8 Nov 2008 - Short hunt for dinner at Lao Di Fang
Needed a good fish for 20 people that night cos I had an aunt's birthday dinner to organise, so I called David and his dad, and we headed out to Ubin for a short trip.
Water conditions were bad, with an algae bloom and dead floating fish seen around Ubin, but still we set the lines and waited at the spot near the boatel, we call it Lao Di Fang
After a short wait, my rod took a menacing bend and I struck. Immediately, I knew it was a good fish struggling to get into the snags. It took drag for a while but I refused to let it go far, jamming my finger onto the spool to prevent it from reaching the snag, and of course, risking a bust off. Then, despite full pressure from me, I felt the fish reach the rocks and then all movement stopped. I knew that I still had a chance and the next few seconds were critical.
Refusing to admit defeat, I jerked the rod a few times and tightened the drag to the max, and suddenly the fish started swimming again and I could feel the violent headshakes of a nice bottom dwelling bugger.
Triumphant, I slowly managed to gain line and after about ten cranks of the handle, I knew I had him! The fish was in the clear and all I had to do was ensure that the hooks didn't pull. So I loosened the drag and took my time to bring the fast tiring fish to the boat. When a nice big Garoupa surfaced, David netted it and we celebrated with high fives on the boat. It weighed in at 3kg exactly. Just what I needed for dinner.
We fished for a while more and had another solid fight (it was David's turn this time) and up came a nice big Sweetlip. This fish fought really well. Anyway, though the water conditions were bad, we still accomplished our mission (to get dinner) and so we headed back to shore early as I still had much preparation to do for the night's BBQ party.
Here's how to put the pressure on the fish
Posing with a tough fighting Garoupa with David's dad
4 Nov 2008 - trying out the Spangled Emperor spot again
Dave, his dad and Vincent came along for a short 3 hour trip to the same spot I landed the Spangled Emperor at just a few days back. This time I bought more Sheng Siong prawns and we set up 5 rods.
The action was pretty good, with a good fish biting every 15mins to 20mins, and everyone caught something. Then the weather made a turn for the worse and we made a wise decision to head back to shore since we had caught enough fish for our own needs.
I was especially pleased with a 2 kilo Garoupa I managed to land after some huffing and puffing. This trip was extremely comfortable and rewarding. Fishing should always be like this.
Every fish caught was a different species. Garoupa, Sweetlip, Parrotfish,
Grunter (Guhood), Javelin (Chior Lor) and Golden Snapper.
A nice 2 kilo Garoupa showed up and put in a good fight, even getting snagged for a while, before coming to boatside
2 Nov 2008
Was supposed to bring my family fishing this Saturday but it was raining cats and dogs till 11am. So sad, I thought there wouldn't be anymore fishing that day cos my kids had swimming lessons at 3pm.
In the end, I made some calculations and suggested having a quick lunch on the boat before swimming lessons. Everyone said 'yay!!' and we went to Tapao some nice food and drinks for lunch. Along the way, I bought some fresh prawns from Sheng Siong at $1.60, hoping I could soak a line.
At 1.30pm, we reached the boat and set off from shore. The kids had fun climbing the flybridge and also playing around the sun roof of the cabin. Seeing a good fishing opportunity at a nice spot just near the boatel, I quickly set 2 rods and the family settled down to lunch.
After eating, the kids played with the nets and I practiced my ESP powers by trying to use my mind to make the rods bend. I even tried communicating through mental connections to the fish in the vicinity... and then, suddenly, as though in response to my ESP, the rod on the right just took a violent bend and line just started peeling off the Biomaster reel.
"Big fish!!!"
The kids looked on and my wife got the landing net as I slowly tired the fish out with constant drag pressure. I thought it was a ray at first but the rod constantly shook with violent head shakes from the fish, and I knew we had a good fish on the line.
After a really good fight, a flash of colour surfaced beneath the boat and I realized it was a fish I had never caught in these waters before. A Spangled Emperor!
What a trip! Spent $1.60 on a few prawns and landed a beautiful fish. We even made it back by 2.30pm and reached the swimming pool just in time for the kids' swimming lessons. I think this spot has potential!
An unexpected gift from the sea... a pretty rare large Spangled Emperor, known for its firm tasty flesh... we had that for dinner
Just bought $1.60 of prawns from Sheng Siong... good returns
This koi was on a suicide mission... so sad
26 Oct 2008 - freshwater luring session
Ed kindly invited us for a picnic (on great-tasting Arnold's Chicken) and luring trip. So I packed some nice lures and joined them on this eye-opening luring trip. After gorging myself on 4 pieces of chicken, I started casting lures from the shoreline and was pleasantly surprised by a school of visiting Toman, including their babies.
