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.