2015 June. An Aussie outback experience to remember.

In June 2015, I had the privilege of going to the Pilbara in Northwestern Australia to experience Threadfin Salmon fishing like never before. That mud crabs were everywhere was an added bonus.

I met up with my brother in Port Hedland, and we camped out by some rivers with his native Australian friends for an experience that words can never fully describe.

I started by casting for live bait. The tide was really low at first, and I caught several mullet.

When we arrived at the river, the tide was low, and I set off to cast for live bait. As the tide started rising, the fishing began, and never really stopped.

These King Threadfin Salmon started coming in with the tide, and they just kept on coming!

.. and coming!

Almost every cast was met with a huge pull, a strong fight, and sometimes we landed them, while sometimes we lost the battle, but we just had to bait up and cast again and another fish would be there.

When the tide got a bit higher, I noticed mud crabs swimming around just at my feet, and could not resist scooping them in my landing net.

We ate several of these for dinner that night. There was a whole pile of them.

The mud crabs were a pleasant distraction from fishing, but the variety of fish was amazing too, with Mangrove Jacks, Garoupas, Giant Trevallies, Wolf Herring and Blue Threadfin appearing. The Wolf Herring ended up becoming the best bait.

My brother with a muddie he picked from a hole in the mud.

This secret spot of my brother and his friends really seemed like a dream come true! The strongest and most common fish was actually the Blue Threadfin.

These are the Blue Threadfin, which were more common than the King Threadfin, but much stronger.

I want to go back there man!!!

2014 Nov to Dec Catch Reports

Did not manage to get many trips in during the Nov to Dec period because I went overseas for a while and focused a little more on golf. However, I did manage a few good trips with friends.

December, with strong North winds, is a good time for Spanish Flag Snappers and Coral Trout. This is only half our catch, the rest couldn't fit on top of the orange box.

The boys show some of the Sagais.

On the 27th of December, Uncle Frank and my nephews came along for some Sagai, because the fish were around. Unfortunately the weather was not very good and we fished in the wind and rain. We still caught a number of decent Sagais (Trevally) though.

Here we see the boys fishing despite the dark clouds forming overhead

A Goldspot Trevally and Coral Trout came to say hello.

Nowadays, our trips to the Northern Waters frequently see us making our way to the floating restaurant to enjoy our wild caught fish. This time, Bert, Danny and Meng brought more friends and relatives.

That's Bert with LUNCH. Yay!

On the 6th of December, a big group came along and the aim was to relax, while hopefully catching lunch and dinner. Not many fish showed up, but at least we fulfilled our mission, with some decent fish for lunch and dinner. Phew! Yum Yum.For lunch, the moment Bert landed a nice Garoupa, he stopped fishing and looked ready to head to the floating farm for lunch. That's what we did. The food is still rather good but a little pricey. For dinner, it was kinda sad that Great Atlantic Restaurant overcooked the fish a little - looks like there's been a change of chef and owner.

That's us enjoying another garoupa and a snapper for dinner at Great Atlantic (hmmm, didn't it use to be Great Atlantis?)

I landed this fat Garoupa on Madai early in the trip. It was a great start.

On the 5th of December, David, Kings and I headed to the south to try for some reef fish. We got more than we bargained for. This time, the fish were just rushing to join their friends in our ice box. With a slow current, we drifted at Mystery Spot and almost immediately I had a heavy strike. After a nice fight, a fat garoupa surfaced and I had met my target for the day. Little did I know that more was to come.

About 15 minutes later, we drifted to shallower waters, and I struck into a fish that fought in a very familiar way. I asked Kings to stand by with the landing net because something red was about to surface. True enough, a beautiful Coral Trout made its way into the landing net. What a great start!

Wild Coral Trout on my favourite Madai. Yeah!

Soon, the current picked up and we headed into shallow water to hunt for Trevally, but not a single one showed up, so I started to target Spanish Flag Snapper. That's when the queues started forming as the fish were landed at a steady pace until we ran out of bait. Basically we filled the box with Snappers, Bream and a few more Coral Trout. What a day! The pic of half our catch can be seen at the top of this post.

Lucky Meng with a beauty of a Golden Snapper

On the 22nd of November, Meng and Xiao V came on board for some fun with Madais. I had heard that the Golden Snappers were in, so I headed to the Snapper Zone and we landed some. A few Garoupas and a Red Snapper were mixed in with the catch. Conditions were excellent that day!

These girls were truly lucky, landing some quality local fish

I miss the days when we could hit schools of this fish. I'm not complaining about landing one of these though.

Floating restaurant time. Yummy. Axl, Bert, Danny and Winnie came on board and Winnie caught lunch and dinner for us.

On the 1st of November, Bert and gang came along, and Bert was saying that Good Feeling had never let us down before, always producing some nice Barramundi. Luckily, that day was no different. We hung around Good Feeling, landed some Barramundi, headed to the floating restaurant, and continued fishing at Lao Di Fang for some Garoupas. Overall, not many fish were landed but the company was great. So was the Guinness, haha.

