April to May 2007 - Giant Garoupa and Kurau... Wow!
30 June - a nice Threadfin Salmon- went with Kings and Norm and the whole gang! 9 of us on the boat this time around, and there was plenty of action, but the quality wasn't always good.
Stingray Man was lucky for the day with a good Threadfin Salmon
Altogether there were more than 50 fish, none were wasted. All were eaten, including the catfish. I landed a big Gemang (Giant Eel-tailed Catfish) which was my excitement for the day.
Here's a pile of fish about to be sorted
But I guess the highlight of my day must have been the closing of the National Stadium that night. After taking a shower at home, my whole family made our way down to watch Australia defeat Singapore in soccer, then stayed for the fireworks and closing party at the National Stadium... Boy, do I have fond memories of this place. At least we did the Kallang wave one last time.
Berkley enjoys some seaweed as we watch the proceedings
20 June 2007 and 23 June 2007 - trip with friends
On the 20th, Kho came along and landed a nice Golden Snapper.
Kho is finally convinced there are still fish in Singapore
And then, at a fast current spot, I had just set my bait when my rod began to twitch. "Small fish," I said. And then (whenever I say that magic word, something big goes...see the GT story on the left) my rod went into a huge bend.
"What SMALL FISH???" everyone else shouted. The fight was on.
The fish took drag and was a real fast swimmer. And when I tried to pump it in, I could feel true power. This felt like a big fish alright! Then, after a good fight, the fish surfaced and surprised everyone, it was a pretty decent sized GT just slightly over a kilo, and it fought like a 5 kilo fish!
GTs are really strong fish, and when they get to this size, I guess the power begins to emerge. Well, here's another Singapore GT... not big, but still strong.
Great fighting Giant Trevally junior
Then on Saturday 23rd, though a few guys backed out at the last minute, we still went fishing. Han came along and we caught many Tiger-toothed croakers (which are quite good-eating too).
Han holds one of the five tiger-tooth croakers we landed that day
And then there was a storm, and then I started catching good fish almost non-stop all around Changi. Caught two big Golden Snappers in a row, then two decent Sweetlips, then Han caught two Grunters, then I landed a big Silver Croaker (fish of the month). Total... 17 good fish + 20 other catfish and other stuff. Looks like a good season of fishing.
Here's a peek into my icebox full of quality fish... good way to end the holiday season... now it's back to work
19 June 2007 - Trip with Felip .
Felip called and we went out for a trip in windy conditions. Despite the rough conditions, we had a good conversation, reminiscing our 16 years of fishing together. I used to follow him on his boat when I was still in Secondary school. Amazing how time flies! Now we both are learning to strike a balance between work and play, and that's why we fish.
Oh ya, we both caught big Snappers each.
Here's a hard pulling Snapper I landed using Selar flesh (the Selar I caught at Sembawang beach a few weeks back... saw the pic?)
True A-grade fish... Golden Snappers
15 Jun 2007 - short trip with Bren
- managed a short trip with Bren and landed a nice Silver Croaker and Grunter, and plenty of other stuff, some strong fighters too.
Bren and me pose with another rare SILVER CROAKER... been eating them, tastes good!
31 May 2007 - Vesak Day short morning trip with Kings for Silver Croaker, and then a short pond recce trip in the afternoon with Wayne
After dropping my wife off for her morning round of golf, I did some putting practice, then headed for the boat to tie some hooks and wait for kings. He came at 0830 hrs and we zoomed off for bait and headed to the place we landed Silver Croaker at just a few days back.
Over the spot, I had a good bite just 10 minutes after setting my lines, and fought up a very nice table sized Garoupa.
Another nice Garoupa for dinner
Then caught some catfish for Sam, and then some Gelama (Bearded Croaker), and then around 10am, the real target appeared. I had a good pull, and enjoyed a nice fight from a pretty big Silver Croaker, and when the fish surfaced, it was simply amazing. It's really a beautiful fish!
Here's a nice big Silver Croaker to join my Garoupa for dinner
Mission accomplished, so we headed back by around 11am.
Here's how the Silver Croaker matches up to our standard Gelama (Bearded Croaker)... see any differences?
After washing the boat, fetched the wife from the club, she played well... then fetched the kids, went to some shopping centre, then still felt an itch to fish, so I managed to get Wayne to join me on a recce pond trip, paid $10 for an hour of catch and release fun.
