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