FishingFanatics@Singapore

The Poison of Lures

2011-12-13T10:59:00.000+08:00

Since the day i caught my first fish on lures, i just can't stop myself from trying out different brand of lures in order to test out the effectiveness. For the past few years, i have totally lost count on the lures which i bought and have not really organise it after using it. I was shocked to know the amount of lures i have and the above photo taken is just a small fraction of lure collection. I really got to spend some time arranging it or else, will be a big headache for me when my boy learnt to know about my hobby :)

My new gift, New Okuma Offshore Bait-casting reel

2011-12-05T11:58:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, got a call from my Ex-colleague who has been station in USA for the past few years saying that he has been transfer to Singapore for few months on his company project. Since he is free,he asked me if i'm interested for a cup of coffee nearby my place. Since i have nothing much to do beside being a nanny for my newborn, and have granted permission by wifey to be away for a few hours, its a good opportunity for me to relax myself as well. After chatting for nearly an hour at a nearby Coffeeshop, my friend went to his car and brought me a gift which he got it from USA. I opened out the bag and its was a Okuma fishing reel and some newborn baby stuff. Was told that Okuma is quite popular in USA and the new range of reel manufactured by Okuma is pretty solid reel to own. I have read some review on this reel and most of the reviews are positive towards Okuma. After some research on the web, the main reason behind this is because Tiburon USA has delivered their secret recipe on making a good offshore reel for Okuma and hence, the new range of reels produce are highly promising stuff. After holding on the Okuma Cortez CZ-10CS on my hand and play with it for nearly 15 minutes, my comment on this reel is that Okuma has something to proof to Daiwa and Shimano that they are coming back strongly to take back their market share. Even though CZ-10CS is not the top of the range, it is comparable to Shimano Torium or even Daiwa Saltist. So, will this Okuma Cortez win back the market share for budget offshore reel, time will tell.

A nice gift from my friend in Japan

2011-12-01T10:48:00.000+08:00

Last week, i received a parcel from my Japanese friend living in Osaka. To my surprise, its the Bishamon Long Dancer squid jig!!! Previously, when i visited Japan, the tackle shop owner told me that this Squid jig is pretty effective and ask me to buy a few to try it out. At that point of time, I don't really believed in him at all, thinking it might be their sales tactics and all those "BS" but in the end, i still purchase 2 pieces. Amazingly, the catch rate was awesome which is comparable to Yamashita or Yozuri Shrimp hunter which give me another alternative. Unfortunately, its the biggest mistake not to buy more of this!!! I call up my Japanese friend of mine asking her to help on replenish my stock but was told that the shop has sold out every single piece and have to wait for the arrival of new stock. Waiting for more than 10 months, my ammo finally came and it's worth waiting for :)

The old vintage Abu Ambassadeur 5000A

2011-11-29T21:09:00.000+08:00

In the 1950s, The Swedish Abu Garcia fishing reel was introduced to the market to meet the angler's needs. Ttill now the company is still producing many good and nice reel for the anglers from all walks of life. I myself is a Abu Garcia fans and have collected a few of the Abu Garcia reels as well. Among all my Abu Garia reel collection, this Abu Garcia Ambassadeur 5000A is my favourite reel which i have collected since young. It is made in the 1970s and is the oldest Abu Garcia Ambassadeur i had in my collection. Although it is nearly 40 years of age, the reel doesn't show its age at all. It still reel in smoothly and precisely which shows that Abu Garcia is serious in making their fishing equipment since early days. On the box itself, Abu proudly stated " The world finest casting reel, built to last a lifetime"..don't you agree with that?

My Daiwa Saltist 50H...found a new home

2011-11-29T20:41:00.001+08:00

After my Daiwa Saltiga Z40 was sold off, this Daiwa Saltist 50H which i have kept for 1.5 years without using it finally found a new home as well. Even though the Saltist series is a grade lower than the Saltiga series, you can find many Fishing reel reviews which give a thumbs up to this korea made reel. All the best to my Saltist 50H and hope it can catch many big monster for his new owner.

Avet JX Factory Blem Model Single Speed 6.0:1

2011-11-29T20:28:00.001+08:00

This Factory BLEM model, single speed 6.0:1 Avet fishing reel was bought last year when i intended to use it on my 2nd Sabah Fishing trip. However, one week before the trip, it was cancelled due to poor catch rate and bad weather. Hence, this Avet JX reel was kept in my cabinet for one full year without even touching the sea water. The special thing about this reel is that Avet mixed and match their inventory and come out with this Factory BLEM model making it to be kind of special. I choose the Blue and Silver as i have a black Calstar Rod which match it nicely. Even though i have been clearing my used and unused Fishing gears, this will still be kept in my storeroom just in case or maybe.......Hmmmmm :)

The 2011 Fishing Banned

2011-11-29T18:08:00.002+08:00

Yippee...My Wesley has arrived!!! Finally, after 10 months of waiting and "NO Fishing" ban on me...my son Wesley was born on the 23rd of Nov 2011. After married for almost 7 years, my first child finally arrived and without long, there will be a new member joining me for my fishing and i can be sure that Wesley will enjoy every moment doing fishing with me without learning it the hard way which i have been through. When the time is right, will definitely try out the Kayak-fishing with him on my Orange Pearl.

Although i have not been fishing for the past few months or maybe almost a year, i do surf the web to monitor the Catch Report of fellows anglers. Every time seeing the photos be it offshore or Kayak-fishing is kind of a pain for me as i wanna be in the action as well. However, the only thing I can really come close to fishing is by going to Fish Market or FishPort to get the freshest catch of the day. Below are some of the "Fishing" i have done not in the seaside but close to it.....its from the Sedili FishPort. Enjoy the Catch!!! :)

Sibu Kelong Gathering trip in Dec2010

2011-01-06T11:20:00.006+08:00

Date: 10th-11thDec10

Location: Sibu Kelong

Kakis: Darren, Richard, Lucong & Patrick

It has been nearly 2 years that 4 of us had hardly gather for some good Kelong fishing trip and since the 4 of us is available on the 10th Dec, arrangement was made few weeks ago and we are good to have some fun.

As usual, we met at 6am in the morning and drive up all the way to our favorite "Bak kut Teh" Store along the way to Mersing. After a splendid good breakfast, we travel another 1 hour to Tanjong Leman Jetty where we board our boat to our favourite Kelong.

The same old Tanjung Leman Jetty

Surprisingly in the monsoon season during this time, the weather was really good without the blazing sun above our head as all of us were greeted by the nice cloudy weather and most importantly, the sea was really calm without any big wave or strong wind. We are sure that it will definitely be a pretty good fishing trip for all of us.

The Folks, Richard, Lucong and Darren

The funny Captain Richard Sparrow

Energetic and confident of a good trip

Chermin caught with lure

After the lunch, we tried to have some nap so that we can concentrate fishing during the night. Some kids caught a good size Trevally and some table size Angkoli. Seems that the "Unjam" made by the Kelong operators are taking into effect and this really made the guest happy.

Around 5pm, a big school of Selar and Kunning came to the Kelong and created some feeding frenzy although the tide is not high. Everyone had almost 2 hours of pretty good Bait-fish fishing which can put up a decent fight with the Bait-fish Jig full with fish. There was a guy who caught a 2-3kg Queenfish during the feeding frenzy. Most of the guest don't wanna go for the dinner as we are really obsessed on the fishing.

Darren kick off with a nice fat Green eyed squid

A more than 1kg Tiger Cuttelfish caught by Lucong

After Dinner, the four of us started off with Squid Jigging. Many squid were caught during the night and we have really good squid jigging fun till 2am. Some expert caught a few big-eyed which need special setup. I tried my best to get the correct poundage line and lures to catch the Big-eyed but without avail. So in the end, i gave up and went back to my favorite squid jigging.

Darren Posing with the big Cuttlefish

Cleaning up all the fish and squid we caught

A decent catch by us

Full of Nasi Lemak Selar and Kunning baitfish

After our lunch, we prepared to pack our stuff and get ready to leave the Kelong. Seriously, when every fishing trip ends, sure there will be some regrets and some sadness. The time spend is really worthwhile and we indeed enjoyed ourself very much. Sure enough, i'll be back for more fun and definitely with more fishing. :)

The big cuttlefish and the Green-eyed squid

Kayak Fishing Gathering on the 4th July 2010

2010-09-19T17:12:00.011+08:00

It was quite a while i have not updated my blog due to my work commitment and i'm still in Taiwan doing my Training. Since it was a Typhoon-Fanapi day and i'm not able to travel around Taiwan, i might as well do some updating of my trip which i did 2 months back.

On 4th of July is the day where the many Kayak-fishing Kakis gathered to have some fishing fun and most importantly get to know each other as well as sharing our fishing experience. Since, there is quite a number of Kayak fishing guys attending this trip, our organizer Ian and Melvin decided to have a small competition and also a BBQ after the trip at Pasir Ris Park.

Nice view from Pasir Ris Beach

To the meeting point

Setting up the Kayak

Busy setting up Orange Pearl

Guys busy with their Kayaks

Almost ready setting up my Kayaks

Our ammo for the fishing trips

Ready to go for some serious fishing

My Orange Pearl ready for some action

Safety gears is a must for Kayak-fishing

My handsome looking AEC Kayaks

Sails on a hard-shelled Kayak

Group photo-session before setting off

Final check before setting off to Pulau Ubin

OK, ready to go guys!!!

Off i go with my Orange Pearl for some serious fishing

We were told to gather at 6am in the morning at Pasir Ris Park and all of us were pretty punctual and excited for the game. There were more than 10 Kayak turning up for this trip with different type of AE kayak, Ocean Kayak and Tequila getting ready to set off to our fishing ground near Pulau Ubin.

Nice weather for a fishing trip

Heading to our first fishing spot

As I was quite tired with the paddling against the current, I decided to head back just before 3pm in the afternoon. At around 4pm, most of the guys headed back and call it a day. The champion for this trip is Ah boon who had caught 2 seabass (Siakap) and a threadfin salmon and the runner up got a Siakap as well and a red snapper (Ang chor). As for me, I have only caught a catfish and a cuttlefish. Seriously, it was a pretty poor fishing result for me on that day.

Yes, back to the shore

The only Cuttlefish which i have caught

Philip posing with his first Seabass on Kayak

The Siakap and snapper caught by Philip

The BBQ session at the Park

The fishes caught by the champion anglers Ah boon

Ian presenting the 1st prize to Ah Boon

Philip, our 1st Runner-up for the trip

Overall all, it was a fun and good trip with wonderful fishing mates. Besides, after the fishing, we had a BBQ session with all the kakis whom had made this Kayak-fishing gathering session so interested and fun. All the guys really enjoyed and satisfied with the trip and were looking forward for a next round of gathering soon.

A very successful Kayak-Fishing Gathering trip for all

First Offshore Fishing in 2010- New Year Fishing

2010-02-08T22:38:00.009+08:00

Date:06-Feb-2010 (Saturday)
Location: Sedilli
Weather: Sunny

With the help of Joon, my wife and i managed to have our first fishing trip in year 2010. This trip was never expected to be so last minute with less than 24 hours on the confirmation. The preparation of my gears was not an easy job as i knocked off from work quite late on Friday and was extremely tiring, dragging myself to dig out my fishing equipment. Despite of my tiredness, i managed to packed all my stuff within 2 hours with only less than 5 hours of quality sleeping time.

On this Fishing trip, we have no chance to purchase live prawn as bait and have to only fish with Market squid and prawn which i got it from Johore-Jaya market at ard 5am. After meeting Dickson, Lee and Tony at our meeting point, we drove to our destination and reached the Sedilli Jetty at 8am in the morning.