Using rubber lures, I landed 3 small Toman in quick succession and released them. Then I switched to a shallow Reidy's lure and we moved to a different spot when the bigger Tomans came along. Wow! Didn't expect to get big tomans on lure at this spot when normally what we catch is Peacock Bass.
Did manage to land about 5 nice Peacock Bass and released them. Arthur was the only other guy to land a fish that day. Must have been the lures.
Well, my rubber lures all lost their tails due to the razor sharp teeth of the toman, but it was all worth it.
These two beautiful Toman went crazy over my Reidy's 6-inch lure... and
both put up good acrobatics and fight before being subdued
Ed wants to say that this was caught by him. Arthur holds up his small
Toman
Many good-sized Peacock Bass such as this were landed on lures. All
released
21 Oct 2008 - Golfers go fishing again
This time we took the small boat out around the Southern Islands and had a pretty decent catch. Of course we landed some nice Parrotfish and Timun (Spanish Flag Snapper), and of course the wonderful Scarlet Breasted Maori Wrasse. And Mr Seasick Ong delivered his Mee Soto to the sea Merlion style, with great enthusiasm. Attracted by the constant berleying efforts of Mr Bubbly-gurgling-merlion Ong, a Black Tip Reef Shark came along and gave him a good fight before making its way to his dinner table.
At least Mr Merlion-mee-soto managed to pose for this pic before depositing a huge chunk of partially digested mee soto into the sea
18 Oct 2008 - fishing with Jamie and his friends
went for a short morning trip and ran into a small school of Kerisi (Yellowbelly Sea Bream). Also landed a nice Flathead. Still made it in time for 18 holes of golf in the afternoon!
14 Oct 2008 - LONGKANG FISHING
Decided to initiate my kids into longkang fishing (my favourite childhood pastime) just for fun. They thoroughly enjoyed it, catching guppies of all sizes. The small colourful males are quite pretty, I must say.
Real longkang fishing. They didn't want to go home even after a few hours with their nets. It was pretty fun!
4 Oct 2008 Brought the golfing gang fishing last Saturday and this Saturday. Last Saturday we had to stick to small fish, landed over 70 of those for the dinner table, including Javelins (Chior Lor) and Croakers. When I tried to move to deeper water, one fella couldn't take it so we hung around Ubin. But at least everyone landed something.
One week later. This time Ed, Leon, Art, Dave and Dave's dad came along and we tried a few deepwater spots for bigger fish. The Barramundi weren't biting, but the other fish were.
Of course, at the Bao Chia spot everyone landed some fish. When the count hit 50 and we had packed the fish on ice, I moved to some deeper spots.
Fortunately, the water was relatively calm, so not a single soul had seasickness. And at the final spot, the nicer fish obliged, and the notable catches were Leon's beautiful Red Snapper and my delicious Flathead.
Leon fought this fish skilfully to boatside, and his tiny hooks were almost straightened, but his skill saved the day. Nice Red One
Of course I was extremely delighted with my Flattie, cos I was having a BBQ that night and a Flattie is always the best fish for BBQs.
Here's the Flathead that got me thinking of dinner immediately
And so when I reached back, I wasted no time starting the fire and grilling this wonderful eating fish.
See the flathead on the grill? just right cos the flesh is tasty and the shape is just right for easy and even grilling, just like stingray... flat flat
Of course, I prepared two of the Golden Snappers I caught that day for the grill too.
These 'caught today' Golden Snappers look like they can't wait to be grilled. Haha!
Well, overall, this was a relaxing trip with enough action to keep everyone happy. Of course the bags of fish we took home were a bonus.
Maybe next trip I'll show them the southern islands.
13 September 2008
Jamie had arranged for me to bring his group of buddies out fishing but when I woke up at 7am, it was raining cats and dogs. Just felt like staying in bed. I called Jamie and Pin, and they told me they were already around the Pasir Ris area and would wait till the rain stopped. There was no stopping these guys man!!
Anyway, went back to sleep and woke at 9am when Jamie called again. "Uncle! The sky is clearing up. What time can we meet ah?"
"Huh? Erm... 9.30am ok?" I said, sleepily.
"Ok uncle, see you there."
