fairly big group,which made for a confusing order of pratas with and without eggs. But we filled our stomachs and were ready for the day of fishing. We were soon at the fishing village for the boat ride across. For some reason, the place was rather crowded with lots of cars. Being a big group, the rakit sent a big boat that was able to fit all of us. The boat was a powerful one, and the children all enjoyed the ride immensely.

Innovative DIY floats

Whee!

Feeding fishes

Reaching there, the children all began to have fun at the hammocks, which I noticed to be an instant attraction to all new visitors here. Certainly, it was a perfect setup for a lazy timeout here.

First tiny Queenie

Those who were here for fishing immediately setup their gears. Given that the tide would be low, I setup a bottom rig for targeting Gelamas. However, there was totally no bites at all from the bottom. In fact for the entire trip, no Gelamas were caught at all, much to my surprise. I next changed to a sabiki and went about the rakit looking where the fishes might be hiding. I needed to break the egg to show the newbies how to go about getting their first fish. With some luck, I managed to get a little tiny queenie on the jigs, much to the delights of the children.

Warm up catches by Roy

My Papa caught one. He very clever

ZW went on to try out to see if mr todaks were around. Within half an hour, he brought in a small specimen establishing their presence in the water. Seeing the fairly good hit rate, I encouraged all the newbies to try their hands at todak fishing. XN and Roy managed to get some bites but were unsuccessful in connecting them. That continued for the morning, with all the todaks getting away with our free meals. However, the todaks did keep the newbies interested in fishing and the morning saw them trying and trying.

I was speechless. The Kurau was caught using Tamban Jig with live glass fish

Patrick caught the todak with his bare hands

His girl was afraid of getting close to mr sharp teeth

Patrick was first to hit a good fish of a Kurau that was of a good size. I was startled and impressed that he and his family did seem to know how to fish. :). He was also skilled at todak fishing and soon got one for the family album.

Yay! Todak fishing is SO fun!

This is for assam curry fish head tomorrow

Wah..so big

Even the children knew to put their foot to take fish pictures! hehe

Mrs Zhao aka Emmy also tried her hands at todak fishing and was grinning ear to ear when one was caught on her own. Now she knew why Mr Zhao loves to fish todak and was always bringing it back for dinner. :O. To her extra credit, she also brought back a new fish this time, an Assam fish. I myself only caught it 3x in my life. No mean feat :)

I also know how to fish

Step 1: First, pick the fish you like

Step 2: And then, catch it

The children all had their own fun of fishing as well and managed to catch some small fishes which was already very exciting for them.

Whole morning of trying and finally!

Family with todak photo

Wah, this is harder than programming

No no..easy as restarting server

Seeing the situation, I changed tactics and asked them to change the hook size to a smaller one. I wasn't too sure about it but when XN finally managed to get his first todak, that was confirmed to be the reason why mr todaks were all getting away. After that, Roy too broke his todak-less history and hauled up a decent specimen for some photo taking. At the end of the day, XN was to score 2 todaks, and Roy surpassed it with 3, ending with the largest todak of his life ever.

Strange looking prawn (Mantis prawn)

Yahoo! My first Tenggiri on lure

Now, I love crystal minnow

I gave power to my Papa one

ZW and I did some luring. I noticed Patrick was also luring but he was away from us in another corner and I wasn't sure how he was doing. But ZW and I did manage to get some bites, although it was far and in between. We took the opportunity to be test out our less frequently used lures. I was just teasing him that he was so lucky not to have even lost one lure after so long when he tossed out his newly acquired x-rap and the braided line broke and lure went flying into Sg Layang forever. Must be my unlucky mouth :P.

ZW got lucky and his red head crystal minnow got a hit and I saw the line going deep. That was a good sign as it certainly wasn't another todak. When the fish surfaced, it was a tenggiri. Seemed that Tengirris are fairly common here and they were a joy to be gotten on lure.

Their 2nd todaks

To wrap it up, the champion of them all. Don't play play

Children playing fish. *poor fishes*

Ok. Wash your hands, then we go play fish doctor

Setting up the timer for the camera

Group pic of the trip

Marcus was doing his own thing and I didn't quite check on him as he was already a seasoned angler having been to some boat trips and sibu kelongs and all. I realized that I had kind of forgotten about him when I realized that I didn't even have a good photo shot of him at the Rakit. Sorry Marcus :P On the way back, we huddled for a group photo luckily and managed to have a small pic of his face. :))

I checked the icebox and found LIVE fishes swimming in the plastic container

The culprit who was trying to "smuggle" live fishes back to Singapore

Another exciting boat ride

Driven by this little boy!

We fished till about 5pm and started packing to return to the mainland for dinner and shopping. To our shock, the boat ferrying us was to be driven by a small 10-12 yrs old boy. But he handled the craft deftly and we landed safely back at the jetty to return to our cars.

Can we stay here overnite?

Wah, lots of cars

Food at Bukit Indah

And toilet breaks!

From there, I led the group to the newly opened Jusco at Bukit Indah. Dinner was a simple meal at the foodcourt and then to some shopping. On the way out, we lost Roy whose car automatically headed for Sg Petani, where his in-laws were. After some worried wait, Roy managed to relocate us and regroup. We headed then to the final SHELL station for refueling before parting ways and going back via 2nd link. The way was entirely smooth was no jam whatsoever.