Sedilli Fishing Village

A provision Shop in Sedilli

Walking towards the Jetty

Wifey excited on her 2010 first offshore trip

A scene which has totally disappeared in Singapore

Nice fishing weather in Sedilli

Our first surprised of the day was getting to know that our boatman for this trip is with the nickname Mr "Holland no.1" whom Dickson had never had a satisfy trip with him. However for me, i had a splendid trip with this Captain before and all i can say is that he is a "Delighting you always" kind of guy........My fishingkakis whom nearly given up on Offshore fishing had regain their confidence after having a fruitful "Big Selar" fishing will definately remember "Holland no.1"

Busy tying knot and setting up my gears

Our second surprised of the day is that our Captain was pretty fast in locating his Fishing spot as well as parking his boat which we had never experience before. Seems that our friendly Captain had brush up his parking skill and likely will have a prosperity year in 2010 with many more fishing business. Keep it up Captain "Holland no.1"......Hip Hip Hooray!!!!

Steamed Parrot for my Chinese New Year Dish

Wifey caught a big grouper using Sabiki

Our third surprised of the day was our 2nd Fishing spot. Amazingly, our boat was parked right under a "Grouper and Parrot Den" whereby we encountered a small feeding frenzy. Dickson and i had never had such good bottom fishing experience on this boat and our view towards the Captain immediately changed. All of us had a good grouper and parrot fishing on that spot. Well done for our Captain "Holland No.1" .......your're my man!!!

Results is good for a first offshore fishing in Sedilli

Around 2pm in the afternoon, the wave became stronger and we had a hard time fishing as the boat was rocking left and right. The bite rate was getting slower and slower as wave getting stronger every minute. At around 4pm, we decided to call it a day. Seriously, the overall result of this trip is good and we are utterly impressed by the performance of our Captain and all of us did enjoy the trip very much. When the weather in Sedilli gets better, "Holland No.1"' will be in our Fishing consideration list in year 2010... Keep it up!!! :P

Pretty good size grouper for this trip

A nice and fruitful trip with Captain Holland No.1

Prawning at Bishan Park

2009-12-08T21:50:00.005+08:00

Date: 4th Dec 09
Location: Bishan Park

Nice layout of the pond at Bishan

Have not been Prawning for many months when my good friend pop out a question asking me to join him at Bishan Park. This friend of mine, since i know him in Polytechnic never ever like such kind of hobby at all and hearing that he is interested to learn, i'm very much willing to share and teach him a few trick on this and i'm not bullshitting..hahahaa :) Since he doesn't want me to review his name in my blog, i'm ok with it cos he is not suppose to come out of his house...hahahaaa!!!

Within an hour catch

We took our lunch at Toa Payoh and headed to Bishan at ard 2pm. Luckily, not much people around since it is a weekday and it has been raining throughout the day. Actually, on his last prawning trip which is few months ago, he and his wife togther with their colleague tried out prawning here and it was not promising with only 6 prawns caught. To be truthful, i can say that prawning need skill and patience and it is not so easy at all. If you're bringing your girlfriend to prawning and you wanna impress her, do brush up the prawning skill or you will be in deep deep trouble.....heheheheee!!!

Need more to impress the girls

Nice size for my dinner

Total catch for us...40pcs

With my guidance, this friend of mine finally get to know what Prawning is all about. Amazingly, he is able to master the skill pretty fast and managed to catch quite a lot of prawn all by himself. For me, it was a fruitful prawning as well and in total, we caught around 40pcs in 2hrs.

Washing up the prawns with Salt

Its BBQ time..yummy!!!

Do you wanna have some for dinner?

Since, we do not want to bag the prawn home, my friend suggested to BBQ it on the spot. Its a first time for me and It was really nice trying out the fresh BBQ prawn and watching people trying their 101 ways in catching the prawn. On my future prawning trip, will likely to bring the Soya sauce,chilli and fresh lime for my BBQ prawn and a few cans of beer to have my maximum enjoyment. Yummy....!!!

Eatng the BBQ prawn and having some beer works magic!

Excellent Bottom Offshore Fishing trip 24th-28thOct09

2009-11-14T13:21:00.008+08:00

Location: Sabah Malaysia

Equipment(Reel): Shimano Torium 30, Penn Baja Special, Shimano Stradic 8000

Equipment(Rod): Shimano JigWrex PE6, Calstar 410, Shino Monster GT PE5

It was a trip that i have been looking forward to since Febuary this year. After months of waiting finally it time for some serious "4 Days 3 Night Hardcore Bottom Fishing" at the South China Sea.

Anyway, Will let the picture do the talking :P

Boarding the Plane at Johore

Fish noodle anyone???

Sabah Marlin Statue near the Port

2 trolley of food for our trip

Edmond with his 5kg Tenggiri

Fresh bait is the Key to success

Jaws........lurking around!!!

Lots of 3-5kg Fish caught

An Alien Fish caught

The first awesome Red Ruby caught

Durian caught from the sea

What an Ugly Shark caught

Thats a beauty...6kg Red Grouper

Time for some live bait fishing

Red Grouper by Merlion Chong

Alan's Setup:Tiburon SST with JiggingMaster rod

A big Red Snapper with a good fight

Monster work!!!

What a big fat Ruby!!!

Another Ruby which took me a while for photo-taking

Largest Red Ruby caught on this trip

Part of our catch

Many more Fish caught

Red Ruby anyone :)

Time to invest on this type of gear

Shopping at Sabah after our fishing trip

What we had for dinner...BBQ seafood

Hungry Alan and Edmond

Delicious Grape like seaweed

A local fruit, Buah Talap that can be found in Sabah only

Overall, this was a very good experience for me as this is my virgin trip to Sabah. Nevertheless, i had very good company on my trip which really makes my day. Thanks to my organizer for making this trip a dream come true for me. Will be looking forward for another trip to Sabah soon with more heavier gears .... :)

16th Oct 09 Kayak Fishing at ECP

2009-10-16T22:52:00.005+08:00

October is a rainy month and its quite hard to have a good fishing day for me. Morning was raining heavily at my place and i was uncertain if i could go for a fishing trip. In the end, i decided to give a try in the afternoon praying hard that weather will be good. In this trip, Yip CK, my Secondary school fishing buddy which i have known for many years will be joining me on this trip.

Setting up the battleship

On my arrival to ECP at 1230pm, the weather was pretty hot and sunny. We are pretty lucky that we are able to do our Kayak fishing in the afternoon as the forecast predicted that the weather will not be favorable for the whole day.

Yip enjoying his kayak fishing

What a hot weather!

Yip who is a first timer on Kayak fishing was impressed with the AEC and was quite confident fishing on this kayak. For the whole afternoon, my Garmin fish finder was reading many fish underneath the Kayak but the fish was not biting at all. We can see many fish but luck is not with us on this trip.

At around 4:00pm, the fish started to bite and we managed to catch some blue-lined hinder and a Parrot fish. At least they are some action on this trip and Yip was enjoying it a lot.

A nice Parrot for Yip

Yip waiting patiently for some serious action

Time to have some icy cold water

A small hinder caught and released back to sea

Another Hinder caught by Yip

Time to packed up

Sadly, not much action for us on this trip but at least, we can fish happily for a few hours with pretty good weather. Will be going for my 4D3N Sabah offshore fishing next week and hope i can have good action by then. :P

Kayak Fishing at ECP on 10th Oct 09

2009-10-16T21:38:00.006+08:00

It has been a few months i have not been out for Kayak fishing since last July. Since i'm free on Saturday, i decided to check with Ian where he will be heading for the Saturday trip. Beforehand, the trip was suppose to be at Tuas but was last minute changed to East Coast Park.

I woke up at 5am in the morning and reached East Coast at 6am. Besides Ian, Mervin who owns the Airis Kayak joined us as well for this trip. Before 7am, we are ready to set off and was quite excited as Mervin informed that we will be heading to some wreck spot on his GPS and i'm pretty eagered to fight some big monster.

A group photo at East Coast Park

Heading to the wreak spot

While we will finding for the wreck spot, Ian paddled to a marker buoy to get some live bait tamban and since, i couldn't locate the spot, i might as well get some tamban fishing to start my day. I took over Ian's tamban jig and have fun doing my tamban jigging on my Kayak.

Tamban jigging fun

After a few fruitful tamban jigging, we could see dark clouds coming towards us at a fast pace and without further a do, Ian and I decided to paddled back to find Mervin. Half way back, the wind and the strong wave did gave me a big headache as i could really keep up my pace as well as trying hard to paddle towards Ian's direction. At that moment, i was struggling and extremely tired. Soon, the rain was pouring heavily and i have no choice but to head straight and give up on meeting Ian and Mervin and most importantly, i got to land on the beach to avoid the strong wave and rain. What a stormy weather for me!!!

Help!!! The Storm is coming !!!

I landed on the other beach which is around 300m away from Mervin and Ian. Ian tried to call me on my mobile but it couldn't reply due to the rain and most importantly, rain water entered my Handphone and it was dead.

Ian paddled safely to shore

After almost half an hour or so, the weather get slightly better and i paddled back to meet Ian and Mervin. I really felt bad to made both of them worried for me. I was really exhausted when i paddled back and after a short rest, Ian suggested to have a "round two" mission. Since, the weather turned better and not to disappoint everyone, i decided to carry on the fishing.

Mervin on his Airis

We headed to some rocky spots which is not too far from the beach i landed during the storm. Surprisingly, looking at my Garmin fishfinder, i can see some potential structure with many fish spotted on the screen. Without further a do, i quickly wet my line and up came the Lattice Monocle Bream (Angkoli) which took my tamban.

An Angkoli that took my Tamban bait

Mervin and Ian also caught some Angkoli and Parrot fish at this rocky spot which made this trip slightly entertaining for us.

A beautiful fish caught

Overall, it was quite a nice trip for me and indeed a very tiring one. Will be looking forward for more Kayaking trip in future with my Kayak gang. :)

A "No Fishing" day for me

2009-07-18T13:13:00.002+08:00

Date:18th Jul 09
Location: Since "No Fishing", got to be at home....hohohooooo!!!

All the while, i have been very interested with cooking especially Japanese food. While i'm in Japan on my last trip in March, most of the time, i'm hunting for good food as well as eyeing on the shelving of the Japanese Supermart to see what i can bring back to Singapore and lay my hands on the cooking. As this dish is delicious and it is cooked with my Rompin squid, it will be nice to have it posted up. :)

Since my wife doesn't allowed me to do Fishing today and urging me to cook some Japanese food since i have so much Squid on my last Rompin Fishing trip, i decided to make the yummy Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) or Japanese fried Pancake for lunch.

The ingredient......i added some oyster to make it more yummy!!!

Nicely done

Almost ready to serve

The end product.....children will love this Okonomiyaki

An Exciting Rompin Fishing trip

2009-07-16T11:55:00.013+08:00

Date: 11th July 09
Location: Malaysia Rompin
Anglers: Ah Tan and wife, Dickson, Shierly and me.

On the 10th July, Friday, i received a call from my friend, Desley, telling me that the weather at Rompin was bad and many anglers had to cancel their trip due to the stormy weather. Indeed, before his call, i had saw some recent Rompin catch report saying that the weather was pretty bad and during afternoon, the wave was around 3m high. Looking at such poor weather, our Saturday trip might not be promising. Oh dear, it might be a disappointing trip for me and my wife cos i really want her to try out fishing squid and Sailfish on this trip.

