Jan to Jun 2008 Fishing Reports and Pics

21 June 2008

Kings brought a large group along so we took the bigger boat out and fished around the Ubin area. The water was rather murky around Ubin, but the fish were still cooperative.

We had a cosmopolitan boat that day, with Jabez, Kel, Ya Ying (from Taiwan), Minh Tu (Vietnam), Chu Ka (Mongolia) and Adeline from Singapore on board for a fun time. So we headed first to the Aunty's farm and got 1.5 kilos of prawns. Everyone enjoyed thelselves there viewing the huge fish in the nets.

Here's a part of the group on the boat

Now loaded with bait, we moved to the first spot in the Channel, where I think everyone managed to catch a fish. Looks like the fish were biting. Kel got a nice Garoupa at that spot, I remember.

Kel takes time off from fighting his fish to pose for a picture with Minh Tu

Of course, later we headed to many different spots, but finally ended up near to Changi Beach... and that's where most of the action took place. I landed another Garoupa and some other fish when a school of Red Emperors (Ang Kueh) moved in, making it really fun and exciting for everyone on board. The fish seemed extra hungry for that period of time and everyone was fighting good stuff. Minh Tu even managed to pull up a rather large Garoupa among the Red Emperor.

After the fish feeding frenzy, we all just grabbed a fish for a pose... check out the head of Minh Tu's Garoupa... but I was more happy with the Red Emperor, an indication that the water quality might be improving

Anyway, I had to bring the kids to ExplorerKids (Downtown East) that evening for a birthday party, so we ended a little earlier and washed the boat down. So it's hard to decide if fishing around Ubin or the Southern Islands is better, cos both areas seem to be producing nice fish in good quantities.

17 June 2008

Went on a short morning fishing trip with my wife. Just bought 500g of prawns and headed straight to the productive spot (Been landing tons of fish the last few weeks here) around reef 42.

This time, the fish were still hot! Landed a couple of Parrots and Snappers, then I had a strong pull and knew a good fish was on. Played the fish out of the reef and when it surfaced, my wife helped to expertly net it. This beautiful Red Coral Trout with metallic blue spots weighed in at 1.9 kilos. That fish was on the dinner menu!

My wife poses with the Coral Trout. Nice fish for local waters ya?

Well, we both kept catching nice table fare when I hooked up and landed an even more exquisite fish. A rather large Scarlet Breasted Maori Wrasse! This fish has succulent white flesh that melts in the mouth!

This is one of the larger specimens landed locally... you don't get these often!

Anyway, with the fish hot on the bite, we quickly finished the rest of the bait and went home happy, with enough fish to last about two weeks. And we even managed to squeeze time to bring the kids to Wild Wild Wet in the afternoon!

There were many more productive trips, will slowly upload them every few days.

13 June 2008 - out with the guys .

Was playing golf at Tanjung Course in Sentosa and telling my golf kaki Art about the good catches we'd been having, so he was eager to see for himself.

So quickly arranged and Rich, Kings, and Art hopped aboard the Sampan Express with a kilo and a half of live prawns and zoomed straight to the 40 zone reefs.

Art hadn't fished in a long time but once we let down the lines and the fish kept coming in, he was hooked on fishing! We caught the usual stuff, parrots, timuns, garoupas... and a school of large Blackfin Selars (don't really know the exact name) came in to be harvested as Sashimi (Kings said they were excellent!).

Art and Kings with their Garoupas... just right for that night's dinner centrepiece

Rich and me were more focused on our key targets ... Scarlet Breasted Maori Wrasse, and boy did we land some! Big SBMs fought well and were landed. Now these are the real Grade AAA fish not everyone has had the pleasure to sample in Singapore.

A pair of beauties... lightly steamed, fluffy white meat... ahhh, gastronomic delights

So we headed back with a box of fish as usual, and Art was hooked on fishing, quickly arranging for us to take him out the next week. Well, with such delicious fish, who can blame him?

Here is only one part of one of the catches... check out those three-pound Parrots

9 June 2008 - a really good day turned HORRIBLE!!

Actually planned on a full day of fishing today. My wife took the day off from work, the weather was fine, got a kilo of live prawns just for the 2 of us, filled the boat with petrol, and we were on our way to reef 41, just 50m away from reef 42.