Axl landed something that rarely turns up around Ubin... a Spanish Flag Snapper. These fish are common in the south though.

Winnie was the lucky one, landing most of the nicer fish like this gleaming Barramundi.

2014 October Updates - Onga!!

Bryan was asking for some Golden Snappers for his Birthday and so we went hunting for some.

October was a busy month, but we managed to sneak some fishing in.

4th October. First was a simple trip in the South for some deepwater species, and we landed some snappers, garoupas and parrotfish.

Kings was the champ on October 4th with a huge Blackspot Wrasse (which we often call Parrotfish)

Ren Meng also learnt how to use the madai to land a Spanish Flag Snapper

I landed a rather pale looking Coral Trout, but it still tasted great.

On 11th October, we decided to go for some shallow water reef fish in the South just for some non stop action. Indeed we landed plenty of fish that day. Shallow reefs don't often produce big fish, but the action is usually great anyway. Pig faced Bream, mid sized Parrots, Big eyes and Spanish flag Snappers were the order of the day. A decent Garoupa showed up to surprise us at the end of the day.

Bryan poses with some of our fish. 

The happy couple posed with a jigged up Garoupa

On the 18th of October, with the chest freezer full of fish, we had a relaxing trip to our Northern Ubin waters to enjoy our fresh catch at the floating restaurant. Some Barramundis and Garoupas turned up to join us for the meals, haha.

Lay Chin caught this wild Barramundi for lunch.

Yuki, Ding Jia, Lay Chin and Pravin joined me for lunch at the floating restaurant.

25th October. Bryan the birthday boy was wishing for a Golden Snapper present. We landed some. Overall, I made the most out of the Saturdays in October.

A nice looking ice chest filed with assorted fish

Can't get enough of this picture. Always my favourite fish, the Golden Snapper! 

2014 September BIG COBIA DAY!!!

Septembers have always brought back good fishing memories. This year was no different.

The biggest Cobia I've ever landed... what a fight!!!

On the 12th of September, Kings, Bryan and I headed towards open water in the Southern Islands to do some Garoupa fishing. When we reached the first spot, Bryan was quick to land a Garoupa around 2kg on his second drop. I had just missed a bite too.

This spot was famous for big Garoupas so we had our drags tightened, just in case a big garoupa decided to head into the rocks. With my specially rigged bait, I felt a light pull on my flexi rod. Anticipating a bigger pull, I lowered my rod tip and then I felt the line go really taut before I struck and put a full U bend on my rod. The fish would not budge. Instead, with my drag almost locked, the fish took line!

I could not believe what I was feeling, or seeing, for that matter. I thought I had hooked into a giant garoupa once again. Without wanting to let the fish enter the snags, I just increased the pressure on the fish, confident in my setup of 40 pound line and solid Twinpower. It was just brute strength against brute strength, and for the first 15 minutes, I was fighting a losing battle, with the fish just taking more line out of my spool, making some powerful runs in between. All the while I was putting full pressure on the fish, still thinking it was a giant garoupa. My biggest worry was that the fish would cut me off on the rocks.

Then I started to be able to gain some line, and I knew that we had reached the stalemate stage of the fight. When I got a meter of line in, the fish would take a meter out. Sometimes when I got 5 meters of line in (my line had markings to indicate every meter), the fish would take it back out. It was an improvement though. At least I was not losing more line than I gained. By this time, I was resting my rod on my knee and using it as a fulcrum, pressing down on the rod grip to lift the rod tip up, and cranking the reel half a turn at a time.

Finally, I thought the fish was starting to give up as I saw a colour change in my line, and by this time, knowing that the fish was way off the bottom, I loosened the drag a little, just in case. It was the right move, on hindsight, because that was when the fish started going on powerful long runs, and I started wondering if I had even hooked a garoupa at all. This fish definitely did not fight like a garoupa, which by now would have floated to the surface with an inflated swim bladder.

In the end, we finally caught a glimpse of the fish and none of us could believe what we were seeing, a gigantic Cobia was cruising with my hook in its mouth. It eyeballed us, then went for broke on his final long run, taking back almost 20 meters of line. I recognised this as the end stage and asked Bryan to get the gaff ready. I slowly pumped the tired fish to boatside, Bryan got the gaff in, and we both struggled to raise the fish into the boat. Success!

Exhausted, with arms and back cramped, I lay on the boat and rested for a full half hour before regaining some strength to take a few pics and then rested some more. After that, I continued fishing and somehow the Garoupas still kept biting my rig, and we landed a total of 5 big garoupas on top of the Giant Cobia, which we could not properly weigh because my Boga grip only weighed fish up to 15 kg. This fish maxed out the Boga grip so I had to weigh it at home while standing on my own electronic weighing scale. Our estimate was 16kg, but it turned out to be a neat 19 kilograms. No wonder I had such a hard time trying to lift the fish for a pic. What a day!!