Certainly a "fruitful" fishing trip with almost everyone getting a fish or two. I noticed that the rakit had mostly smaller specimens being at the tip of the river system. But it was fairly consistent in terms of the chances of getting some fishes, although there were hardly any tambans here. Not a bad trip and I did think that all enjoyed it one way or the other. The children certainly had lots of fun playing fish today.

Read it here

KFC - Mamod Kelong

This was done as a by-the-way thing on my recent mega long distance road trip round the whole of malaysia peninsular. The trip was shorter than I expected, and I had time to spare to do a kelong trip for a couple of hours, before the long drive back to my comfy bed in Singapore.

My last trip to this area was to visit the Kelong at Bagan Lalang, called Nazri Kelong. From my chat with some people there, I was informed that there were some more Kelongs in the area. I had originally thought that the Kelong was also in Bagan Lalang and hence headed for the famous beach again.

Road to Lukut

Kg Chuah

Finally located the Jetty

Eh, turn where?

After lunch, we made a call to Nazri and was informed that there were only 1 Kelong (his) in Bagan Lalang. The other Kelongs were in the vicinity of Lukut. Where in the world is Lukut? I asked. I was informed then that Lukut was near to Sepang (further down south) and would require an hour of driving to reach there. I considered about it a while and decided to do it anyway. But searching my trusty GPS, I couldn't find any POI for Lukut Jetty. Darn.

Mamod (the man we called) gave us the general direction to head downwards from Banting and then to look for Kg Chua, and then turn into the Kelong. Sounded simple, but we were in unknown territory. I anyhow marked the KFC at Lukut and headed towards the general direction.

But lucky for us, along the way, we saw all the landmarks that Mamod told us. In fact, his direction giving was very accurate, and we found the Jetty with no trouble whatsoever. We reached the Jetty on time and was soon waiting for the boat to bring us there.

Finally at the Jetty parking

Boat house here

Yep, the right Kelong

Hmm, can fish from here too

But no shelter. Quite hot

Pictureque view of boats

The worker there was fetching a group of 3 pax to another Kelong which was smaller and according to him, no people. The other bigger Kelong was full and already had 30 pax onboard. We tagged along but when we reached the smaller Kelong, I asked if I could go to the bigger one instead. At one glance at the small Kelong, the fishing would not look good as it was quite near the shore.

The smaller Kelong

What happened to girls who talk too much

Arriving at the bigger kelong

Boatman agreed as the other Kelong was quite on the way back. Soon we were on board the Kelong. It was indeed rather crowded, but nothing that we had not seen at Sibu. There were rows of rods all over.

No Tambans, but quite a number of these tiny anchovies

Man with a Silver biddy. Good catch

I rigged up a tamban jig and a light bottom rod and went about trying to get some bait fish. But jigging was not effective and there were hardly any Tambans at all. I kept getting tiny anchovies instead, which I gave to the people on board to use as bait. According to them, it would be effective at night. From my observation, most were using Sarong worms, prawn meat and sotong strips.

Resident mouse to "decompose" all the leftover food

Quite crowded

Hmm. Important house. Toilet

One of the only 2 tambans I caught

Somone left the puffer here to die. Very bad :(

Mummy doing cross-stitch

Catching a Kekek here is a cause for joy

The catches were slow, and even a catch of a Kekek was something to shout about. With the above bait that those guys were using, there were some catches of Pasir pasir, Kekek, Gelama and a nice Silver Biddy. A little boy also caught a flounder as I was about to leave.

So the fishing was rather slow and did not improve when the tide was coming up.(I had arrived at the low tide with the tide coming up). I had instructed the boatman to come get us at around 7pm so as to be on our way again with some light before we hit the expressway. But boatman was late, and despite our frequent calls, he only arrived at around 8pm much to my unhappiness. By that time, the Kelong was dark and going up and down the rickety steps would be quite dangerous.

Rooms at the Kelong. Very basic

And very small kitchen

Hung like a chinese sword

Some records of bigger fishes caught here

Before we left, a boy caught a flounder

Anyway, we were soon back at the Jetty which there were some people fishing on the Jetty itself. Since it had lights and all, it was properly payable to fish there. We unboarded, paid the man who charged us only RM80 probably seeing that I was unhappy. (normal is RM40 for adult and RM20 for child).

From there, the village was rather dark and the drive out quite spooky. AsI was leaving the village, I suddenly saw a cow on my right side in the darkness. It gave me quite a scare as what is a cow doing hiding in the dark?? Shouldn't it be at the cow house or something.

Dark errie night at the Jetty

Read more

Labrador Park

It had been a very long while since I was here. ZW and I did the crazy thing of trying out luring on friday nite, and then back here again to try out the Jetty the next day. I was hopeful of hitting a possible chermin, and we dropped by Regal Tang to get ammos(live prawns).

We reached there around 4.30pm, by which time the sun wasn't so hot. Water looked good and some folks were getting good strings of Tambans consistently. Not sure what's wrong with ZW and my tamban rigs. We just weren't hitting them and the people next to us were like filling in their iceboxes. I sheepishly swallowed my pride and asked the lady what's her secret. Apparently, it was no other than using the "unbranded" tamban hooks of size 3-4. Mine was a elephant size of 8 and hence can only catch elephant fish. ZW was using another type of brand. Tambans here are brand conscious.

We let out some bottom with live prawns and did the waiting game. ZW also tried a floating rig. At the end of the day, all were unproductive. Although there were some signs of some sea monsters killing our live prawns, we didn't bring anything up from the deep blue sea.

Some someone caught a small green eye(sotong) and that proved to me that eging was still quite possible, although tedious here.

*Sigh*