Meow... Here Kitty.. kitty..

Finally, back to blogging after such a long absence. Maybe the flavour of blogging is dying soon especially now I'm back to Singapore but hey, no excuse I guess. Afterall, this is where I can tell my friends what I've been up to. Ok, enough of blabbering. As I did have my last fishing sessions with Chen in Sydney before I came back here (Singapore), I will probably blog those moments a bit later. Upon arrival in Singapore, it was Chinese New Year celebrations straightaway and therefore, no fishing in the agenda. After the first excruciating week of not wetting my line, I was invited by Jiaming to his local haunt. It is also the place where I got my decent peacock bass on surface lures. Having been away for more than 7 years, the roads to me are totally strangers. With a little guidance from JM, I drove my dad's car from the east to the west. Got to his apartment with no trouble and it didn't take us long till we drove up to our 1st spot. As it was a no go at that time (I shan't dwell on this issue), we decided to head up to another stretch. JM was using his 1 piece spin rod whilst I was using my Loomis and Steez combo. With zero idea of how luring is done here at night, I proceeded using fluoro lure such as the R2S Humbug. Bummer me that I had to snag the lure within the first few casts. Luckily it got out and I decided to change to another hardbody. It was at this time when my SG master JM hooked up to a tarpon and that bugger had to jump right in front of us and threw hooks. KNNBCCB!!! In the process of it doing that, I had a facial wash right on target. As it was getting quiet, we moved down a little and that's when things got interesting. We saw a group of teenagers were fishing as well but they were using bread. Then, master JM proceeded to instruct casting close to the banks. He finally hooked up to what was my first time seeing a fish I believe is called a chromide (or tilapia I'm not sure) but the locals named it in hokkien dialect as Orh-Beh (or OB as what the forummers here called). I then proceeded to change to Luckycraft Tango (the one I always use at night) and spiced it up with Megastrike. Did exactly how JM was doing and soon enough, landed my first OB! To tell you the truth, they suck on the fighting front. No wonder no one seemed to be interested in targeting them, lol. They were there in numbers for sure, as I manage another one not long later.

So that's how OB looks like. Almost like a bream to me isn't it? LOL... Then, slowly but surely, I had discovered a pattern of specifically targetting them and they seriously are suckers for lures. Things then went interesting at around near to 4am when I spotted an eel-like creature slow swimming in front of us. JM told me to hold my lure in the water to act as teaser as what Chen would have done, right Bro? Lol... But too much mucking around that thing got spooked and never came back. Was rigging up the 2inch Gulp grub for that creature but ended up casually using it like I was breaming. On the 1st cast, I had already registered small bites and was surprised that the grup came back without a tail! Ooh, the fishes here likes gulp! 2nd cast I had a solid bite but almost got a hookup. Then, the 3rd cast makes it the most special fishing highlight for me in Singapore. As soon as I was about to twitch it back, it got snag. Told JM bugga me and the next thing I know as soon as the line was reeled back to tension, I felt shakes through the Loomis. The run hadn't started but I knew it was heavy as hell and Loomis was bended dangerously! JM called for a catfish straight up and I wasn't sure how they fight. As soon as the fish was brought right up to surface, it began to punish Steezy's drag... Zzzzzz.... and then Zzzzzzz..... and then Zzzzzz.... FWAH!!! This was a serious fish now and I was wondering, hey, I'm only using 4lb braid and leader!!!!! To cut the long fight short, it was the most exhilarating orgasm I ever had! Once I have finally tired it out in it's 5 or 6th run, we knew we would face trouble trying to boga it due to the rocks nearby and my 4lb leader! But with composures faced by two anglers and an experienced local master, JM helped me landed my first ever Singaporean catfish weighing at a whopping 13 pounds (6+ kg) which had me slight trouble in lifting it, lol..

This catfish is locally called "KELI" or 'walking cat'. Don't know how long this cat was but comparing it with the Loomis, it's massive in my point of view. We roughly concluded that the whole fight sequence ran for 20 minutes easily, as would be the case for light lines. I even lament it to Jialiang that it was almost similar to his jewfish fight, the ones where they won't run fast but they run long and by the time you have reeled in much, they took off again, the beauty of it isn't it?! After that fish, we decided it was already very late and so packed it up and left a very happy Ronald. How can I not be happy? My biggest fish to date!

Ronald