Last Burst Fishing Before Sydney

During this week, Jialiang called me on a Monday to go for a pond fishing session and obviously I went for it even though I was supposed to go fix up my Asus wireless access point thingy, lol. The last pond session I had was during my last holiday back so it's been like almost 2 years ago. Anyway, it's basically paid fishing! They ( and his brother JM) went to our popular tackle shop paradise down at Beach Road to get JL a new spin gear. Rucked up to their shop (Sabre) and saw his new Majorcraft Slicer and a 1500 Caldia Kix. After enquiring about the Ryobi Applause, we finally headed towards Pasir Ris Farmway 3.

It was my first time there and you'll be surprised at how small Singapore pay-ponds are. The 1st pond that'll greet you when you enter is what they call a Thrill fishing pond. It's like $50 for 3 hours but you get to keep the fishes. After passing that pond, we came across the prawn ponds where you guessed it, prawning with pole rods. Then, we came to where we were supposedly heading to, the catch and release (C & R) pond. As the name suggested, it's basically to test your gear. Why I said that is that the pond holds some crazy big ass fishes that'll punish your gear if you think that they (the fishes inside) can't run! Well, paid $30 and you get to fish for 12 hours, but, the rules are you can't take home the fishes, your hooks have to be debarbed, and you can't use treble hooks, only single. So, me and JM rigged up our plastics and tried around 1st. JM got a few miss takes but eventually his airity screamed. However, turned out that it had caught a broken line and there was a stranded barramundi (local name is Kim Bak Lor). It went loose eventually. That water in the pond is some funny shit, apparently it's brackish and holds both salt and fresh water species. I was also twitching my Gulp Alive 3" minnow in pseed with some pussy takes but no hook up. Then, with luring proving fruitless, we decided to bait. Whilst doing that, Jialiang was already baiting, whilst sitting there relaxing like a true-blue baitfisherman, lol. As time goes by, his newly bought outfit was blooded by a (I don't know what's the english name but the locals called it "pacu") fish that took peeled prawn. Didn't had photos but took a crappy video from my Nokia 6300.

Alas, the line broke whilst JM was trying to help unhook it. Those pacu's had sharp teeths and the shape of it truly resembles a pirahna! Anyway, the time just passes like that and it was soon going to be last light. It was when at one point an indian worker came with bucketloads of bread and dumped them into the water as feed for the fishes. Initially there wasn't any commotions but when the light began to fade more, the fishes started surfacing to slurp in those loose bread! I had a sudden idea to try and use a whole piece of bread and just thread the hook through and cast towards the commotion. Had one serious swipe on one piece but no hook up, until finally, the idea worked and my little Stradic was screaming. It was a good fight but due to my ignorance, I was working the fish on pussy drag according to the pond worker there! He was on standby to help unhook the fish but whilst waiting, he kept on tighten my drag and I was warning him I had only 6lb main and 8lb leader, lol. He didn't care and just made it an almost locked drag. The braid was punished but a catfish (local name "patin") still could be coaxed in. At first I thought I will have a chance to take a photo with the beast but I didn't realise the worker used the plier to unhook rather than to lip grip! Alas, lost the evidence that I did land one! Oh bugger... But a cool fight it was. Anyway, told JM the rigging pattern for the bread and he too was successful and this time round I took a video whilst on standby to help him release the patin.

Soon, it was darkness and JM scored another patin on the same method. Got a bit bored from baiting and decided to give my newly bought Yo-Zuri Mag Minnow whitish lure a swim. On the 2nd cast, I felt hits, wondering what it was and thought it might be just snags (even though in the pond it felt almost unlikely). On the next cast, it's where I almost swear I had a violent take when the lure was almost to my feet. Then, blackhole junior rod was bending dangerously and Stradic was put on almost the locked drag pattern as this one doesn't seemed to feel like a patin run. It was slow but continuously long, if the pond hadn't been that short, I can foresee stradic be spooled. No joke... It swam 90deg forward from me and went into deadlock at the other end. The more I put pressure on the fish, the more I couldn't turn the handle and the fish just take whatever line it can swim to. Spent a bulk of time just in deadlock and thereafter, it began to move towards the prawn pond area which is my 270deg. Ok, this is almost like fighting a huge plastic bag with current. I even passed the rod to JM but there was no way we could steer this crazy thing. Basically I was at the mercy of this thing. I know I don't have a chance with 6lb line but the most important thing on my mind was: I WANT MY LURE BACK!!! But I knew I was also in deep shit, as I had forgotten about the "No trebles" rule and not only that, they weren't debarbed! Sorry... I was too eager to chuck the lure that I had forgotten about it. With that, we couldn't move around the pond much in case not to alert the workers as we were the only 3 fishos at that pond. Anyway, the 6lb yamatoyo gave way at the knot (as usual with this shit line). There goes my first time losing a hardbody lure to a fish (or whatever beast it was). The brothers were asking me how I felt about being 'bullied', obviously not a good feeling for sure!