After much discussion with Dickson, both of us decided to proceed the trip regardless of the bad weather. If fishing were to be cancelled, we will book a Chalet and hunt for some good seafood restaurant at Rompin. So, on friday evening, we entered Johore for our dinner and then drive up to Rompin which took us nearly 3 hours to reach our destination.

As our Rompin offshore trip inclusive of a stay at the boatman house, it does make sure we have enough rest on our next day fishing. Moreover, If i gonna drive for a few hours and immediately going out for my fishing, i'm sure that i'll be a Singapore Merlion...puking all the way :P

The boatman house for a night at Rompin

Our single bed for the night

After our breakfast at the Rompin Restaurant, we proceded to the Rompin Jetty to meet up with our famous local boatman, Sky Chong. He owned a twin outboard Fishing boat and it took us just less than 30minutes to reached our first fishing spot which is the big reef squid den which all of us has requested.

Ah Tan and his wife

Dickson ready for the big fish

The Rompin Jetty

Me preparing for the fight

Sky Chong's battleship

Our first spot at the Reef squid den

Dickson with a big reef squid

A big squid for me as well...this are the common size

On our first few hours, we have lots of fun landing all those big squid and i mean a lot of this underneath our boat....its one after another and it seems never ending. Both Dickson and Ah Tan had so much fun on the squid as they spent the most time catching it. Seriously, it is really addictive using light tackle to land this big reef squid as the squid do give some resistance on the fight.

Beautiful squid landed by Shierly

Sweetlip landed by Tan

Leather Jacket landed by Shierly

A big sweetlip landed by Dickson

Man of the match who caught the smallest Grouper

During afternoon, we met a school of Cobia at our Diamond Trevally spot and Dickson has so much fun on fighting the Cobia with his Accurate 197. As there are not much Sailfish during July, Sky recommended us to go for Diamond Trevally as we had live prawn on board.

This Cobia really give Dickson some action

A small Cobia caught by me

Another Cobia landed by Dickson

The next highlight of our trip is when my wife, Shierly, who was fighting her way with the big Diamond trevally (Ebek). As she was on light tackle, it took her almost 30 minutes to land this big fish. Once the fish took the bait, it dashed into the deep at an alarming speed and we can hear the loud cry from the reel from start till the end and the bending of the rod with a "C" shape really scare the hell out of us. Whenever, the fish almost surfaced the water, it just dived into the water couple of time. Truely, the persistant of the fish really gave her a hard time fighting the fish. Fortunately with a gimble, the fight with the fish was much more easier for her and soon, the fish gave up the fight and it was a cleared victory for a newbie who caught her record big fish.....an almost 7kg Diamond Trevally.

The big fight for Shierly

The rod is dipping into the water...help..help!!!

A promising fight for Shierly

Its the Victory shot on the big Diamond

It's a big and heavy Diamond

Me posting with the Ebek

17kg of squid for us on this trip

Our total catch of the day

Overall, all of us had a very fun trip and lucky enough, there was no sign of raining throughout our fishing. All i can say is that this is one of the best Fishing trip i had in 2009. In total, we had caught nearly 20kg squid and many fish as well. Especially for Shierly, after the good fight with the Diamond, she was addicted to offshore fishing and was asking or should i put it as "urging" me when will be my next trip........Wahahahaa!!!

Kayaking at Punggol 03July09

2009-07-04T12:19:00.008+08:00

Date: 3rd July 09 (Friday)

Had wanted to go for some Kayak fishing on the 2nd July afternoon but was disappointed by a heavy downpour. Therefore, i got to cancelled the trip and no chance to bring my Orange pearl for some outing. Eventually, i decided to have a few hours of kayaking on the next day as well as to test out my Garmin fish finder.

What a beauty..my Orange Pearl!

Me and wife reached Punggol end at around 4pm and the weather was still pretty hot. Setting up my Kayak was a sweating affair. This time round, i had my Double deck, Fish Finder and AEC backbone fixed into my Kayak.

Some modification on the rod holder with padded back support

With much consideration, it is more wise to have all my modification to be as simple as possible. It is quite a headache to carry so many things when going for my Kayak trip. Moreover, its really a pain in the neck if i'm alone setting everything all by myself.

My Fishfinder console

My objective of this trip is to test out my Garmin Fishfinder with the 12V AA size Battery holder. I used 8 brand new AA size Ikea Alkaline battery on my Garmin but sadly, it is not so ideal as it shows only 8.5V on my half hour testing even with brand new battery. Hence, maybe i'll be trying out with other type of batteries on this holder or maybe, it will be good to use those 12V Lead Acid Battery.

Backbone installed on my AEC

Backbone at the Bow

Backbone holding at the Stern

Shierly having much fun for the first time on my Kayak

Since it was Shierly's first trip on my Kayak and it was just purely a Kayaking trip, i must let her counter her fear first and to get use in Kayaking. Surprisingly, being a tandem, the 15ft AEC is a really stable Kayak even when we came across some wave created by those speed boat. With the AEC Backbone installed this time, i can feel the difference immediately as the Kayak can cut through the water effortlessly even with 2 person on it. From my personal point of view on the this hundred over dollars gadget, although it is not that easy installing into the Kayak especially positioning the backbone and the floor base for a first timer, the money spent on this upgrade is really worth it as it does improved the Kayak's performance by some great margin.

A happy trip for both of us

Its dinner time....time to back up

Overall all, my wife and i had a really fun 3 hours trip at Punggol before the sky gets dark. Anyway, I'ill be planning some more kayaking session with my wife in the future so that we can make full use of this Kayak. Last but not least, after the trip, there will be many cleaning and drying of stuff to do, and the best part is....i got to do it all by myself...Hahahaaaa!

Diamond at East Coast Park

2009-06-26T19:51:00.005+08:00

Tide Info
26th Jun'09 0045 3.1
26th Jun'09 0745 -0.2
26th Jun'09 1446 2.6
26th Jun'09 2000 1.1

It's been a while i have not fish in East Coast Park and since it is still school holiday, i decided to bring WeiCheng and WeiQuan to the seaside for some fishing. Since the last fishing trip with WeiCheng, he was hooked by this new hobby and really looking forward for his next trip.

WeiQuan and WeiCheng at East Coast Park

Setting up the gears

Do i look like a fishing pro?

WeiCheng at the ECP jetty

Many people fishing at the Jetty

WeiQuan very first cast after his first fishing lesson

Patiently waiting for his big fish

Me guiding the two brother on fishing

The 1st big pull of the day on my Shimano setup

A shiny Diamond Trevally landed

WeiCheng and the Diamond.....precious Diamond

It's pretty common to land a Diamond Trevally in Singapore water but still, luck is needed to get one. It was pretty quiet on the past 2 hours fishing when suddenly, i got a strong pull on my Shimano Holiday Spin rod and line is peeling off from my Shimano Sienna 4000. The fight with the Diamond was really fantastic as this fish doesn't surrender easily. After a couple of minutes, the fish surface the water and a Diamond trevally was landed.....Victory for me eventually.

After the Diamond, nothing was landed and we call it a day at 1530hr. The weather was too hot to withstand and its better to get home early to prevent getting sun-burned again.

Durian Feast on 20th June 09

2009-06-21T18:14:00.004+08:00

This Saturday is a no fishing day for me as i need to celebrate Father's Day with my Dad. I bought 8 pieces of durians to my Parent's home for the celebration. Besides durian, i also prepared the Japanese Miso soup for Dinner since the day before some fish was caught during my offshore trip at Changi. Those fish made pretty good Fish broth and everyone are happy with the Miso soup i have prepared.

Red meat Durian.....really good!!!

Yellow Fresh Meaty Durian

Pink Fresh Durian....really rare colored Durian

19th June 09 Changi Offshore trip

2009-06-21T09:57:00.007+08:00

Tide:
19th Jun 09 0131 0.7
19th Jun 09 0813 2.1
19th Jun 09 1335 1.2
19th Jun 09 1956 2.5

Location: Ubin and Changi Area
Boatman: David Ho's boat
Boat type: 20ft Dynaglass
Anglers: Darren, Lu Cong, Shierly, Patrick

Since Darren, Lu Cong and Shierly have not tried local Offshore trip, i decided to booked a Friday trip for them to tried out. The weather was good and the sea was calm in the morning. As it is our first time booking David's boat, we were quite hoping to land some biggies on this trip.

How i wish i had a boat here

Loading our stuff on David's Boat

The new Dam at Punggol

Happy Anglers on a boat ride to our first spot

Aunty's Prawn farm for our live bait

Our live-well with the prawn

The gear used for me and my wife, Abu 6000C and Aerlex4000

David's settting the anchor on our Fishing spot

A cuttlefish caught by Shierly

Me helping shierly to bring up the cuttelfish

LuCong, having a good fight

A almost 1.5kg Flathead landed by LuCong

I caught 4 pcs of this Juvenile Ah Seng (Ikan Duri)

A good table size seabass caught by Lu Cong

Wifey waited patiently for her turn...but to no avail

No action for my setup...So Boring!!!

A Emperor Snapper caught by me

Around 3pm, it started drizzling

Going back to Punggol Marina

Our 1st local offshore trip was kind of sad and everyone was quite disappointed as it was not up to our expectation. Darren and the boatman had a big Dinosaur egg except for LuCong who had some nice fight on this trip. Anyway, that's Fishing.....not everyday is Sunday :P

18Jun09-Fishing lesson for WeiCheng

2009-06-18T22:25:00.008+08:00

The very first time Shierly and i brought WeiCheng fishing was many years back whereby i could hardly recall where and when did i brought him to. Anyway, since this week is the school holiday and permission was granted by his parent, it will be a good time to let him learn the art of fishing.

Nowadays, Singapore children have lots of school work to handle and during their free time, they are prone to sit infront of the computer playing their favorite games. Hence, introduce this hobby to them is indeed a good choice as Fishing can cultivate their patience and able to let them release their stress and pressure.

Early in the morning at 7am, i fetched Weicheng at his place and proceeded straight to Changi Village for some Whiting Fishing.

Hoping to catch some fish for WeiCheng

First lesson for WeiCheng is to teach him what are the stuff being used for fishing and also how to setup the gears correctly. Surprisingly, with just one explaination, he can do it pretty well....Wow, no wonder he can do so well in his school work as well.

Hmmm...too simple for me

Second lesson is to teach him how to use the reel and how to cast out correctly. Without much effort, WeiCheng master it very fast and i'm really happy for him that he can cast even better than me when i learned from my Dad at about his age.

WeiCheng very first cast using Pioneer rod and Ryobi reel

Excited WeiCheng with his very first catch.

A Emperor Snapper caught by WeiCheng

The Snapper was released back to sea

Future Fishing-Pro

A Juvenile Johnson Snapper caught

It was quite strange that not even one small whiting was caught at my usual Whiting spot at Changi. Seeing such poor result, i decided to go East Coast Park to try it out.

No fish, ......Its sand castle time

View at Bedok Jetty

It seems to be a disappointing trip for me where as WeiCheng on the other hand seems to be enjoying it. Nevertheless, i'll be arranging another Fishing trip for him before School holiday end and i would hope that it will be a better trip than this.

My Fishing Reel collection

2009-06-15T22:39:00.007+08:00

I was supposed to be sleeping after a tiring night shift, but the sleep lasted only less than 4 hours. Since i couldn't force myself to get asleep, i decided to pack my Fishing cabinet. I took out the reels from the Cabinet for some photo-taking session. Truely, It is impossible for me to use all the reels in a single fishing trip but i strongly prefered to have the right gear and tools for it. After some calculation, i have more than 20 over reel in my collection. Among the reels, there are some which was used for more than 5 years which is in pretty good condition and its pretty unlikely for me to sell it away since there is not much value worth. In fact, the most expensive reel in my collection, the Saltiga Z-40 was sold away recently which i used it for the funding of my new toy.