You know it's a good fishing day when you can take a picture like this even after Kingsley had collected his share of the catch and rushed off for a meeting. My orange ice box can help gauge the size of these fish. 

Sadly, Kings only took a video at the end of the fight, haha.


Oh yeah, we did catch other good stuff in September.

On 9th September, Joey, Fau and Ismail came along and we finished our bait early with these good fish.

11th September was also good, and Luke had a taste of big garoupa.

Bryan loves September Garoupas too.

And don't forget Ubin, where we landed some nice garoupas, barramundis and snappers.

Ren Meng made her Ubin debut with a Barramundi.

And here's thanks to Danny who did not hesitate to jump into the water when my prop got tangled in some rope. Thanks buddy. 27 Sep 2014.

2014 August - targeting Spanish Flag Snappers and Parrots

August, being a busy month at work, left me little time to fish. When I could go out to sea, though, I made sure to get the type of fish I was targeting. One of my favourite food fish, the Spanish Flag Snapper, were in town, and I heard they were pretty large too. I wasted no time heading down to the Snapper spots with Snapper rigs.

One of the tastiest fish available in our waters, getting large ones in good numbers is like hitting the jackpot. 

On another occasion, three generations of Tans came along for a parrotfish hunting trip. Des brought his dad and his son along, and the son requested some Parrotfish. Off we went to the reef for some Blackspot Tuskfish.

Here's a selfie taken while driving the boat. Three Tans and a tanned man.

Mid-sized parrots were around in good number, though I lost a huge one early in the trip. Parrots are tough dirty fighters, which make for pretty good sport on light gear.

Young angler with some of the fish we caught that day. Spot the coral trout.

Overall, these two August trips provided some nice relaxation time amidst a busy work month. Can't wait for October to arrive.

July Updates. Plenty of Snappers, some big Garoupas and some nice Coral Trouts

Bryan with a beautiful Coral Trout

What I like about the Southern Islands is the variety and number of fish that we can get on each trip. I can choose to target large Garoupas, go for reef dwelling Snappers and Parrots, catch the occasional Coral Trout, or even go for pelagic species like Trevally or Selar. This July proved just that.

A pretty good spread of all the common species that we normally get around the Southern Islands.

On the 5th of July, Bert, Danny and Ray hopped on board for a good day of fishing. The fish were very cooperative, with Ray opening accounts with a nice Garoupa. Later, everyone got in on the action with Spanish Flag Snappers, Parrots, Sweetlips, Perch and Bream. I daresay we had a pretty decent catch that day, when all we wanted to do was chill.

Richard fought a nice big Garoupa with his new braided line. The fish didn't stand a chance.

The 12th of July was also solid, with a Garoupa over 5kg showing up amongst other reef fish. Dave and Richard were expertly landing good fish that day too.

Giant Siamese Barb moving time.

The 20th of July was a little different. I decided to fish in my own pond, to shift my young Giant Siamese Barb from the filter it had outgrown to the main pond. It was really strong. Now it's only going to get much bigger.

The Northern waters are much calmer most of the time, compared to the Southern Islands. Usually, when I head North to Ubin and Tekong, it's mainly to relax, land some Barramundi, Garoupas or Golden Snappers, and head to the restaurants in the area to cook and eat our wild caught fish. So far, Great Atlantis still comes out tops in terms of fish preparation. Mostly, though, it's Barramundi.

Barramundi as usual, on 26th July. 

I cut my hand on the 26th of July. It was because of a Barramundi. On that day, we were landing Garoupas and Barramundis when a big one actually took my bait on handline. After fighting it to boatside, I made the mistake of trying to lift it straight into the boat without the landing net. Naturally, it fell off the hook and landed on the side of the boat. I only had a split second to decide what to do as the fish lay balanced precariously on the side of the boat, about to slide back into the sea. Instinctively, I reached my hand out to just grab the fish in order to flip it into the boat, but the fish timed it perfectly, and jumped just as my hand was near its gill plate, and I earned myself a nice deep cut on my right ring finger. (Which affected my golf for the next two weeks.)

Whatever it was, the big one got away, but fortunately we had managed to land a few good fish before ending our trip early.

Here's some of our Snappers cooked at home in different styles. We have to be creative when the whole chest freezer is filled with fish. I like the one coated with onions above. Must do this more often.

June 2014 Fishing Around Ubin - kids' day out

Isaac was the champ today with a hard-fighting Ubin Barramundi

28 June - Uncle Frank brought Isaac and Matthew along for some Saturday fun fishing. As usual, the Ubin Barramundi were very cooperative and we landed some. Isaac landed the largest one and was the champ of the day. Berk landed a beautiful Red Snapper which we had for lunch at the floating restaurant.

Here's Berk with a Red Snapper, which we promptly brought to the restaurant for lunch.

Wild-caught live Red Snapper Teochew Steamed. A perfect lunch for three generations of anglers.

Also, in June, we managed a number of short fun trips before the school term started. Kings brought Janice just to try out the floating restaurant on one of the days and the kids came along too.

Simple fun at the floating restaurant and farm.