Here's Wayne trying to release a nice Grass Carp I caught after a fun
fight
But we did see a huge Catfish being landed, and I made a mental note to come here again.
28 May 2007 - Trip to the Beach
just for fun, I brought the kids to Sembawang Park Beach, and while they played with sand, I walked to the jetty where I used to catch crabs (wonder if there still are crabs here), used some dead prawns as bait, and soaked a line.
Not many bites, except from some small fish, so I switched to tiny hooks and landed some weird brown small fish about 4cm long on average. In fact, I caught about 5 of them in total and threw them back. Then one tough fish took my bait and I had some fun fighting up an unexpected Selar.
Then a Tamban school came along for a short while and I managed to foul hook a few of them. I think they'll make good bait, haha.
Here's the day's catch, still very fun for me.
Who says you need big fish to have fun?
26 May 2007 - Usual Saturday Trip, unusual fish makes an appearance...
Des brought young Luke, Wei Khong brought David and young Joel, and we headed out for a day of fishing fun.
At the Changi reef, the action was quite hot, but only poor quality fish were landed. Plenty of Chocolate hinds turned up to give young Luke some thrill. Of course there were Russell's Snappers too, but the big fish were not to be found, so we shifted to a deep reef for Garoupa...
But no big Garoupa turned up, only Khong's rod took a nice pull and he managed to land a pretty good sized Waigeu Sea Perch (Deepsea Barramundi).
Khong shows us his Perch
Anyway, short on petrol, we moved to a deep channel rock again to wait for the big ones, and finally some good stuff appeared.
I was sitting beside Luke's rod when it took a violent shake, and so I struck for him and passed him the rod. Young luke fought the fish valiantly to the side of the boat and we landed what looked like a Mulloway (jewfish),(But I did some research and found that it was a different species of Croaker, a Silver Croaker... which is a rather rare (locally) relative of our Gelama (Bearded Croaker) and the Tiger Tooth Croaker. SO.... here was a silver croaker (My Ubin Jewfish record still stays intact, haha) of a nice size, and into the baitwell it went.
Here's Des and young Luke (only 2 yrs old) with a rare Silver Croaker (Father and Son Combo 1)
Then Joel struck into another Silver Croaker and fought it up to the boat.
Joel and his Dad David pose with another Silver Croaker (Father and Son Combo 2 - notice both boys are wearing similar colours)
And as we tried to settle down again, Khong got busy once more with a strong fish at the front of the boat.
Khong takes his time enjoying the fight of the fish
And here's what he landed, a slightly Yellowish Grunter, but still a decent Grunter
So we still landed some nice stuff after all. Yeah!
19 May 2007 Didn't intend to fish today cos had badminton training in the morning, but Kings managed to tempt me to go on a Stingray hunt so that we could have a nice ray for the exciting Saturday evening BBQ at King's place.
So by 2pm, we were on the flybridge cruising towards the sandy patch where I knew the stingray lurked. Almost immediately after anchoring, the fight action began, with several fish over a kilo.
I opened accounts with two Jahan (Giant Catfish) over 2 kilos each and placed them in the blue well for Sam. Then Kings had a good take and a fish fought well. When it surfaced, we whooped for joy when we saw a HUGE flathead. This is really the best fish for a BBQ, nice firm tasty flesh. SHIOK! (This is a highly prized food fish down under, but so far it hasn't caught on in Singapore, so luckily there are flathead that grow to good sizes in Singapore, cos people don't target them here, haha.) Anyway, that fish was really the champion dish for that night's BBQ. Well done, Kings!
Here's Kings with the best fish of the day, a really good flathead
Not to be outdone, I landed a few more Jahan and a Gemang (Giant Eel Tailed Catfish) for Sam, and then my light rod took a great bend and I thought the ray had arrived, but when I struck, the drag went in bursts, and I could feel violent headshakes, so I fought the fish carefully, and was pleasantly rewarded with a big Grunter.
Here's a biggie Grunter to add on to the BBQ
But of course the best was yet to come. At closing time, my stingray rod finally took a huge pull and the line started flowing out smoothly. This was a good ray, no doubt about it. Our staple for the BBQ was finally here.