Part of my Spinning and Multiplier collection

Shimano Stradic and Banax GTW and other spinners

Shimano Torium 30 with line installed for Oct Sabah trip

18 Fishing reel on the table and some more in the Cabinet

Fishing is indeed not a cheap hobby for me but most importantly, its the whole process that really caught my interest into it. I strongly believes that one needs to enjoy and play hard so that at the very last minute of his life, he will surely live without much regrets.

Enjoying the King of fruits with Fishing Friends

2009-06-15T21:54:00.008+08:00

"King of the fruits" .....This time of the year, which is June you are likely to see Durian all over Malaysia and it is the time where the fruits are harvested. Being a Durian lover, i can't wait to have a great feast on my favorite fruit. Seriously, The smell of the fruits and the taste is really awesome. Hohohohoooo.....I really can't live without it!!!

These are the normal Kampong durian..its really good

In Europe, chances of seeing Durian is almost impossible but during my half year attachment in Germany-Mannheim in Yr2002, i managed to see those Thai durian sold in the Asia mart. Buying durian in Europe indeed cost you a bomb but in Malaysia.......Rm$3-5 ringgit per kg is so affordable and i can eat hell lots of it...hahahahaaa :)

Wifey and Mother-in-law buying fruits

Creamy meaty durian.....really yummy!!!

After buying the durians, My wife and i celebrate our "Durian Feast" at Edmond's place. Seriously, just the smell is simply irresistible for we durian lovers. As the fruits is freshly collected in the morning, every bite, you can really felt the warm beneath the durian meat. It indeed a luxury to have fishing friends gathering for some fishing chat as well as enjoying our favorite fruit at the same time.

A satisfying look from Dickson's face..."Joon, you want some?"

Edmond busy eating durian.."i'll help to finish Joon's share"

That's how we wash off the durian smell from the hand

Pinch of salt and water does stop you from getting heaty

Can't wait to have another round of durian feast when i'm back in Malaysia. Really miss the Durian. However, do not eat too much durian as you will be likely to fall sick as this is a very heaty fruits :P

The Cleaning up ceremony for my Orange Pearl

2009-06-07T18:45:00.011+08:00

Date: 7th June 2009

On the Saturday afternoon, i did a partial cleaning on my Yak and the fishing stuff. Doing it on a hot afternoon is really a pain in the neck and some more it is done after a fishing trip. It took me nearly 2 hours to clean up my fishing stuff and also with the splashing of water and wiping on the yak exterior. I needed to make sure that i can removed as much salt as possible so that to prevent bringing back the salt home. Till everything is kinda of dry then i can loaded it back into my Forester.

Seriously, when i'm back home, it took me another 2 hours to thoroughly wash up my stuff with 100% salt removed as well as doing another round of splashing of water and wiping on and in the Kayak. During the washing of the yak, it is good to inflate it so that most part can be accessible for the cleaning.

After washing up, i deflated the yak and took out the advancedframe and flooring and air it dry. After the cleaning, it was around 7pm and there were no sun for the speedy drying up. So, i folded the Yak and left it to dry.

On the next day, which is today (Sunday), the weather was really hot in the morning with around 33 degree celsius. Since the outer cover and the advancedframe of the yak were still wet, I left it to dry under the shade. Its seems that the outercover dried up much faster than the advancedframe due to the different type of material used. All in all, it took me nearly 3 hours to get everything dry up and ready to pack into the bag.

Here are the assemble procedure which i'm sharing with all:

1. AEC- Advanced frame and outer cover

2. Installing back the Bow Rib into the advancedframe

3. Same goes to the Stern Rib

4. Install the advancedframe into the cover from the Stern

5. Make sure the Ribs goes all the way till the end

6. Aligned the advancedframe and the cover

7. Velco near the stern are aligned properly and then tape it together

8. Fixed the Bow into the outercover

9. Unzip the cover and push it in (Hmmm...)

10. Make sure the ribs and the frame goes all the way in

11. Aligned and adjust the velco near the bow

12. Zipped back the cover

13. Time to install the floor

14. Adjust the floor in the yak

15. Put back the Chamber 1 valve cover

16. Bingo! Everything is put back

17. Time to fold the yak into the bag

18. Put the 2 seats and the foot brace into the bag

19. All nicely in the bag

20. Back to the storeroom

Hope that all of you will like it. The cleaning needs lots of patient and time. Enjoy the cleaning process and happy cleaning your AE-Yak!!!

My Maiden trip with the Orange pearl

2009-06-07T10:09:00.008+08:00

Date: 6th June 2009

Captain Sparrow has been mentioning about this island Singapore in the movie "Pirates of the Carribean" and today is the chance for him to really explore this island......however, he couldn't really make it today and i was told to replace him as the Captain for the Orange Pearl maiden trip....Hahahaahaaa...juz joking!

Seriously, i was so excited about this trip and hardly able to sleep well the day before the trip. I woke up pretty early at 05:30am and reached Tuas about 7am in the morning. I was pretty late for the 6:30am appointment with Ian and was feeling quite bad for my delay.

When i reach the destinaton, i saw 2 Police officier talking to Ian.....perhaps asking him about his Expedition. Initially, i was quite shock to see the Petrol car, parking on the road thinking that we might get some tickets for parking here. I greeted the 2 freindly officer and immediately check with them for the parking. When i have finished setting up my Orange Pearl, one of the officier came over and ask for our particulars which is a normal standard procedure (SOP) just to make sure we are not into trouble and most importantly making sure Singapore is really a "FINE" city.

An AE Expedition and a AE Convertible

Ian with the 2 Kayak

After some Photo-shooting session, we set off from Tuas to some good fishing spot. This maiden trip is a good chance for me to really test out the boat and this Kayak really track well with me and load of stuff on the Kayak. The frame which i built on the Kayak was really superb and i'm damn proud of it although some more modification is needed to make it flawless.

Out at sea with my convertible

After 15 minutes of paddling, the first Coastal Petrol boat came over to us for some checking. Both Ian and I was so surprised to see that the commander of the Petrol boat is a pretty young lady. Seriously, How i wish i could have join the Coast guard!!! :P

Not long after, another petrol boat came to check on us. This time round, no more pretty ladies on board the petrol boat...hahahahaa! After some routine question being asked and making sure that we have our safety gears with us. Soon, both of us were back to our fishing and paddling.

The 1st Fishing Spot at the yellow buoy

Caught a Queenie with Tamban (White sardinella)

A Butterfly Whiptail caught and released by me

Time for a break

The Orange pearl with gears

Its time for some more fishing

It was a pretty tiring trip for me being my first paddling after so many years since my school days. The fishing was not really good but the paddling was really awesome. The total distance covered for this trip was approximately 10km that took us roughly 6.5 hour in total. The kayak was really stable and according to Ian, the AE-Convertible (without the backbone installed) seems to track better than the AE-Expedition. I will try out the AE-Convertible with a Backbone next time round to see the actual performance with it. So everyone, got to stay tuned for my next Kayak-Fishing trip with my AEC aka Orange Pearl :P

The cool looking Orange Pearl of mine

Captain Sparrow's Orange Pearl modification

2009-06-04T22:23:00.005+08:00

Many of my fishing friends were eager to see my Catch Report on my Kayak-fishing trip but i'm so sorry that i have made all of you disappointed. My maiden fishing trip was cancelled and the weather was not favorable for me to do fishing as there were thunderstorm in the early morning. Hence after sending my wife to work, i proceeded to a hardware shop to do my shopping for the 5th modification on my "Orange Pearl". After days of brainstorming, i have more or less confirm with my design. Without the deck install on Kayak, there are indeed load of space for me to come out with lots of wonderful ideas. Amazingly, i have the Fishfinder console, a foot brace, Fishing Rod holders, a cooler box compartment and a Kayak stabilizer all well sorted out. Everything was more or less completed except for the Stabilizer which i will need sometime to figure out the best solution on fitting it. With everything completed, a mini sail will also be fitted to my frame structure. Last but not least, i also have a nicely built Yak trolly which was proven working to move my "Orange Pearl" around. Seriously, after sorted out all my receipt on the modification, i was shocked to see how much i have spent on the modification.....anyway, i'll keep this a secret which i will not tell anyone.....figure out yourself if you're interested on this :P

The main structure on the modification

The rod holder that accommodate 2 rods and a net

The Fishfinder console which i'm proud of

A Cooler box compartment on my "Orange Pearl"

Rear view of my Cooler box compartment

My Foot brace...very nicely built and comfortable

The front part of the structure

Can't wait to do my fishing

A trolley for my "Orange Pearl"

My Fishing Battleship

2009-05-30T16:16:00.004+08:00

Today is the day for me to inflate my AEC and was really impressed of the quality and design of this inflatable Kayak. Although it was made from China, the material used is really good and solid. Within 15 minutes, the whole kayak was inflated nicely according to the owner's manual. It is a must to read carefully on all the details before inflating in order to do the job perfectly. This Kayak is big in size and i really mean it. Without the deck installed on the Kayak, not much retrofit is needed for fishing as there are ample of space to put ice box, fishing gears and bags or even big container. If the external deck is installed be it a single or a double deck, retrofit with PVC piping in the Kayak will then be needed. I have not been fishing for 2 weeks and i'm really looking forward to have my maiden trip. Hopefully, everything will be settled and i'll be out at sea with my "Fishing Battleship".

Diamond grid high density Polyester with PVC laminent material

Proud owner to own one

Installing a Yellow Plastic pad for another protection

Nice and spacious 2 seater Kayak

My Advanced Elements Battleship

Checking my new Toy Kayak

2009-05-29T11:21:00.002+08:00

Took out the Kayak and lay it on the floor in my Living room. It indeed a long Kayak and a solid one. Firstly, i got to check and confirm on the newly bought pump whether can be fitted to my Kayak and it was perfect. It does save me some money on buying it from the agent. Both the Foot pump and the double action pump was bought in Malaysia at a very cheap price and it really worth it. Beside, got 2 pair gloves which match my Kayak color as well. With all the stuff, and yet to complete retrofit rod holder and Fishfinder console.....i'll be ready for my fishing outing with other Singapore Kayak fishing members.

Read carefully on the Manual

That's the brand, Advanced Elements

AEC on the floor...Wow 15ft Kayak

The accessories i bought in Malaysia

Rod repair for today

2009-05-28T13:54:00.005+08:00

Since today is my offday i needed to clear my on-hand "Offday project" so as to have more time for my new toy. Its quite a rush and tedious job for me as i had to finish it by today or else i will have no time for it.

My favorite Pioneer Typhoon 6ft....its a cheap and lucky rod

Guide wrapping and applying epoxy

Changing the cheapo reel seat into Fuji on my lucky rod

Changing 5 guides+ 1 tip for my 6ft BC Shakespear Contender

Darren's Shimano Basstera with a new Tip change

Applying epoxy on one of the guide for Shimano Basstera

My workstation with Darren's Shimano Basstera

Finally, wrapping the guide was completed and now it the waiting time for the epoxy to dry up.It really a sense of achievement when you see that a spoilt fishing rod can be "Revive". So with the rod repairing completed, i can go into playing my new toy!!!

