Finally, an update on fishing around Ubin and the Southern Islands

Somehow, the problem with Facebook hanging on my laptop stopped, and so I can transfer some of my Facebook photos to this blog. Made several trips from June to August, and the catches are still not too sloppy. Let's let the photos speak for themselves.

The latest trip on 31st August produced some reef fish, with Eudon landing the catch of the day... a nice Coral Trout.

After a few years' absence, the Horizontal Angler strikes again.

On 24th August, the usual Ubin trip produced the usual Ubin fish... Garoupas and Kims. Hamzah, Hafeq, Balya and Kings came along.

17 August was fun, with Berkley landing the catch of the day, a nice big Barramundi, on her little pink Ugly Stik.

17 August. Dexter landed his own Barra and Sindy caught a tasty Flathead which we used for BBQ that night.

17 August. We had a yummy BBQ dinner that night, featuring succulent Barramundi and Flathead.

10 August was another great day, with plenty of reef fish, and Erwyn landing the catch of the day, a big Coral Trout which we had for dinner that night.

10 August Catch. Erwyn couldn't wait to taste the fish.

Erwyn's Abu rod shows that it can really take the pressure, but I think his fish swam into a snag.

3 August was the day I landed this 3kg Parrotfish, which was cooked in 3 ways. Head was braised, one side was Hong Kong steamed, and the other side was used to make soup, all at Great Atlantis.

June and July 2013 produced good fish, with Bryan landing this beautiful Tiger-Giant Garoupa Crossbreed on metal jig.

Kings landed this nice Coral Trout and Erwyn fell in love with it immediately. Fortunately, he managed to land one of his own a few trips later.

Back for Summer Vacation, someone decided to go for a swim.

Quite a number of nice Barramundi showing up in Ubin during the June to July period.

Alan, Dexter and Erwyn enjoying the catch of the day in a Macho manner.

OK, looks like this update is over, and the fish are still biting. As long as Facebook doesn't cause my laptop to hang, I should be able to update this blog regularly.

Garoupas Galore on Star Wars Day

Coincidentally, Star Wars Day fell on a Saturday. And to all Star Wars fans out there...

'May the Fourth be with you!!!'

OK, with that out of the way, it's time for another brief fishing update on my regular Saturday trip. Kings and Bryan came along for some hardcore fishing action, and got more than what we bargained for. First, we headed to the Semakau Jigging Zone and landed some nice fish on Rubberband Jig as well as Metal Jigs. Bryan opened the day with a beautiful Coral Trout and he was contented for the rest of the trip.

Great start to the day!

Kings and I had some catching up to do, but we all got bullied by the fish, probably a school of Tengirri swam by as all our jigs got bitten off. Finally, we landed some decent Trevally around a 10m deep reef.

This Sagai greedily swallowed the whole Rubberband Jig

Then Kings got in on the action and started landing more fish, and decided to use some of our catch as bait, including a live Sagai and some Big Eyes. He landed a nice big Garoupa on live bait.

Goldspot Trevally at the shallow reef are always welcome

Kings, who is always going for something big, lands a 6 kilo Garoupa

Seeing Kings land his Garoupa, I used a Chocolate Hind as bait accidentally and landed a table sized Garoupa, literally. It was about the size of a coffee table!!!

Rubberband Jig Strikes AGAIN!!

I was jigging with my rubberband jig when a small Chocolate Hind probably took the bait. While bringing it in, the fish suddenly got bigger, much bigger, and a big Garoupa was landed. The little Chocolate Hind was still hanging on the little hook, with its scales all roughed up when the bigger Garoupa came to eat it.

Ended the day with this nice table sized Garoupa for Lynn (a friend who placed an order for a live garoupa)

Looks like the bad weather lately has brought the bigger fish in. Hoping for another bonanza next Saturday!

Fishing and Dining on our fish... yum yum.

The 20th and 27th of April were also fishing days and I had good trips at the Southern Islands and Ubin respectively.

On the 20th, Kings and I headed south for a short trip, landed some nice fish and dinner, and called it a day.

The Rubberband Jig strikes again. Now Kings is a believer in the power of rubberbands.

It was Pat's birthday and all the kids were amazed at the Teochew Steamed Parrot that Kings contributed

On the 27th, Albertus, Branson (name changed for this trip) and I went chilling out at Ubin again and we had a great time catching nice Golden Snappers and Garoupas, and some Barramundi as usual. Too bad we did not bother much with the camera until dinner was served, haha. Bernard the Prawn guy at Punggol introduced us to Horkomo Restaurant just next to Great Atlantis, which offered us a good deal to cook some of our live Garoupas. It did not hurt that Bernard gave us some stewed beef and beef tendon to sweeten the deal, so we decided to give Great Atlantis a miss just this time.

