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.