Arrival of my new Toy 26th May09

2009-05-26T22:21:00.002+08:00

Just reach home at 930pm and saw 2 carton box laying in my living room. Hurray!!!....., the "Toy" that i have been waiting for has finally arrived. Seriously, I was so over-whelming that i have forgetten all about my tiredness. Without delay, i unpacked all the stuff and within minutes, i was happily admiring my toy and have forgotten to thanks my wife for receiving the item for me. Hohohohoo.....the feeling is indeed like winning a lottery!

Preview of my new TOY

2009-05-21T08:41:00.005+08:00

Advanced Elements Convertible Kayak

After much consideration, i have finally made my so called "Concrete" decision on purchasing this new toy. The price is affordable and it does meet all my requirements. Firstly, it is inflatable and portable and so storing it is not a headache for me and i can save the money on buying a car roof rack for my Subaru Forester. Secondly, it not a thing which only i myself can only enjoy as i can have my wife, my family members or another fishing friend coming with me as it seat 2 person and lastly, it can be a fun exercise with me and my wife paddling to some nice scenary spot in Singapore or even in Malaysia be it a sea or lake.

I do really hope to have a boat rather than a kayak as i have a Powered Pleasure Craft Driving License(PPCDL) for many years and since my very first day getting the license, i have been dreaming badly to own a boat myself. In Singapore, it is pretty expensive owning a boat as the monthly maintanence fees and other miscellaneous fee adding together can be quite a hefty sum of money. However, i'll still try my best to fulfill this dream of mine and hoping that owning a pleasure craft could one day be a dream come through.

A new member for my Fishing collection

2009-05-07T15:14:00.002+08:00

Reel: Duel Speedy 12
COO: Italy
Gear Ratio 6:1

Morning Whiting Fishing at Changi

2009-05-07T14:33:00.004+08:00

Location: Changi beach
Date:07 May 09

Tide:

07May09 0401 0.6
07May09 1022 2.6
07May09 1622 0.9
07May09 2200 2.7

After my morning breakfast, i rode my bike to Changi for some Whiting Fishing. The high tide was at around 10am in the morning and i have just enough time to do some preparation on the bait for my fishing. The favorite food for my today's target is infact the sea worm hiding in the sand bed. This juicy fat worms is pretty easy to catch and within an hour, i have a handful of worms just enough for my Whiting fishing. Seriously, looking at these lovely worms, it indeed remind me of my wife's swearing and saying that she will never ever sit on the beach ever again.....so disgusting! Does anyone have the same sentiment?

Juicy Worm anyone?

Without further a do, i quickly setup my light tackle to see if this freshly caught bait really works. Straight away on my first cast, a pull was felt immediately and target was set. Comparing to my last trip, today's Whiting are much bigger in size and one could really felt the struggle on the other end.

First bite of the day

Another big one

Had a good fight with this whiting

After spending almost 2 hours, the Whiting were not biting as the tide was low and the weather was really hot which i could hardly fish anymore.

Total catch

Overall, its a fun trip for me just spending a few hours on the beach doing my fishing rather than stressing myself on my work. Most importantly, it more than enough time spending this few hours to relax myself enjoying the sun, the sand and the sea.

Whiting Fishing at Changi Beach

2009-04-27T11:14:00.006+08:00

Date:24th Apr 09 (Friday)
Location: Changi Beach

Tide:
24thApr09 0428 0.6
24thApr09 1048 2.7
24thApr09 1652 0.8
24thApr09 2241 2.8

Whiting (Shiro-gisu) is a popular delicacy in Japan whereby, it is usually seen on Tempura dishes. The fish are usually deep fried with flour batter and it has is a important commercial species in Japan, greatly esteemed for its delicate flavour.

Since, it my offday and after finish washing my clothings in the morning, i decided to go for some fishing. The weather was extremely hot this few days and the heat was unbearable and it was a sweat out day for me.

Nice Beach at Changi

My stuff for this trip

High tide at the beach

Not crowded on weekdays

As i bought some dead prawn for this trip, catching small fish is not a mission impossible. Shortly after my first cast, a nice whiting was caught. Seriously, Prawn meat was the favorite food for the Whiting and every cast, there will be some fish coming for the bait at the other end. The fun part for Whiting fishing is that getting the fish to be hook up need some skill and technique as the fish's mouth is quite small.

My first Whiting for the day

Another Whiting caught

2 hungry whiting caught at same time

The plane is travelling very low

A close view of the plane at the beach

18pcs of Whiting in less than 1.5hours

Overall, it was a hot and fun trip for me and the result was pretty good for the day since i have ever tried empty-handed on targetting this fish before on this beach. Luckily for me, The fish is biting and fighting against Whiting using light tackle is really fun. Will definately tried out Whiting fishing again when i have my free time.

My Luring session at Changi

2009-04-09T19:11:00.012+08:00

Date: 09 April 09
Location: Changi

Since today is my offday and nothing much to do at home after my morning jogging, i decided to go for some Luring at Changi. Its been a while for me not visiting this favorite luring spot of mine and its a good chance since the weather is pretty cloudy.

Reclaimed land at Changi

My ammo for my Luring trip

Looks like its going to rain soon

Got a small grouper on my favorite sinking lure

Its low tide in the afternoon

Try casting with this R2S 120F minnow

The sea is quite rough and windy

Looks like a promising lure to use

After several attempts without any result and the weather become very windy with black clouds hanging over my head. I decided to change to another spot which is half an hour from where i fish.

Another potential Luring spot at Changi

The sea looks pretty calm

What is this floating stuff doing here..save life?

Another grouper caught on my lure

Fishing spot is only accessible by bike

A scar on my minnow

Too bad, unable to set the hook

Its time to go home

The Snails going home as well

The result looks pretty good to me on my first luring session in year 2009. Luck is indeed with me and too bad, got a few miss which i unable to set the hook well. Will be looking forward for some more action during my free days.

My Daiwa Saltiga Z-40 Sold Off

2009-04-08T18:56:00.004+08:00

Due to my upcoming New Fishing Project which will be leading me to the next level of Fishing, i have no choice but to sell my precious Saltiga away in order to fund for my hobby. Hope the new owner will take very good care of her and get to catch big fish with her.

Luring Preparation for 2009

2009-04-08T15:12:00.005+08:00

Its been sometime i have not been trying out luring and have not been getting any fish on my previous Luring trip in year 2008. Since today is my offday and i have not that busy, i took out my luring set for some inspection. During my recent Japan trip, i have also bought some Japanese lures for my luring collection. Really hope to have some chance to wet my line and also included some luring catch report in the future.

Luring preparation

Feim hump 115S

Ima Rene

Ima Komomo

Shimano Axis 100 with 10lb braided

Lure waiting for action

My Sedilli Offshore trip for 2009

2009-04-08T12:01:00.016+08:00

Date: 21st Mar 09
Location: Sedilli Malaysia

This was my first offshore trip in 2009 whereby Joon had specially organise this trip for his girlfriend or so called "Future wife". Besides my fishing kaki, my wife and my friend, Kee from Cymer also join in for this trip. All of us meet up at 5am near Jusco Tebrau in Johore and reach Sedilli at almost 0645am. The weather was pretty good and the sea was calm. Fishing was not really that amazing throughout the trip for most of us and i don't have much luck in getting any big fish. However, my wife, Shierly was in luck on that day as she caught many table size fish such as grouper, grunter, John snapper and parrot.

Arriving our live bait shop ay Kota Tinggi

Buying our live bait

Early morning at the Sedilli Jetty

Waiting for our boatman

View at the Jetty

So many people going fishing

Heading off to our first fishing spot

Kee's first Offshore trip with us

Its time for my bait to start working

My Abu 6000C reel

My Torium 30 on trolling

Shimano Torium is my Favourite power reel

Daiwa Caldia Kix 4000 for my wife's setup

Joon's Daiwa Millionaire bay area

Shimano Aerlex 4000 for bait fish fishing

Banax GT3000W for standby

Ryobi Applause for Joon's GF setup

Shierly caught a Parrot

A Blue strip Hinder caught by Shierly

Guan Choon caught one as well

Hinder caught by me

A Grunter caught by my wife

Fishing is a waiting game

Storm is coming soon and its bye-bye time

Our total catch for the day

At the Sedilli Fish port with fresh seafood

Wanna buy some for dinner?

Big prawn for dinner

Our fishing end at around 0630pm and then we headed to the nearby Fishing Port to get more fresh seafood. Overall, its a good trip to start with in my 2009 fishing and hope that i can have more fishing when i have the time.

Prawning trip at FW3

2009-03-25T09:39:00.005+08:00

Date: 13th Feb 2009 (Friday)
Location: Pasir Ris Farmway 3

Have been a while i have not been fishing and since i'm not that busy in my work and my fishing buddy asking if i'm interested on prawning, it still a good alternative for relaxing myself. The catch were pretty good for all of us and it was not so crowded with people.

Darren with his first catch

Leslie got one too

Wow..a big one for me

Busy with the bait

Out total Catch

Big and yummy prawn for Dinner

Year 2009.....Fishing or Working???

2009-03-17T21:57:00.005+08:00

Year 2009 is a hard and challenging year for me as well as for many people all over the world. All of us need to make sure our job is secured and also making sure that we have enough money to spend just in case anything happened to our job specially in Semiconductor manufacturing line. Its been a while i had stop fishing since my last fishing trip in Oct 2008 and indeed, i really wanna go for some serious fishing but due to my job, i had no choice but to sacrifices my hobbies for the time being. Seriously, it seems that i had already "MIA" from my Fishing scene as no updates was posted since my last trip in year 2008 and many friends were asking whether i have give up on my Fishing hobby. In actual fact, i'm still pretty active in my hobbies as during my free time at home, i'll start browsing in the Fishing forum or reading up Fishing magazine as well as preparing myself for a come back when i not that busy. Nevertheless, i will try to go for some fishing trip when i have time in order to stop and cure my "Fishing Itch"......Hohohoooo....No way i will give up Fishing as "Fishing is flowing in my blood!!! "

A Sedilli Offshore trip before Monsoon

2008-11-07T11:29:00.006+08:00

This Sedilli trip was quite a short notice for me as out of a sudden, my fishing gang decided to try an offshore trip to Sedilli. Fortunately, we were able to locate a malay boatman who is available and the trip was confirmed on the 1st November. Total, there were five of us, Darren, ThianSiang, Lucong, Marcus and me.

On my last few Sedilli boat trip, i was with the other boatman and had never try out this boatman for fishing before. I was informed from my malaysia fishing friends that this particular boatman was not very popular and had poor reputation with the regular mainly due to his boat parking skill as well as his fishing spot was not that good. Some of them even came across without any fish for the whole trip. Eventually, he was given a nickname as "Holland-no.1" Since he is our only choice and my gang is desperate for an offshore trip....we must have full confidence with him!!! Indeed, all of us was not really convinced about the comment and moreover, the sea is big and there is full of surprises.

Our meetup place

At 0430am Saturday, the four of them meet me at my JB house and we set off to a nearby 7-eleven to buy our breakfast, Lunch as well as some ice pack for our catch. As i'm the only one who went frequent for offshore trip, preparation for seasickness is a must for the others. Before the trip, i have informed Darren to prepare some Ginger flavour tibits and fresh ginger for the trip and i will bring them some seasickness pill which i found it to be very effective for offshore 1st timer. Everyone was very excited before the trip and i can see that everyone has hardly enough rest.

1kg live prawn please

Next, we proceed to Kota Tinggi to collect our pre-ordered live prawn. Over there, we met up with a few anglers who is also going for an offshore trip at Sedilli. When we reached the Jetty around 7am, we could see dark clouds handing over our head and the strong wind almost blowing off our hope of going for an offshore trip. Our boatman informed that we can still head off for fishing and surprisingly the weather become better and throughout the trip, it was a cloudy day with not much sun.