After a decent fight, the perfect sized white-spotted ray surfaced and was promptly de-barbed and put on ice for the night's feast.
This was the icing on the cake, after a pretty good short afternoon trip... a nice BBQ sized ray
12 May 2007 - Melvin and gang came on board and his dad was the champion of the day,
... with many Russell's Snappers, Timun, Fusiliers (Hang Tze He), and all sorts of coral fish.
The fish were small but the bites were plenty, and the highlights of the day included a baby GT on lure, plus another slightly bigger GT lost after the hooks straightened on the lure.
When Baby GTs (Giant Trevally) like this appear, we know the water condition is not too bad
Of course, I landed some good sized stuff like a nice Parrot Fish from one of the rare clean reefs from Changi waters and a Handsome Golden Snapper to top off the pile of fish.
Here's the catch, not many big fish, but plenty of fish nonetheless.
1 May 2007 - Labour Day fishing with special guests Wilson and Renee from Montana.
Wilson has experience as a fly-fishing guide in Montana, and we enjoyed a good day out at sea, sharing fishy tales.
In fact, Wilson opened accounts with a nice Garoupa. Then the action began. Sherman was very proud of his big Golden Snapper which we had for dinner that night. Of course there were misses, but Con delivered the goods again, with a Garoupa and a Golden Snapper too. Kings was not to be outdone, and contributed a good Grunter to the tally. But the fishing was just the sideshow, the guys went on some sightseeing cruise and even stopped at the farm to enjoy a chat with the Aunty.
Here's the cruiser at the farm, with Ariel manning the flybridge
Con holds up two of the Golden Snappers while Wilson and Renee look on... these Snappers are good sized for the Ubin area
And of course, after a fun trip, everyone helped with the washing up, and we headed the King's place for a nice dinner and white wine.
Not many things beat the taste of your own freshly caught fish, especially a nicely steamed Golden Snapper
Bon voyage, Wil and Renee... who are off to Myanmar. Take care, my friends.
28 May 2007 - Norman, Iggy and Iggy's friends...
came along for a Saturday trip. This trip was not too bad.
The rays of the early sun broke through the clouds in patches. The dark clouds were ebbing away, remnants of the night's storm. A lone flybridge cruiser cut through the waves towards the choppy waters off Changi, with a crew of anxious anglers hoping for a decent catch.
At the deep oceanic rock, Captain Con positioned the cruiser nicely ahead of the structure and, calculating the wind and current vectors in with his mental calculator, dropped the anchor knowing that the lines would drop into the bite zone.
"Lines down!" announced the steady Captain as he whipped out his trusty rangong and clipped it onto his snap swivel. "We're gonna get good stuff here," he added.
Not ten minutes after all lines were baited, Iggy grunted and his rod took a mighty bend. Everyone could tell that line was being stripped from his reel because his drag was really loud. "Must be a big one!" said Norman, as he prepared the landing net. Soon, the fish tired itself out and surfaced. It was a big Grunter over the Kilo mark.
"Good fish there," said Captain Con, as he unhooked the fish and slipped it into the live well.
Iggy puts full pressure on the fish
After that, the action picked up and everyone started catching fish. A big Garoupa was landed by none other than the Captain himself, and someone added another nice Garoupa. Then Con landed a beautiful Golden Snapper soon after. Within a short bite period of one hour, everyone had landed some good fish except poor Ian. But he was going to make some good contributions later.
Iggy and Con hold up some nice Grunters and a good dinner-sized
Garoupa
Norman was itching for Barramundi, so he requested that Con bring him to the Barra spot, where Norman had witnessed several Big Barra being landed by Con and other anglers. In fact, Norman had landed a Barramundi there himself, so he was hoping for another one. Unfortunately, the water closer to shore was rather polluted, probably due to the overnight shower, and the bite rate was slow at the Barra Spot. Out of the blue, Iggy's drag was screaming again!
"Hey guys, I've got one!" shouted Iggy as he pumped in something heavy. It turned out to be a fat Blue-spotted ray, one of the tastiest rays around, and this one had meat. So after Captain Con skillfully plucked off the two stings on its tail, the ray was left to swim in the metal well, where it gave birth to another beautiful small ray. Con pointed out that this was quite common among rays and that the baby should be released to grow up, so Norman carefully released the baby into the shallows.
