Chen's Personal Best Bream

Catch Report 26/8/2006

This morning I woke up early specially to go to the Videoezy sale at Stanmore. In the past I used to get good bargains at this branch but todays sale is totally bullshit. The selection is crap and very minimal, and the price wasn't that cheap at all. Maybe they changed management or something but I guess that'll be the last of me going to this sale, considering waiting ages for one to happen.

Chen sms'ed me last night to go for morning luring and I told him I'll ring him up after I came back from the sale. So we set off around 9.30am and reached a spot in Hen & Chicken Bay that I picked from the street directory to get away from the strong southwest winds. When we reached there, the wind was howling behind us at the jetty end. It was crap to lure so a change was made to the drain.

I thought since the wind came that direction, the golf course side of the drain could be shielded. I was quite wrong. And we had to cut through the golf course along the drain for a short cut. It was indeed dangerous as when we leave after zero bites, Chen tells me that we're near a couple of the golf holes and right one moment a ball landed just behind Chen. That's it, the last we'll ever fished near the golf course, especially on a weekend!

We shifted for the 2nd time to the stretch me and Jialiang 1st started out at Hen & Chicken Bay. It was quite shallow there by then. So I changed to the Cultiva lure. Chen used his goldie Smilin' Jack and scored his personal best bream at 37cm! The fish took strong drags and Chen had a very enjoyable fight since his last good tussle with the Watsons Leaping Bonito. I told him to guide the fish to the nearby steps and helped him lip grip from there.

Unfortunately, after releasing the bream, Chen snagged his goldie on the next casts. It was a devastating blow since it caught him his biggest bream so far. Still, we persisted after his good showing and moved to down the stretch. I saw some rocks near and told Chen it looks snaggy. 1st cast didn't look good and it landed quite near. I was like cursing about the crap casting when suddenly I got a pull on my rod and the drag sound went bonkers! Pardon me as it was my drag setting being too loose. Still, this bugger still managed to take a bit of line out after I tightened the drag. Moreover, I felt it was kind of heavy and thought this might be a good fish. Alas, the belly treble of cultiva foul hooked this 22cm bream's body and that explains why because I'm reeling in with its body providing the water resistance.

When we were walking back to our car after doing somemore casts with my popper, Chen told me I was right about going back to retrieve his snagged lure during low tide. It was right near the shore being stucked on some crappy concrete block. He walked down and easily regain back his goldie. All in all, a great day for him definitely.

Ronald