Look at the sky

Hmmm..hope to fill up the icebox

All the best with "Holland" boat

Our group photo

After around and hour ride, we reached our 1st fishing spot where all of us eagerly wait for our first bite of the day. The sea was rocky due to the strong wind but the weather is fine. Soon, Lu Cong got his first bite and he had a good fight with a beautiful Queenfish that is around 2kg in weigh. Our boatman informed that this spot is promising with big fish, he wanted us to try out live-baiting. As i'm not too sure what fish is lurking around this water, i decided to used my 80LBs flurocarbon leader attached to a 5/0 circle hook and hook on a 6-7inch fat juicy Selar fish. Soon, the alarm from my Shimano Torium 30 was screaming for merely a minute and the line was slacked when i reached my rod. After retrieving back my line, the bait fish is gone and what left is my 80LBs FC line. What monster is this??? I really could not imagine what kind of fish is around us and i'm quite dishearten at that very moment as i did not bring any wire with me.

LuCong with his Queenie

Luckily, our boatman had some fishing wire with him and i had my 2nd chance. Without delay, i release my 7-inch baitfish into the water and not long, the monster came back. Once again,my Torium 30 was screaming for my help and the fish was on. I can see that my Zeus Red Scorpion PE2-4 rod was bending for its mercy and i'm sure that i can land this fish. After a few minutes fight, the fish came up. While its almost reaching to the surface, ThianSiang shouted to me that its a very big fish....i can also see it length and it was a huge Barracuda which was estimated to be 10kg above in weigh. However, while the fish was struggling, my line give way and the Barracuda managed to escape. Sadly, no chance for me to have a photo with the toothy fish.

Sleeping time when Boat anchor stuck

At out 2nd spot, our poor boatman and his decky had a hard time retrieving the boat's anchor and had spent nearly an hour figuring out how to recover In the afternoon, our bottom fishing with live prawn was not very promising. No big fish was landed but many unwelcome nibbling from the small yellow snapper. In the end, most of us has already gave up on the bottom and have switched to using Sabiki on targeting big fat juicy Selar.

Bunch of Baby Queenfish landed by Darren

Our last spot was mainly for live bait but turned out to be the climax of our trip. There was a feeding frenzy around our boat which was a common scene for me. There was a school of Skip jack Tuna feeding on the small bait fish. Seeing this, our boatman told us to use live bait to target this Tuna and soon, all of us were waiting patiently for the fish to take our bait. 10 minutes later, a familiar scream from my Shimano Torium 30 was heard and it was a fast and powerful take from the fish. The line was peeling off from my reel at an alarming speed and my Zeus rod had a good bend with the hook securely set on the fish. The fight was not long as the fish was no match for my setup and shortly, the 3.5kg Tuna aka "Thongkol" was gaffed up by the boatman and a victory for me.

A good fight with the Skip Jack Tuna

A good shot with the"Thongkol"

Nice big Tuna

Our total catch for the day

Overall, everyone is happy to land some fishes on this trip especially the big Selar on the Sabiki which gave everyone a good fight with their light tackle. As for me, i'm pretty happy to land my first Tuna but the main objective for me is to make sure that Darren and Lu Cong were able to regain their confidence in offshore fishing and for sure it was a satisfied one indeed.

My very 1st Rompin Sailfish trip - Part 1

2008-10-11T02:49:00.005+08:00

Date:8th Oct 08 till 10 Oct 08

Location: Rompin

Target: Sailfish/Billfish

Rompin has always been the most productive place for Sailfish fishing and the thrill on fighting a sailfish in the open sea is really fantastic and fun. The speed and strength of this monster can really test your endurance and one has to be physically and mentally prepared for the big fight under the hot sun. Once you got a hang of it, you will definetely love the challenge on the Sailfish and the awesome feeling of conquer this surface monster. In Rompin, there is plenty of Sailfish for all anglers to fight till you get boring.

On this trip, there are 12 anglers and we were divided into 2 groups of six. In our group, there is Michael, Winson, Cici, Sulin, Lam and me. After our American breakfast at the Seria Resort, we went back to our chalet for some freshening up, and soon we were on the way to the Jetty to board the speedboat whereby the Jetty is just 5minutes drive from our chalet.

Soon we were all speeding out from the estuary into the big sea. However, the weather is not pretty good as there's some drizzling and we can see some dark clouds hanging over our head. Luckily, after around 2 hours, the weather become better and the sea was just fine for fishing. During this time of the year, it is the peak season for sailfish fishing and we can see many fishing targeting Sailfish. Every stop we make, there will be some other fishing boats as well. After 45 minutes, we reach our first spot for bait fish and after changing a couple of spot targeting baitfish, we managed to land around 15 pieces of baitfish which is just ample for some Sailfish thrills.

Our first Sailfish spot, Winson managed to hook up a Sailfish with his PE1-3 rod pairing with a Caldia Kix4000 on a Trairao lure but sadly, due to the strength of the Sailfish and the gear used were quite under-powered, the main line snapped and the Sailfish managed to escape and not forgetting to take the lure with it as well. Soon, i managed to have a feel on the Sailfish fight. I was with my Zeus PE2-4 Red scorpion and my Torium 30 using live bait. It was a really awesome challenged and throughout the fight, the agony was clearly shown on my face. However, while the Sailfish was coming back to the boat, it made a final big jump and my hook was thrown out. I was totally speechless at that very moment. Sadly, my chance of landing it was diminshed.

Lam was the first person to land the Sailfish successfully but took him a long time to fight it. Due to his tackle was under-powered with not much drag on his Old school Penn multiplier, the fish was controlling the angler rather than the angler controlling the situation. On the last few minutes of fight, i helped Lam to land the fish onboard and both of us will happily posing with our victory catch. Both of us were actually first timer on catching Sailfish.

In total, all of us on our boat managed to land a few Sailfish on this trip. As for me, i caught the 5th and the 9th, which is the final Sailfish of the day all by myself. The last sailfish which i caught had the most fearsome and tiring fight. During my fight against the fish, everyone on board thought that it was a Blue Marlin. When it took my bait, it was dashing at a very fast pace and make a few jumping at the right of the boat and then making a split-second U-turn following by some surface dancing to the rear of the boat. Poor me have to run round the boat to make sure my line was still securely intact with the fish. At the very moment, i was like a crazy guy running and shouting around the boat as well as making sure no one will get hurt from my line. After going to the rear, the fish suddenly make a 150m sprint and i can see that my line from the Torium 30 was peeling off at an alarming speed. This mad fish definately had some steriod before taking my bait. It was a fight which no one had throughout the day. After approxiamtely 15-20 minutes later, the tamed fish was being reeled back. I had a cleared victory and this long and tough fight really makes me exhausted.

At around 6pm, we headed back to the Jetty and back to our chalet for some wash up. It was the best fishing experience i ever had and withour fail, i'll be back for more action in Rompin.

Rompin Preparation (8th Oct 08 -10th Oct 08)

2008-10-07T18:31:00.005+08:00

Have been doing many night shift for the week and today will be the last night of my shift work before my Rompin trip. My Zeus Red ScorpionPE2-4 matching my Torium 30, Majorcraft Offblow Matching up with My Daiwa Caldia 4000 and last but not least, My new customize rod pairing up with my faithful workhorse Abu Ambassadeur 6000C. Although i'll be having just a few hours of rest before heading to Rompin, it really a golden opportunity for me to have my very first Sail fishing experience. The Rompin Fishing will be a 3Day 2 night event but fishing will only be from morning till late afternoon and then back to our chalet for a good rest. First day will be solely for sails and the next day will be bottom fishing and my favorite Squid jigging. Will update my trip as soon as possible with all the biggy landed and of cos, a photo of a Sailfish and me....hohohoooo :P

Another sneak preview on my 90% completed Rod

2008-10-03T15:43:00.000+08:00

All the binding is done for this fellow and i'm just left with some epoxy coating onto the bindings and then last but not least attaching the butt cap and everything will be completed. Just in time for my offshore testing next week at Rompin :P

Aligning the guides before binding

Binding of Tip and 1st guide

My almost 3 hours job

Last check on the guides after binding completed

My Ambassadeur 6000C seating on the new rod

September trip to Ah Ngan Kelong

2008-09-30T06:36:00.004+08:00

Date: 26th September - 27th September 08 (Fri- Sat)
Kelong: Ah Ngan Sibu Kelong
Pax: 4 (Kee, Darren, Lu Cong and me)

Hmmm....Nothing much to write about on this trip as the catch was not really good for us. Mostly small fish such as Miss Wong, Rabbit fish and small Bait fish. Luring and Squid jigging was a total failure without a single bite throughout the night. Thinking that at least some squid or Parang can be landed during the night but nothing was biting for everyone in the Kelong except for the Malay Kelong helper who keep on landing some decent size bait fish. However, the folks who went offshore had pretty good results. Overall, our fishing is not up to our expectation......we'll be back for some serious fishing soon!!!

Our breakfast at Sedilli

My favorite "Bak Kut Teh" (Pork Rib Soup)

Waiting at the Jetty

Where is the boatman?

Kee with his Todak

This Todak was released unharmed

Wow...a fruitful offshore

Big Parrot landed

Another Big parrot and reef shark

Nice Parang aka Sai-to

Our rooms at Kelong

Time to pack up

The Sneak Preview of my customize Light jigging and bottom Fishing Rod

2008-09-29T00:01:00.006+08:00

Until today, i have almost completed more than half the process of my rod building journey. Although the fishing rod which i'm making is not that complicated but it takes time and lots of trial and errors to reach this stage. Through this few days of experience, i can concluded that the most important thing for rod building is to have lots of patience and building a rod is not that simple at all. The amount of time spent, the strained on my shoulder and the tiredness on my eyes has proven to me the reason why rod makers are charging a few hundred dollars for building the fishing rod. Oh boy!......it definately not an easy job.

Putting the EVA

Attaching the Fuji Reel seat

Putting the top EVA

Aligning the Fuji Guides

Although, this rod which i have built does not comes with very fanciful wrapping, 5-6 hours is still needed doing it with many trials and error in between and it was really a painful experience. However, the sense of satisfaction really made it worthwhile. Like most people has said "NO PAIN, NO GAIN" and it does applied to rod building as well.

Check on the guide Placement

Starting with the under-binding

9Fuji guides + 1 Tip

A simple Cross-Wrapping

Is it nice?

Currently, i have just completed with the under-binding of the guides. Soon, will start with all the guides binding as well as the final epoxy coating. If time permits, i will try to complete this rod for my Sail-fish testing at Rompin in early October...hohohohoooo!!!

Epoxy coating completed on the wrapping

Project Addictive - Rod Building

2008-09-19T19:28:00.003+08:00

Rod-building which is also part of the fishing hobby can be really fun and addictive. The sense of achievement when the end product completed is priceless and angler's can make use of it's skill to design and built a fishing rod for his type or style of fishing. Besides, when one had landed a fishing with his own customize fishing rod, the feeling is absolutely wonderful. Since, i have some wooden blank from my old ikea furniture, i decided to DIY a Rod wrapping tool before i started to build my own fishing rod. As i'm more on light offshore fishing, my first self-customized fishing rod will be a PE1-2 rod to match my Abu 6000C multiplier.