Here's the mother ray (right) with the newborn baby ray in the blue
well(left)
"Ok, let's get some action," said Con after a while, and they headed into clean water once again. And just five minutes after setting the anchor in the Grunter Zone, the action began.
Norman was first with a good Grunter, then Ian finally caught his Grunter, and another one immediately after that! There was plenty of fight action because a huge school of Marine Catfish soon made its was under the boat, and double hookups were common. The guys really had fun fighting these big Catfish up to the boat and releasing them.
The guys ran out of bait early and so they returned to the boatel early to wash the boat down and take some pics.
Here's a part of the catch, some fat Garoupas and Grunters
21 Apr 2007... after a 2 week hiatus, I'm out on the TrevaBerkley once again.
Went to Selangor for an intensive badminton training trip with my team, played with Bukit Jalil and some State Juniors, but now I'm back to Saturday fishing.
Fishing pro Dave, his sidekick Alex, Kings and me met up at the boat around 11am and launched the boat for a Saturday afternoon trip. This was going to be a great trip in more ways than one!
After zooming straight to Johor Shoal, we settled down to fish and the water was really calm. Then, very quickly, the bites began. Alex was really on a roll, bringing in plenty of Bream, then I landed one Bream too and we landed a number of them after an hour.
Then Dave brought out the secret weapon, DURIANS!!! 'My goodness! How to eat durians on the trip?' I exclaimed. Well, there's always a first time, and we all dug in. What succulent flesh, what strong flavour, these were perfect durians man. Take a look!
Yummy durians, these are perfect ones, thanks to Dave the Durian Hunter, we really stuffed ourselves with durians till we nearly exploded... I brought two remaining durians home for the family too
After eating our fill, I shifted the boat into the structure a little, and the real action began. It was evergreen Alex again (who, I must add, kindly spliced my anchor rope for me so that now I can use the balloon system efficiently)... who had a strong tug and fought up a hard-pulling Garoupa. But Dave handled the fish for the photo.
Here's Dave with Alex's Garoupa... just right for dinner
Along the way, Alex landed more good stuff like Snappers and even a young Giant Trevally, which can put up a really good fight. Meanwhile, Kings and me were entertaining ourselves at the front of the boat, catching Bream when I lost a huge bite which almost yanked the rod out of my hands, but the hooks pulled, and I lost the fish. I cast to the same spot and didn't catch the biggie, but caught a nice Flathead instead for dinner (delicious fish!).
Here's the Juvenile GT with my Flathead in the baitwell
We moved around a little and Alex even managed a Spanish Flag Snapper (Timun) which he laughed at cos he catches plenty of these in the Southern Islands. Then he had a strong take again and he slowly fought a tough fish to the side of the boat. The unmistakable flash of silver meant a pelagic on the other end, and soon a big Diamond Trevally was in the baitwell.
The Chermin couldn't survive in the baitwell, so I packed it for the ice
box
Alex finally agrees to pose with one of his fish... looks like the Snapper are really back!
After a number of fish, I drove the boat to another deepwater spot to target Coral Trout, but no coral trout appeared, just some other good stuff. It started with Alex and a Golden Snapper, then Kings had a strong take, and the fight was on.
Kings shows us how to handle a strong fish
And Kings landed a really fat 2 kilo Garoupa which was actually chasing the Hind caught on the top hook.
How's this for a double-header? Fat Garoupa
I too had a nice bite and landed a healthy Waigeu Sea Perch (Reef Barramundi) and, with a baitwell full of swimming fish, we headed back to shore early. Our stomachs full of durian, and our ice-boxes full of fish.
No Barramundi? Get Waigeu Sea Perch also can, a cousin of the Barra
What a great day! More days like this please.
1 Apr 2007
A meet up with an old friend Razali (see the GT story) under the Penjuru bridge showed that the Southern Island fish are still biting and are as big as ever. Here, Razali's friend holds up a 20kg Garoupa that Razali landed during the night trip. Many big Golden Snappers and Garoupas were landed during the trip, and I brought one Goldie and one Garoupa back for dad.
Here's Raz's small Garoupa, cos my thumb is just as big as the fish, haha
I'll probably go out with Razali again soon, before the June Monsoon kicks in.