These are perfectly steamed Garoupas. Another great end to a  wonderful day!

Time for some relaxing Ubin fishing

Woohoo, another Saturday has come, and this time, David, Chng and Hokkien Pro (he speaks Hokkien like a professional) decided that Ubin was the place to be, as we simply wanted to chill out with some beers, David's amazing Curry Chicken with French Loaf, and dinner at Great Atlantis with the Catch of the Day.

Here we are launching my good old Ubin boat at Punggol Marina.

Our aims were simple, and we headed to our first spot, hoping for a Barramundi to cook for dinner. Meanwhile, I had my Carrot Cake breakfast and we settled down to sing some songs and tell stories of past adventures.

We moved around Ubin for a while, looking for a nice place to enjoy David's special Chicken Curry which he had specially prepared the night before, and found a very calm spot to enjoy our food and drinks. Oh, by the way, we landed some small Threadfin Salmon before lunch.

'He mai chiak, nang chiak!' was our refrain as we thoroughly enjoyed the picnic at sea. At some point in time, we started singing 'Ni Ze Me She De Wo Nan Guo' by Huang Pin You, and we sang it with feeling, truly. There's nothing like floating in a boat off Ubin's calm waters, enjoying some nice food, accompanied by Tigers, and singing some oldies.

Suddenly, Chng was on to a decent fish and we all cheered when dinner came into the landing net. It was a pretty decent Barramundi, or Kim Buk Lor.

Chng and David know that dinner has been settled.

Then we all started catching more Barramundis and a few more Threadfin when the current picked up. The action was rather good, but I lost two good Threadfin at boatside and one more huge fish which managed to cause me a friction burn when I held the line.

Even a simple picnic trip at Ubin produces decent quality fish.

Anyway, when we got hungry, we headed back to the marina for our highly anticipated La La Beehoon and Hong Kong Steamed Barramundi. With wild caught fish for dinner, who could ask for more?

Great Atlantis does a wonderful Hong Kong Steamed Live Wild Caught Barramundi.

Simple southern fishing trip with Fau, Ismail, Bryan and some terrible weather.

It was another Saturday, and as everyone knows, Saturday is fishing day!

This time, Fau, Ismail, Bryan and a terrible thunderstorm came along to make it a wet and wild trip. In the end, the fish still cooperated. When we arrived at RSYC at 9am, it was threatening to rain, but we still launched the boat and started moving out of the marina. About 500m out, we saw a huge black cloud sweeping in from the west and the wind started picking up, so I turned the boat around and headed back to the marina for some shelter. What a good idea it was! I even managed to take a short nap.

Taking a short nap at the marina while a huge storm swept by out at sea.

After waiting for about 2 hours, the weather looked clear enough for a second attempt and we managed to head to some sheltered water around Pulau Hantu before another huge cloud appeared from the West. This time, we couldn't avoid the heavy downpour. Out came the raincoats and we braved the storm while the rain started coming in horizontal sheets and lightning flashed all around us. Everything turned white around the boat and visibility was down to only a few meters at some points. Scarily, this lasted for a pretty long time.

After a few hours, the sky started clearing and we dared to begin fishing again. It was already rather late in the day by then, and out came the jigs. Almost immediately, in 7 meters of water, I lost a monster which I could not even stop on 40 pound line. It could have been a monster garoupa, but I felt like I had hooked onto the MRT or something like that. Anyway, not to be disheartened, we continued fishing and were finally rewarded with some nice fish in shallow water around Pulau Hantu.

Bryan opened accounts with a nice Javelin on jig

Even Fau and Ismail got in on the action with some nice reef fish like parrots and Spanish flag snappers.
Then I got busy as a school of Trevally came by.

Big Longfin Trevally always make my day. We landed s number of these.

Caught several trevally and we even had a few double hookups. Then some GT came to give us some sporting action (we released all the GTs) and we decided to call it a day after the arms started to ache from fighting all these strong fish. Even Ismail had a chance to fight one of the Trevallies I had hooked up.

Double Hookup of Sagai and GT. Kept the Sagai, released the GT.

Bad weather almost ruined our day, but the fish and the company definitely made my Saturday complete, as usual.