Below are the Rod Wrapping Tool bench which i spent nearly 8 hours working on it. Although its not as nice as those that are sold in the tackleshop, but its my own masterpiece and i like it a lot :P

~~~ Some Close-up view to share with all ~~~

Detachable Motor

Slot to assemble the motor

Adjustable Rod holding Center Portion

Front Rod holding Portion meant for longer blank

My Pre-Birthday Celebration at Sedilli

2008-09-10T16:59:00.000+08:00

Date: 06 Sept 08

Location: Sedilli

Time: 0300hr till 1800hr

Tide: 0303hr 2.3m High tide

1420hr 2.6m High tide

1613hr 1.2m Low tide

My best Birthday Present

Last two week, Joon informed that he has booked the Sedilli boat on the 6th Sept. Since i'm having my birthday on the 9th Sept, i informed my wife that i don't wanna have any birthday present for this year and all she need to do is to accompany me to this boat trip and of cos, everything and fees will be on me....really worthwhile for her. Seriously, this is a meaningful and the best present for me cos this is the very first time my wife is joining me to a offshore fishing trip.

Few weeks before this trip, i had a nightmare at Sedilli offshore where i puke throughout the trip and until today when i think of it, i still have the seasick phobia with me. As i have ample of offshore fishing experience beforehand and its impossible for me to throw out and eventually, it still happened to me on my last trip which is unbelievable. This time round with my wife accompany, i must make this trip a fruitful and a meaningful one. Hence, i went to the Pharmacy and get some seasick pills for the both of us which was meant to be very effective from my research in the fishing forum. Beside, i also brought some fresh ginger and cut it into slices to be consume on the boat.

On the 5th of Sept evening, we went into Johore using the woodland checkpoint and was caught in the infamous checkpoint jam. Fortunately, it took us around 40 minutes to clear the miserable jam. Since, we are earlier than what we have expected, my wife suggested to have a full body massage at JB to relax ourselves. After our dinner, we went back to our JB home at Setia Indah and have a early rest as we need to wake up very early on the next morning.

At 0300hr, we leave our home to meet at the Petrol station near to Tebrau Jusco to meet Joon, Chinlong, Frank and Louis. At the same time, we bought a few packs of ice as well as some drinks and bread for this trip which are meant to be our lunch on board as the malay boatman and the decky is on fasting month and no food is provided. After the puchasing the stuff, we headed off to KotaTinggi to collect our Live prawns for the trip whereby the boatman reminded us to brought it for this trip. Hmmm...looks like the boatman will be bringing us to tackle on some crimson snapper aka "Red chicken" , Grouper and of cos the Ebek.

Reaching the Sedilli Jetty at 0430hr

Our hardworking prawns

At 0430hr, we reached the Sedilli Jetty after 1.5hr of driving but was kind of disappointed when the sky started to drizzle but luckily it lasted for just 10minutes. At 0500hr, all of us were on the blue wooden boat setting off to our first fishing ground. Joon predicted that the wave for this trip will not be strong but he was wrong as our boat was rocking left and right non stop. I was kind of worried even though both me and my wife had taken the seaksick pills but in my mind, the "Merlion scene" on my last trip was growing heavily on me. As and when, i would be checking with my wife if she is alright....however, all my worries is too much as she replied me......"Dear, even though it's my 1st trip, don't worry as i wouldn't be as lousy as you"......hahahahahaaa!!!

C'mon don't shoot me when i'm sleeping

I wouldn't get any seasick

The 3 muskateers

Its time for breakfast

At around 0700hr, we reach our 1st fishing ground and all of us started to wet our lines. Most of us started bottom fishing where as Joon started doing Jigging. Soon, Louis and my wife landed their first fish of the day. It was an easy job for my wife as she was using the Shimano Aerlex8000 and Zeus Legend PE2-3 for this trip. Both of them landed the MonogrammedMonocle Bream if i'm not wrong. After 20 minutes later, i had a bite and it should be something big but after few minutes of struggling, the fish managed to escape sucessfully as my line was caught with the unjam rope. What a missed for me on my 1st bite!

Louis's first fish landed

Wifey caught a bream as well

Oh, it's not a small fish

On the 2nd fishing spot, Frank was jigging with his Sabiki for baitfish and out of sudden, a mackeral came near to his bait and snatched off his bait fish right infront of him. Joon and Chinlong who was doing the Sabiki jigging also saw the scene and was stunned at that evry instance...What a arrogant mackeral! After 5 minutes of bottom, another fishing boat came to our spot and fish just beside us. Seeing this, the boatman informed us to reel back our line and off we went to our next fishing spot.......very thoughful of our boatman indeed!

Grouper frenzy started

My Double hook-up

Crimson Snapper by Louis

Frank landed a Crimson as well

The third spot was fruitful for us as we managed to land a couple of grouper and crimson snapper. Although the coral spot is not very big but our boat managed to park quite near to it. My wife had a successful fishing luck whereby she landed around 4-5pcs of grouper on that spot. For me, i had the same luck as her as one of my biggest grouper which i had landed is almost 2kg. Most of us managed to landed a grouper except for our poor organizer, Joon. Hohohooo....He should have reached his quota for this year as he already caught a very big fish, a mermaid of cos to be exact. :P

Grouper for my wife

A good fight with my Aerlex8000

A Spanish flag snapper

Another Grouper for dinner

The biting frenzy on our 3rd spot lasted less than an hour and since then nothing was landed for all of us. Seeing this, i took out my Shimano Basstera rod matching with my Ryobi Zauber 2000 to jig for some small fish. Soon, somthing was landed and i thought that it would be a simple job to land this fish. To my surprised, my line suddenly burst out from my reel at an alarming speed and i was shocked to see my Basstera was bending to a horrifying angle. At that moment, i dared not reel in my line as the fish underneath is much bigger than i have expected. Moreover, i'm using light setup and my main leader is just 10lbs braided and its kind of impossible to play with this fish. After 5 minutes of struggling, the fish escaped at my expectation. Luckily, i'm able to recover all my lines and my Basstera is still in one pieces.......thanks god!

A good fight with light tackle

Its going home time

Our favorite Blue wooden boat

Overall catch for the day

The catch rate is not that good after our 3rd spot and nothing much was landed for everyone of us. We ceased our fishing trip at 6pm and everyone of us are happy to have some fish to bring back home and all of us enjoyed this trip. Although, our harvest is average and no big fish was landed, it was a pretty good trip for me. Both me and my wife was free from seasick throughout the trip and most importantly, i had my best birthday present ..............a priceless birthday present indeed.

Changi Fishing on 21st August 08

2008-09-10T11:19:00.005+08:00

Since i'm not working on thursday and have nothing much to do, it will be good enough to go for a few hours fishing trip at Changi. On this trip, i intended to explore the Hyundai area using my bike but it seems that going into the fishing ground which i had visited few years back was an impossible job and the road seems to be blocked by the new highway to the new Aerospace center. After trying for a few hours without avail, i decided to stop at a breakwater near the Tenah Merah Ferry terminal for some luring action. Nothing much on my catch with lures but still mange to land some Blue-lined Hind grouper and a small parrot fish.

Nice spot for fishing

Another nice scenic view

A small parrot foul hook by my Yozuri diving lure.

Greedy Blue-Lined Hind landed

My honda with my all my gears

Another Blue-Lined Hind caught by my diver

Prawning Session at Permas

2008-08-22T18:24:00.006+08:00

Prawning at Permas Jaya-Malaysia

Date: 9th August 08 (Saturday)
Time: 8pm-10pm (2hrs)
Charge: RM20 for 2hr

As i happened to be in Johore during Singapore National day just to do some painting of my house for the whole afternoon and nothing much to do in the evening, i decided to go Permas Jaya to visit a newly opened Prawning Shop where there was a promotion of RM$10 per hour for just 3 days. And of course, it will be my very first prawning trip in Malaysia as well.

Nice and clean environment for prawning

Not much people in the evening

Is this yummy enough for you?

At the end of the 2hours, i managed to land 16pcs of prawn in total. Not too bad for a first visit to a new prawning ground for me. However, it will be RM$15 per hour on my re-visit to this nice prawning place as the tempting promotion has ended.

My Sedilli Unjam Offshore trip

2008-08-22T18:21:00.000+08:00

Date: 02 August 2008
Location: Sedilli Malaysia
Time: 5am till 5pm

This Offshore trip was organized by Joon and it's a trip which i had been waiting desperately for many weeks. Due to the early timing to board the boat at a shocking 5am, i have no choice but to stay at Joon's place for the night at Johore. Unfortunately, i did not have much rest as Joon and i had too many fishing talks throughout the night and without any sleep for me, its 0230am...and its time to go for some serious stuff.

Our meetup point at the Petrol Station

3am Breakfast at a 24hr coffeeshop

5am Carpark full at Sedilli Port

At 5am when we reach the fishing Jetty, We can see that there are already many cars parking near the Jetty and many people were waiting to board their fishing boat. The main reason for the crowd was mainly due to the news of a recent big havest of Mackeral at Sedili waters and many anglers were eager to land it. However, at our arrival, no one are able to set off for the fishing due to the extremely low tidal condition and all the boats could hardly park near the Jetty. Our malay boatman informed us to wait till 6am when the water are good enough for the boat to move near the Jetty.

Arthur and Winson looking fresh at 6am

Got to use this for the trolling

At 6am, we finally board our boat and off we head to our first fishing spot which would need around 1.5hours to reach. Since there was plenty of time, Arthur tried out trolling with my Boomer lure but somehow, he decided to stop it as his gear was not suitable for Trolling.

Our 1st spot at 0730am

Our first destination was not very promising for me and due to the oily food which i have comsumed earlier and no sleep throughout the night, it become a disaster for me as I got a seasick throughout this trip. What a Merlion day for me.

A nice Parrot landed by Winson

Emperor Snapper landed by the boatman

Me... the Merlion man trying hard to fish

Edmund with his John Snapper

Serious Sabiki Jigging by Arthur

Its lunch time but not for me

Joon with his Cencaru

My precious Cencaru

Winson caught his 2nd grouper

A 2kg Todak caught by Arthur

Bottom fishing was not pretty good but Winson managed to land some good size grouper and parrots. Results on Light Jigging was poor as no one caught any fish on jigs. However, Sabiki Jigging was pretty promising as there were plenty of Selar, Tanbam and Cencaru. Everyone was happy fishing with the Sabiki setup.

I'm exhausted after being a Merlion

Part of our catch in the morning

Catches by the boatman

Finally back to shore

Its hot fishing period at Sedilli

It's my favorite Durian shopping

No fish...buy some will do

Our main objective at Sedilli was to buy these

Overall, this fishing trip was a total failure for me and lesson learnt is to have ample rest before any offshore trip and no oily stuff was to be consumed before the trip. Just Hope that my next offshore trip on 6th September will be a better one for me...('O_o')

2 hours Fishing at Punggol

2008-07-27T12:01:00.008+08:00

Date: 26th July 2008 (Saturday)
Location: Punggol 17th

Fishing at Punggol area has not been promising for me since i moved to Punggol and nothing over a kg has been caught by me. Although in the past, Punggol is a very good place for fishing, the poor catch rate in this area had ceased the interest of many hardcore anglers in doing their fishing here

Since it's a Saturday and the weather looks pretty good, i suggested to my wife to have a 2 hours fishing at Punggol seaside since its pretty near to where we lived and most importantly, to cleared the "not so fresh" bait which i have kept in the fridge for more than 2 week rather than disposing it away.

My gears for the trip

Cloudy weather at the seaside

Family outing for many anglers

My wife resting in the car

A small catfish caught and released

The result was indeed poor which i had already expected. Despite of the poor result, i still able to see many anglers driving here to do their fishing hoping for some miracle. Seriously, over-fishing has resulted poor catch at Punggol for many years and there's nothing we can do about it. Overall, its a nice cosy place for family outing...who really cares about catching big fish anyway...