At the tally end, JL scored 2 pacus and JM 2 patins. Was a good experience fishing this C&R pond knowing that there are some crazy monsters lurking in that murky pool of brackish water.

Then, just before I was gonna come back to Sydney (for short holiday before starting my new work in SG), I went with my good mate Kenny to the same pond. He was bored on a Saturday and suggested fishing. So I told him about that FW3 place and after contemplating awhile, we headed there eventually. Armed with the same stuffs like 2 loaves of bread and I also bought a pack of dead prawns from the pond operator. Ok, long story short, whole freaking day only managed to score a patin, and this time, I made sure I had a pic!

Bloody indian guy said he had to hold the fish to take care of the wellbeing, and so, that's why it seemed like he was the one who caught it, lol. Wellbeing? Please lah, if care about that, how about changing the pond water?! Might be awhile before I'll try the place again, knowing that spending $30 each time for fishing is really a shit feeling. Never heard of paying to fish in Australia except buying the licence... Sigh... that's the sad reality of fishing in Singapore.

Ronald

Singapore Offshore Experience

Went on my first offshore trip since I came back to Singapore and had posted a report on fishingkaki forum so will use the text there instead lah... lazy to retype... hahahahaha

"Got off on a gentleman's start and the crew were already there getting supplies such as livies and some other essential terminal tackles. Pop'ed in for a feed as well and we were pumped and ready to face what's installed for us (well, not sure about the rest but meself for sure!). Rucked up to the boatman and I was shown with a rather interesting watercraft that we're going to fish off in the next few hours or so. More so interestingly was the livebait tank that was made out from a plastic drum but as long as it made our livies comfy, we don't really give a shit. Off to a spot which I have no clue whatsoever where it was but to keep it short, it was pretty much lifeless. The 1st thing that came into my mind was how I wish I had some burley, lol. The next spot at least saved the morning. Almost everyone had a touch or so on those frighty prawns. It didn't take long when all the lines came up with a fish on it. Highlight for that moment had to fall on redtag's gf for pulling in what looked like a 'black bream' as described by my mate. Having been a crazed breamer in Oz I've gotta tell ya that really made me excited, lol. Well, certainly didn't wanna be outdone, I briefly struggled a little when feeling for bites especially using heavy sinkers and thick lines as I'm always used to finesse approach, I finally felt convincing bites and thus confidently set hook. Up came a 'Swa Jiam' (whiting) and I actually flew 7000K's to catch this specie, bloody oath! And on a relatively largish prawn, lol. A few kaci's and ang cho's before we lost the frenzy bites. Due to the suspected dodgy anchor, we began to slowly drift away from the sweet spot. My mate did lament that we were on top of a reef and pretty much close to the shore and probably that's why. As it grew quiet, the boatman pulled up and we were off to the next spot which had quite a fair distance to cover. After mucking around at those featureless spots and losing quite a few rigs to snags, I was beginning to wonder if we would be able to fill up the box. Came the call to switch spot and this time round, good ol' boatman picked a place that had relatively deep water and most importantly, a rocky point adjacent to weed patches and a shallow beach. This in my dictionary only spelt the word, FISHY! It was an outgoing tide and I was pretty sure predators should be lurking around. As the tide wasn't racing much, I opted to downsize my sinker but as I was already using a pre-rigged paternoster, had no choice with the line used. My prawn was getting flighty and all of a sudden, the blackhole junior rod was loaded and my little Stradic 1000 began to sing the tune. As I only had 6lb yamatoyo braid on it, the drag was set accordingly but the fish had the chance to brick me in the rocks, damn! For a brief moment I was heartbroken but it didn't take long for the fish to be coaxed out and I was gaining the upper hand. A little crafty rod work and drag setting, I was absolutely stoked to land my 1st ever Mangrove Jack right here in sg, not oz, woohoo!!!

Boga measured 1.5lb. The MJs here don't look as red as the Aussies counterpart.

Thanks to Andrew for the pics and also redtag's boga. Just minutes away, redtag's gf got absolutely smashed with a bigger specimen as well. 2 MJs in a day and a pretty rare sight according to my mate, how good is that?! The baitfish were jumping for their lives and I quickly told redtag where it had happened. He began peppering the rocky point with his deep divers and sure enough, he brought in his 1st gao for the day. Not one but two minutes apart. He got smoked by what seemed to be a monster gao that took home his Tiemco lure, my mate was gutted but that's fishing mate... Jason then left his baiting duties and began joining dex in luring the adjacent weed patches. He came up triumphant with two gaos and they were the biggest amongst the lot. I too got tempted and rigged up with a crappy halco diver. Nothing came out from it and by now, everyone was buggered and the boatman pulled up stump and headed back to the mainland. Took a few pics of the catches.