Special Rubberband technique discovered for a great catch

It was simply amazing. After staring at my madai jigs at home one day, I came up with an idea to use rubberbands on my Hongkong hooks. It was a cheap and simple way to make a madai jig, and everyone on board was pleasantly surprised by the results. It all started with this fish, and Nadine was quick to get a video of the first fish before all the fish started coming in and we had no more time to shoot videos.



 The first fish landed on Rubberband jig was caught on film.

Here's a closer look at the special lure.

The first of many Parrots to fall prey to the rubberband lure.

That something so simple could be so effective was really beyond belief. Soon, every alternate cast was resulting in a hookup, and we only had a short while to fish, because there was a birthday party to attend in the evening. Nevertheless, we had fun, especially when the bigger parrots showed up. Nadine and I landed about 5 big parrots and a few smaller ones, with some assorted fish like Garoupas and Fusiliers thrown into the mix.

The Parrots were really strong, and some bigger ones escaped.

Parrot after parrot came, what a day!!!

A clearer look at the Rubberband lure.

Even this Yellowtail Fusilier was attracted to the flowery Rubberbands.

Big Garoupas find the Rubberband lure irresistable.

Small Garoupas also get excited with rubber.

Who needs bait when you have rubberbands lying around??

The big blue ice box has some nice surprises for dinner.

Bryan added this Garoupa to the mix. It was funny because he hooked it on its ass and thought it was a  monster fish... Happy April Fools' Day!!

Here's one of the Parrots simply steamed Hongkong Style with fried ginger and Kikkoman.

Short family trip at Ubin

The kids were having their holidays and were dying to go fishing on the boat, but since the weather has been pretty bad in the afternoons, I scheduled a short trip to Ubin on the Treva Berkley, my trusty Flybridge Cruiser.

After loading up with a few prawns from Bernard, and having a simple lunch at the newly opened Horkomo eating place, we hopped onto the boat and zoomed off to Good Feeling, where the chances of a decent fish were always good.

As soon as we reached the spot, I dropped anchor and prepared the lines for the girls. Once the first bait hit the bottom, the Barramundi just couldn't hold back any longer and took the first prawn. Treva spotted the whole rod bending and was quick to grab the rod and give it a good strike. Fish on!!! After a brief battle, a healthy gleaming Saltwater Barramundi slipped into the landing net and Treva was all smiles. What a great start to the trip!

Great start to the day! A strong Barramundi

Soon all three rods were set up, one for each of us. Berkley had her pink Ugly Stik ready and she insisted on casting it herself. She then quickly settled down to munch on her Old Chang Kee snacks. We had a few more missed bites when I heard the sound of a drag being pulled. Turning around, I saw that Berkley's little pink rod was taking a wicked bend, but she was too engrossed with her curry puff to bother. She asked her sis to fight the fish and this fish put up a good fight before slipping into the waiting landing net. It was a beautiful Golden Snapper.

Even this fish couldn't stop her from eating Old Chang Kee snacks

We were all very happy, and I was wondering where my fish was when my rod started to bend too. It was a heavy fish, and I thought I had a Garoupa, but it turned out to be a big old eel. The girls were quite excited when it was squirming all about. Fortunately, it managed to come off the hook by itself and fell back into the water, much to the disappointment of the girls... but to my delight.

Anyway, the weather suddenly took a turn for the worst and I had to head back to shore after fishing for just about an hour. It was fun though.

This is the part they like best, riding at the front of the boat.

Back to Madai basics

Here's Bryan with a decent 10 pound Garoupa on Madai

Saturday came round again and this time I was free to fish. I had to burn some Saturdays at work last month and it made me suffer from fishing withdrawal symptoms. You know you've got fishing withdrawal when you start asking your kids to hold on to the swivel while you sit on the living room sofa and reel them in.

Kings and Bryan came along and we came to the consensus that since the current was rising for most of the day, metal jigging was not going to be very productive. Unanimously, we decided to go for biggie Garoupas with our Madai jigs. As a rule, none of my Madai jigs cost over 8 dollars per piece and they all have been producing good fish. A good look at some of the pics of my fish would indicate the type of Madais we prefer.

To start off the morning, we headed to a shallow reef for some breakfast of wonderful wonton mee with my friends Carlsberg and Tiger. The sky was nice and blue and the sea was calm. What a way to start the day! A few baitfish appeared and we landed some.

