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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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. |