That's Dexter with a good size Estuary Cod (grouper is what they call here, very good eating!)

All in all it was a great day, great company and not too bad fishing, can't complain. Will definitely be doing it again. Thanks for putting up with this lengthy report, lol. Happy fishing and tight lines!"

Couple more pictures Andrew took and posted on the forum. So I'll show it here as well.

This spot is where we came 1st and got the bulk of small fishes, including my whiting.

Dexter's girlfriend, Yanni. She was on fire that day. Caught a slightly bigger MJ than mine.

Dexter's other grouper. Caught on his Rapala Fat Rap.

That's another of our kaki, Jason. He caught the 2 biggest groupers on Dex's lures.

Actually get a tinny like Chen's bro to fish in Changi area is quite do-able. The luring is done in not too high current area. With a bow-mount minn-kota sure can handle it... lol... The luring part was quite fun, so many baitfish activity and jumping predators, Singapore do have some fishes around... keke...

Ronald

The Darkest Moment(s)

Have you ever encounter the time when you felt the feeling of dreadfulness? I called it my darkest moment(s) as being evident the last few days when you're about to leave a place where you have practically live almost a quarter of your current life. That place I was about to leave for good (or supposedly) was Sydney, Australia. ( wah lao eh... DIU lah ronald... why u so dramatic one?! ) Ok ok, yes, as promised earlier in my posting, I would post some pics up of my last fishing days in Sydney. There's actually quite a few but I'll just start on the last 3 or 4 days for the first preview. As it has been too long, can't really remember the details so I'll roughly let the pictures do the talking. As I was gonna fly on a Sunday, took some time out from packing on a Thurs and went for a fish. Not sure if I was contemplating to lure or to nig but from the pic, I guess I went niggering instead. So, as usual, pack my small little niggering bag with the essentials and head down to usual place. Also can't remember what tide I was fishing on but guess it was always a little on the high and most on the outgoing. Not a bad little session as I manage to land another biggie that measured 39cm on my Myer measuring tape. The session ended with 2 nice blackies and so tried really hard to take a pic of twins-cradle shot, lol...

Friday don't know why no pictures, oh, I know why, that day was raining cats and dogs and also I had to bring my stuffs to the shipping centre to send back to Singapore. Bloody hell I found out that it was a rip-off to send stuffs back as I had spent $300+ on some things which I don't know if I'll use in SG! KNNBCCB!!! Ok, enough of whinging. Came Saturday and Chen came to find me in a messy room when I was in the midst of last-minute packing. We supposedly had prior arrangement to go out on Brooker for the last time but guess we must have slept in again, lol.. Anyway, came the afternoon and due to my stupid last minute trip out getting a portable hard disk to store my stuffs from Uni (not porn ah!), I was late to meet for a niggering session. Anyway, we still went ahead amidst it's gonna be a short one. That was a bloody tough last niggering session in fact, bloody Sydney didn't wanna co-operate well! But with persistence, the 'down' finally came after being there for 30mins and I landed my last blackie in Sydney, phew!

Not big but a very satisfactory feeling that this would be the one that send me off! Lol... Later that night, the St Mike gang held a farewell dinner thingy. Came Sunday, and what do you know, Chen said it was the last of the last and luring was on the agenda. I didn't sleep the night before as I was busy backing-up my uni stuffs and also the final packing of my things. Chen was also heading back to New Zealand for Chinese New Year and I promptly woke him up at 5am to do our first light luring at Cooks. His flight was at 11am and so he had to be in the airport by 9, see... how crazy is that?! Even though I didn't sleep the whole night, I was quite energetic and promptly reached Cooks just before dawn. Chen arrived shortly amid looking a bit 'steam', lol... As it had been raining hard few days ago, the water looked dirty with plenty of debris. It was when Chen's first cast was met with ferocious takes on his Gulp worm. Soon enough, we were right in the midst of a frenzy. Practically the whole stretch was full of hungry fishes as the rain had turned them on. I did had some solid takes and brief hookups but took me quite awhile to land my favourite fish of all-time, bream!

Only a tourny non-legal taken by the Gulp 2inch worm but hey, can't complain! The whole stretch seemed to only have these sized buggers and Chen was getting his good share of breams too. Not long later, got a slightly bigger one and decided to ask Chen help me take photo of my last pose with Mr Acanthopagarus Australis (don't know spell correctly a not).

Later on I had missed what could have been a biggie for last fish but just didn't materialise. Chen did hook up with one that nudge the 30 range which made it a special session with him, especially when the bites were hot! I even joked to him I'll wanna come back tommorrow and he said just call SQ and cancel flight... I WISH!!! Bid our painful farewell but hey, it's not the last lah... As what Arnie would say...

I'LL BE BACKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.....

Ronald