When we arrived, we baited up and the fish were HOT on the bite! My wife landed some bream and Spanish Flag Snappers, and even a Parrot, within minutes, and I contributed some too. Then, suddenly, my line had a strong firm pull and I knew this was the biggie for the day. So I played the fish carefully, and finally a beautiful 2 kilo Garoupa surfaced, and my wife netted the fish. We both thought this was going to be a wonderful day! Within half an hour of fishing, we had already landed several great fish.

Nice 2 kilo Garoupas like these are starting to get common, and this is a positive sign!

(don't mind the bettas, my new hobby)

But then, Murphy had to strike. My in-law suddenly called and told us to get back home immediately. She was frantic as she told us that our maid had run away... sigh...

So we cut our trip short and zoomed back to shore to settle the maid issues. Spent the rest of the day from noon to evening at the maid agency, dreaming about what we would have caught, and about the live prawns in the baitwell.

Fortunately, I got my revenge on the fish on another day, and we managed to settle the maid issue within a week.

8 May 2008 -

did some light fishing with soft rubber lures, landed a 900g Barramundi with Kings on a short trip after work on Tuesday. Trying to get my Bettas at home to breed too (digression). Anyway, my fishing buddy Dan from Down Under sent me a pic via email of an awesome Coral Trout. Enjoy!

Check this Coral Trout out! 5kg

26 April 2008 trip report

- Jo brought her friends David, Ben, Clifford and Uncle along while Norm and Joshua came too. Had to take the Eastern boat this time cos of the number of people. 8 of us met in the morning at Changi Village to load up on food and supplies, and soon we were heading out to sea.

First, I brought them to a deep reef, thinking that the rain over the past few evenings had affected water clarity and salinity especially in the shallow areas. No bites. So after a few minutes I tried another shallower reef structure with a high rock further out to sea. And that's where the action began.

After spotting the school of fish hovering just off the bottom (courtesy of Hummingbird), I quickly positioned the boat correctly and dropped anchor. Spot on! Almost instantaneously, Ben was into a strong fish. He kept saying " big fish, big fish!" And after a good struggle, he eased a nice Queenfish into the landing net. He was visibly happy with that.

Deciding to join in the fun, I rigged up and let my line down with a small weight. After a few misses by the rest of the group, I felt some light tapping at the end of my line, so I waited in anticipation for a hard pull. But the fish was even more patient and kept nibbling away at my bait, so I tried to raise my bait slowly to tempt the fish, but it was too smart, and just kept nibbling softly at my prawn. That's when I thought my bait must have been totally dismembered and decided to give a good strike because it was now or never.
STRIKE!

Time froze, and that familiar big fish feeling came flooding back to me, as I felt the fish just sitting there wondering what had happened. (Note.. only big fish can just sit there after a strike.) As the tension grew in my line, the fish decided to take off on a run!

"Big fish on!" I told the rest, but it was too late. The fish was really too fast, and had swum in a big circle underneath the boat (typical of this particular species). And the biggest Char Bee Hoon of the year emerged, when almost everyone on board got involved in a huge ballooning tangle.

So, while I tried to keep my fish under control, everyone co-operated and did not put any tension on their line. This was key because any tension on their line and their line might slip down to my hook and pull the hook out of the fish's mouth. But soon I noticed another problem. The mess was so bad that my line was getting stuck in the middle, with no way of pulling the fish in. Still, I held on and put pressure on the fish, and everyone waited anxiously as the big messy tangle hung precariously at the waterline.

Finally, I had to handline the fish through the tangle and slowly but surely, the fish started coming in. With everyone trying to peer into the water to catch the first glimpse of the fish, the fish emerged from the shadows of the deep. A huge silver outline could be seen, just like a big serving tray.

"Woooow! Ooooh!" everyone said in unison. This was indeed a big fish but I hadn't yet identified the fish until it was up on the surface.

"My gosh! That's the biggest Permit I've ever seen in local waters," I said, as I admired the beautiful fish about to be netted.