So I quickly brushed my teeth, fed my koi, put on a shirt and jumped into the car. Picked the group up at Pasir Ris MRT station. There were four of them, Jamie, Emerson, Jeremy and PY. Pin was going to meet us at the boat.
We got over to Changi Village for some supplies and soon we were on our way. Once the boat was in the water, Jamie and PY joined me on the flybridge. I told them, "hey it's still raining you know, the rain can be quite painful when we're moving at high speed."
"It's okay uncle, we can take it," they replied.
You should have seen the look on their faces and the shouts of pain as the rain came horizontally into the flybridge when I pushed the throttle forward. Quite a sight! Well, I slowed the boat down when I saw that they were suffering from the cold and driving rain, and eventually we reached the Cliff zone and dropped anchor. The moment I cut the engine, the rain stopped and the fish started biting like crazy!!!
Basically, we landed a huge assortment of fish like Black Sweetlip, Garoupa, Croaker, Mangrove Jack, Tiger Tooth Croaker until we ran out of bait. After the first 2 hours, I counted 40 fish in the bait well. At the end of the day, we were picking up scraps of bait from around the boat just to keep on fishing, even though the live prawns were gone. Landed close to 100 fish, of which around 15 were lousy catfish which we released. Everyone went home happy with a huge bag of fish.
Guess this is what fishing after the rain is like. But I'm most happy with my 1.8 kilo Mangrove Jack.
How's this for a wild Mangrove Jack? Wonderful tasting fish with succulent flesh, no wonder PY looks like she's about to eat it.
Here are the four of them enjoying some quiet moments at the back of the boat since we had run out of live bait.
Overall, that was a really fun trip. I did go on other short trips and managed some good stuff.
Landed this red one in early September from Southern waters
Daniel also came back for a short holiday from Australia, and we went for a short trip, where David came along too. Did some drifting and Dan had all the luck with a Snapper, a Garoupa and a Grunter.
Here's Daniel with a nice healthy Golden Snapper, just before flying back to Australia
will probably fish more in the coming weeks. I think I'll try to target Snappers on the next trip this Saturday.
12 July 2008
How time flies! I remember the last fishing trip like it was yesterday. In fact, when I look at some of my archived stories, I cannot believe those trips took place so many years ago... they all seem to have happened just a while back. Now, this site is around 10 years old, and I'm amazed at some of my old galleries, at one point I didn't even know how to insert pictures.
Anyway, on Saturday 12 July, Kings wanted to go fishing for a while, and since the small boat was out, we decided to use the big boat at Loyang. What a good decision!
By 12 noon we reached the first spot off Tekong and started tying our rigs. The current was weak and the spot looked promising. But by 12.30pm, all rigs were baited and in the water, and there were only some small bites with no positive hookup.
So I shifted the boat to another part around the reef, and then the action began. My Surecatch $16 rod suddenly jerked in the rod holder and I grabbed it. Feeling a fish on the line, I reeled in some slack and struck!
Line started peeling off the Biomaster reel and the lovely sound of drag filled the boat. There was obviously a good fish at the other end of the line. There was a lot of head jerking action and Kings and me thought we had a Permit on the line, but to our surprise, a nice 1.5 kilo Grunter surfaced and was netted.
Soon, I re-rigged and cast to the same spot. It was 1.15pm now, and there were dark clouds looming over the horizon. Anyway, Kings had an appointment and we had to end our fishing by 2pm, so I was eager to land another big one.
This time, the bite on the same Surecatch rod was small but unmistakeable. Some light tapping got me alert and I picked the rod from the holder again, waiting for the pull. When the fish finally took the bait, the first run got me by surprise, and I almost lost my grip on the rod. There was a violent fish on the other end.
Going by the swimming action during the runs, we both knew it was a Permit. Huge body surface area allowed it to generate powerful bursts of speed. One again, the beautiful melody of a screaming drag filled the boat.
The fight was really awesome, with the fish staying just out of sight below the boat for quite a while, when finally it got tired and we got a glimpse of a golden Permit cruising like a ghost beneath the boat. With much effort, I guided the fish into the landing net and we exchanged high fives. This was another big Permit from the same spot I landed a Permit a couple of trips earlier.
Beautiful fish! 2.5 kilo Permit and 1.5 kilo Grunter -- how's this for a 2 hour trip?
These Permits are great sportfish when they get to this size, so Changi anglers can expect a good fishing time ahead, cos it looks like these fish are here to stay.
Anyway, soon, Kings had to keep his appointment, and I had fulfilled my mission for the day -- catch big fish!