After breakfast, we headed to the deep holes and started using our Madais while Kings rigged up a live bait. Shortly after, Bryan was on to something nice and strong. He pulled up a beautiful 10 pound Garoupa after a good fight. This is his current Garoupa record so far.

Shortly after, we had a double hookup and while Kings fought his fish to boatside, mine slipped off the hook. Bryan landed an interesting Longfin Trevally on Madai a few minutes later. The bites were on, but landing rates were not keeping up.

Kings with a sharp-toothed Garoupa, kinda different from the usual Garoupas

Not long after, I hooked into something MASSIVE. There was nothing I could do but watch helplessly as the fish tore line from my reel on full drag and dive for the reef. A moment later, it cut me off. Sigh...

Things were not going my way as I started losing bite after bite, even after hooking up to strong fish and fighting them for a few cranks of the handle. Something was wrong.

A little later, Bryan requested for a change in spot so I drove for 20 minutes to reach our Parrot Paradise, hoping to land a few Parrots. Strangely, though the conditions seemed right, the fish were not cooperating. As we were about to give up, Bryan hooked into a huge fish but it too was unstoppable and managed to hide in a crevice 20 metres down. It was kind of funny because when Bryan wanted to snap his line, the fish emerged and the fight was on again. But whenever Bryan thought he could gain line, the fish would dive back into the crevice. This happened for three times in exactly the same way. Finally, when the fish came out for the last time, Byran held his rod vertically and cranked for dear life. As luck would have it, halfway up, the fish slipped off the hook again. Looks like we were not having much luck with the giants today.

One of the brightly coloured Parrots to cheer  me up. Caught 3 of these.

I decided to stick to parrot hunting, as these brightly coloured delicacies always made for fine dining. Somehow the parrots were just not cooperating and we almost called it an early day when a bullet struck my shoulder, well, almost. You see, Kings was trying to cast his metal jig out when his bale arm flipped close and the jig flew straight at me. The good news was that it only struck my shoulder and the hooks did not penetrate my armour. The bad news was that it still hurt like mad and Kings thought I was just crying wolf.

Whatever it was, perhaps to comfort me in my shoulder pain, my rod suddenly took a full bend and all pain was forgotten. This time, a beautiful Parrotfish appeared. In fact, I landed three of these in quick succession before we decided to head to the best spot for some Juicy Burgers and Tiger. What a day!

Luckily we all landed some nice fish and at least next Saturday while I'm running a road race I won't feel like dropping a line into every puddle I see.

Big Golden Snapper and GTs... Brother back for CNY

Caught this big Golden Snapper on Chinese New Year's Eve... short morning trip 

My brother Jason came back to Singapore over this CNY period itching for a trip to big fish land, Southern Islands, so we managed a few short trips. One was last Saturday with Bryan, Nadine and Kings, when we were going for bottom dwellers so that we could have fish for our reunion dinners. Well, we landed enough.

My brother and I, about to set off. Bryan and Nadine with some enthusiastic photo-bombing.

Using our secret bait and technique, we caught some nice Parrots and other Reef fish. Nadine did hook onto a freight train that thundered away, and we didn't get to see the fish.

Nadine with a fat Spanish Flag Snapper... typical reef fish.

Hunter Stick in Action... Go Kings!!

Here's what Kings landed. Dinner.

Here's last Saturday's Champ Jason with two nice reunion dinner fish. Strong fish.

On CNY Eve, we decided to slip in a few hours of fishing in the morning cos the tide was good, and it turned out to be an excellent trip, with my Giant Golden Snapper turning up to give me a nice surprise on metal jig. This time, David, Kings and Bryan joined in. We caught and released several small to mid sized Giant Trevally which gave us good light game fishing until one big GT decided to kill my reel. Looks like I have to search for a stronger reel.






Jason releases one of the small GTs.




Here I am, releasing the reel buster GT. A real tough fighter.

Here's a pic of one of the larger GTs. Wonderful fish on light gear, only if your gear is tough enough, as I found out today.

This fish killed my reel, aargh! But I released him for his efforts. In fact, we release all GTs.

After the light sport fishing, we went for some reef fish and landed a few, including some nice Parrots again.

David landed this even after it managed to hide in a reef. He waited patiently and the fish eventually came out.

Overall, the catch was great, and I'm sure my brother will be dreaming of catching a Giant Snapper or GT even when he's back in Canberra. Here's wishing everyone a Happy Chinese New Year 2013!!! Nian Nian You Yu!!!

Jason with a small GT, around 2.5 kilos.