Fish information- the Permit is a highly sought after light Gamefish on the Florida flats in the US, growing in excess of ten kilos at times. Introduced into local waters as initial escapees from fish farms (sold as Golden Pomfrets, in order to entice the local populace by linking it to the tasty Pomfret family, it is NOT a pomfret) the Permit has started to thrive and multiply, with captures reported from Punggol to Changi to East Coast to the West Coast. Preferring shallow waters, the Permit is easily accessible to shore anglers (just like the Chermin). Most common name: Kim Chew.Permits sold in markets are farmed to the 600g-800g weight, where they are ideal eating fish.

Escapees, however, have started to grow and a few 2 kilo specimens have started appearing, with reports of the occasional 3 kilo Permit emerging.

But this Permit was huge, and appeared totally out of proportion compared to all the other Permits I have seen and caught. It looked just like something out of an American fishing magazine's Florida Flats fishing article.

"Whoooo Weee! Shiok man!" I exclaimed as the fish was brought into the boat and I noticed the tiny hook was almost straightened. A few more minutes in the water and it might have been Bye Bye Fish.

Everyone thought the tangle was worth the fish. And after taking the customary pics, I was contented to relax for the rest of the day.

How's this for a seven and a half pounder? I'm sure we'll be seeing more Permits of this size as the escapees keep growing and breeding.

Shortly after, Norman was also into a good fish, and I helped him net a nice 2 kilo Grunter.

Here's a happy man - Norm with his 2 kilo Grunter

Of course the rest of the gang managed to catch some nice fish (about 40 keepers), with a good number of Spotted Javelin (Chior Lor) landed too.

Everyone was happy by the end of the trip, with each person taking home a bagful of fish. I was happy with my one big fish, and I gave the rest away.

Next week gonna try again man!

April 2008 update

The catches from the small boat seem rather interesting these days. I get to explore many new spots in the Southern Islands and land some exotic fish I hardly get in the Northern waters.

Here, a short trip produced some nice Spanish Flag Snapper, small parrots and an interesting Rabbitfish. Most importantly, check out the Scarlet Breasted Maori Wrasse!

Big fish bend! This fish pulled the rod tip into the water many times

But on another more recent trip, my wife came along and was the champion of the day when something big and strong took her bait while she was eating her Nasi Campur.

Turned out to be a 1.5 kilo Blackspot Wrasse, a member of the Parrotfish family... expensive fish you know

But I caught my share too, and so did the rest on the boat. My parrot weighed in at 1.3 kilos, just slightly smaller. So my wife was the day's champ!

Plenty of good sized Timuns turned up to entertain us

Also did some Toman hunting and landed 4 of the buggers (ALL RELEASED to fight another day). The kids had fun too.

Here's a family pic with a 5 kilo Toman ... putting my new Boga grip to good use

Here's a close up of another one of my Tomans weighing in at 5 kilos

All the Toman were 4.5 kilos to 5 kilos in weight. Good fighters and jumpers man!

March update

Went to Pasir Ris main pond a couple of times with the family, landed Kims, Kim Chews, Drums (Taiwan Ngor), Mangrove Jacks and Golden Snapper. Quite fun and relaxing actually though most of the time I won't stay for the full session cos the kids always want to go back early.

Did manage to go on the Eastern Boat with Jamie and gang on 23rd Feb, everyone landed decent fish. Caught 39 fish for the ice box, not too big fish all round 300g to 500g...

Here's the group, with Jamie and Emerson packing the fish while Jeremy and PY look on

And of course the Southern Islands were good. On Sat 1 March 08, we went to reef 47 and also the 83rd spot, and landed good as well as bad stuff.

Wanna know what we consider good and bad fish? Take a look at the pics below..

Badfish, classified together with fork-tailed catfish, are like these.. baby sharks, queenfish, and Chermin (Diamond Trevally... this fish has a really bad smell man!!)

I mean, bad fish are not really bad, but it's just that there are better fish worth catching, like those below... the good fish.

Good fish like Spanish Flag Snapper, Sagai (Silver Trevally), Waigeu Sea Perch (Marine Kim), excellent Parrot Fish and not so good Black Kaci (Harry Hotlips)

But of course, it's not whether you catch good fish or bad fish, who cares anyway. Being out at sea when the boat moves and the wind blows in your face... already got good feeling ya?

Fishing's been good! No time to write stories yet, will just dump the pics in first.