This "BOY" is not really that "HOT" after all

2008-07-14T02:39:00.020+08:00

Date: 11th July -12th July 2008

Sibu Kelong has been a good fishing spot for my fishing gang and all of us were pretty satisfied with the fishing and food served during most of our trip. Since there are 4 Kelong at Sibu and we have been patronizing Ah Fatt and Ah Ngan Kelong, Richard, our fishing team leader suggested to give HB Kelong a try.

Driving to Sedilli before Sunrise

FYI, HB Kelong, was a well-known Sibu Kelong for Singaporean as the management is run by a few Singaporean and it was well-advertised in the Fishing forum as well as other websites. However, if you are making a booking from Singapore, the prices will be slightly different from what Malaysian is paying. The best way to save some money is to book your trip through a Malaysian friend.

Recently, in a Fishing forum, forumers informed that the service from HB had deteriorated and many anglers had since decided to switch their holiday to other better Kelongs. Despite of believing what was being circulating in the forum, it will be best to judge the Kelong standard by ourselves since all of us strongly believed that how badly can it be if it’s still being managed by Singaporean.

Lately, the infamous Custom jam at the checkpoint has becoming worst and most drivers were cursing and swearing for waiting almost 3 hours to clear the Singapore custom due to the tight security check. In order to avoid the jam, our meeting time was push forward to 5am early in the morning. To my surprised, we are able to clear the custom within half an hour and eventually, we have indeed hell lots of time to kill. Well, i'm damn sure Richard will be cursing me for meeting at such wee hours and moreover scarifying his precious sleeping time......So sorry for my poor judgement guys!

Our usual Breakfast spot was closed for renovation and luckily, we are able to find another coffeeshop with good Penang Style Fried noodle. After our breakfast at Johore, the 5 of us setoff to Tanjung Leman at 0630am, which we were expected to reach our destination at around 8am which is an approximately 1.5 hour early from our boarding time. The journey to Tanjung Leman was not much of slow traffic causing by the slowing moving trucks as it was still early. At roughly 0830am, we reached our familiar Ferry terminal and without any delay, i called up the Kelong in-charge telling him that we had arrived earlier and whether we are able to go up the Kelong earlier. The replied from the in-charged was way too good to be true as he said that the boat will be reaching the Jetty in a short while.

Our "Barang"

Hearing that the boat is coming to pick us up soon, all of us were eagered to board the boat and began to move our item to the security point. However, we were told that the ferry was share among the Kelong and will only set off when the customer of the other Kelong arrived which ended up waiting almost for 2 hours or so at the Jetty. Hmmm....we were too naïve!

While waiting for the boat arrival, Richard and Darren decided to have some childhood game in catching fighting spider.....and soon, 2 male spiders were caught for some battle but the fight was neither interesting nor thrilling. The 2 fighter was not in the mood to fight at all. It was indeed fun catching and playing with these insect and it really does kill our time while waiting for the ferry.

The Battle between the spiders

Kar Seng....what are you looking at???

Still have to wait for how long for the boat?

The familiar Kelong fishing gang

Eventually, at roughly 1030am we are on the HB Kelong. Our first impression was the place was clean and luckily not many people on board. Without further a do, we setup our gears and went to the kitchen area immediately to catch some rabbit fish but the fun was not for long as the rabbit fish we had caught are those “XS” size and in the end, all of us venture for other species. After catching a few Rabbit fish, Darren approached the Kelong asisstant for some ice to fill up our icebox in order to freeze our fish,bait and also our cold drinks. However, the replied from the Kelong asisstant was "NO ICE" and hence, our catch and baits had turned bad within a few hours.

Its Rabbit fish time

Rabbit on Treble hook

Darren with his Rabbit fish landed

Fishing was a disaster at the Kelong and all of us had no luck either on the fishing or squid jigging although there was an Uncle landed a few piece of green-eyed squid right in front of us.....What a day for a bunch of cats!!!

Does the lunch looks appealing to you?

C'mom..dun complaint..just eat it!

In the afternoon, a bunch of 20 overs Singaporean teens came to HB and they were just in time for the lunch. The ladies was a distraction to Richard, who can't really help to look over every once a while. The lunch was utterly not to my liking as this Kelong was known to have food below average standard....anyway...we are here for fishing rather than eating and that's the reason why we came to HB. Our fishing after lunch was not as good as before and after couple of hours of fruitless fishing, I finally gave up and went straight to my bed for some afternoon nap while Richard and Kar Seng went for some thrilling Todak action.

"Master...u know how to fish todak?"

"I'm the todak killer..BEWARE!!!"

"Look master...i caught a todak"

Kar Seng happily fishing todak

"Guys.....stop pretending fishing"

Dinner was a boring affair and after the 9:30pm supper, Richard and i retired to our bed for some good sleep as we have totally gave up fishing at this Kelong. Seriously, it was totally unbelievable as we are here to sleep rather than fishing.

Sunset at Sibu

The only Squid caught by Richard

Surecatch Squid jig is effective

We woke up the next morning and informed the helper of our intention to get out of this place at the earliest possible boat without taking our lunch; we were absolutely disappointed with the catch and the so called "Below Average"meals they served.

What a sad trip

On the way back to Singapore, we stopped over at the infamous Sedilli Bak Gu Teh stall to have a better or decent meal. In fact, Its was the best meal i had within the 24hrs of outing. After the 1.5hours of jam at the Custom, I finally reach home.

While i'm at the Kelong, i'm feeling more depressing rather than relaxing and all in my mind is "OMG, How I wish I’m at home rather than at this Kelong". Urrh..anyway,...this boy is not that "HOT" after all....."Believe it or not, it will be my very first and last visit to HB Kelong".

Philippines Cebu Luring trip

2008-07-14T00:21:00.019+08:00

Location: Philippines-Cebu
Date: 04July 08 to 07Jul 08
Airline: Cebu Pacific Air A320

Coral Reef at CEBU

This trip is not really ment to be a fishing trip but a holiday trip for me and my wife and tagging along is my fishing buddy....Joon and his "friend" or should i say his "FUTURE DESTINY". Seriously, Fishing is not in our itinerary until the very last minute when both Joon and i finally agreed to bring some lure fishing tackles along.

Really clear water and many fish

Parrots caught by locals

Hahaha..Beach boy with my gears

Joon with his Daiwa Bay Area

The weather at Cebu was really fantastic and the crystal cleared water at the beach is really a sight not to be missed. Most of the time were spend on swimming, snorkeling as well as relaxing at the beach. There are many type of fish at the coral reef swimming happily and its really amazing seeing the fish feeding on the corals.

My ammunition for this trip

Some Lures to try out

My Ryobi Zauber 2000 with Shimano Basstera

Shimano Axis 100 with Shakespear Contender

Finally, a fish caught on lure

This wrasser was caught and released unharmed

The highlight on this luring trip was that a big GT swimming towards my lure while i was retrieving it back. However, the fish was not really interested to take the lure and within seconds, the fish disappeared from my sight. It was really an unforgettable moment for me. Seriously, if the GT took my lure, it will really be a bad news for me as well. My gear is definately no match for this monster and there's no way i can fight this fish in a peace of mind considering all the coral reef in the surrounding. Come to think of it, it might be a piece of good news for me..... :)

Sea Urchin for dinner anyone?

Japanese are crazy for this delicacy

Local fishing boat

Local popular food "Lechon"

A school of Rabbit fish

Milk fish and Mullet swimming near the beach

A nice place to relax yourself

Spotted a Barracuda

Impossible to find such scenary in Singapore

Despite of the poor luring result at such a good fishing spot in Philippines, it does not spoilt any of our mood in this trip. Indeed, our main objective is not on fishing but to have an enjoyable and carefree holiday without thinking much of our daily work. Seriously, if you are feeling stressful and is totally sick of your job, the best way to de-stress yourself is to have a nice holiday...C'mon..What are you waiting for???

The 24hrs Fishing Trip

2008-06-23T09:30:00.007+08:00

Date:14-06-2008
Destination: Pahang-Pekan
Type of fishing: Jigging and Bottom fishing
No of people: 8
Set off location: Kranji MRT station
Set off Timing: 0130am on 14th Jun 08

"Yah....its no joke!!!" This trip is indeed a 24hrs trip where every minute is fully utilised. The Journey to Pekan is roughly 4.5 hours from Johore bahru and luckily we are not driving up there as after the fishing trip and after a dinner at Pekan, we got to return back to Singapore and its sure to be a hectic and tiring trip for all of us.

1am at Kranji MRT station

3am drinking my teh-halia with the folks

Early morning at Pekan Kopi-shop

Our transportation to Pekan

So many things to choose for breakfast

Its coffee time!!!

Boatman also came for a cup of coffee

How i wish i had this in Singapore

Pekan is a nice and lovely fishing village which one can really feel relaxing and certainly feeling less stressful compare to living in a fast pace city like Singapore. Frankly speaking, Singapore is a fast developing country and many Fishing Spot in Singapore has already give way for commercial buildings or places mend for tourist more than for locals to enjoy. Without much place left for doing our hobbies, we Singaporeans tends to find other places in our neighbouring countries. "Hmmm.....so sad for us"

Time to wet our line

Its jigging time...too bad no fish

Arthur with his first snapper on died prawn

My 1st catch of the day using died prawn

Ricky's rod is bending

A big parrot

At roughly 6am in the morning, we reached Pekan. After a breakfast at a local Coffeeshop, we headed off to the Boatman's house to have some freshening up, and soon the 8 of us were on the way to the Jetty to board the fishing boat. This time round, the old boatman will not accompany us but has informed has son, Ricky, to bring us out for this trip.

A good fight for Ricky

Squid jigging session

Shortly, we were all speeding out from the estuary into the big sea and it was a hell of a bumpy ride for Arthur, Trick and me. The 3 of us were sitting at the bow and the impact was really fantastic......or maybe painful to be more precise. Seriously, Pekan seems not really an ideal place for fishing as i can see that Bubus were scattered all over the sea and there are many local fishing boats around. Fishing at such high fishing pressure area doesn't seems to be promising at all. Our liveprawns which we brought over from Singapore for targetting the Ebeks had failed its mission as all prawns were found dead when we wanna use it. Really miserable...as no live prawns means no ebek for us.

Jigging was simply pathetic for most of us as nothing took out jigs after jigging for many hours. After the long jigging, most of us decided to change into bottom-fishing. Ricky uses crab as bait and managed to land a 3.5kg Parrot fish. As for us, only small groupers and small snapper was caught using died prawns.

Sean caught something big

The cobia finally landed

Sean with his 8kg cobia

The biggest catch of the trip is from Sean who uses live bait fish. A Cobia took his bait and it certainly gave Sean a good workout. Initially, all of us thought that the fish was way too easy to counter as within a shortwhile, the cobia surfaced and all of us are able to see the fish swimming near to the boat. However, the real fight begins when it suddenly made a dash into the deep and i can hear Sean's Accurate reel screaming for help with his line peeling off meters by meters into the water. After much struggle, the fish finally gave in and a clear victory for our tiring Sean.

Arthur caught a Sakai

Squid on my Yamashita

Bottom fishing was not doing fine as well. However, what really interest me is the jigging of Green-eye reef squid from the boat and it's my first time doing it. I managed to catch 3 squid whereby i have the intention to bring it home for cooking but then came to realise that it was taken away by the boatman from the Icebox without my knowing. The squid ended up as baits for the guys fishing at the stern.

The Fusiliers pair (Potato Fish)

Double combo using sabiki

Sadly, my Majorcraft offblow jigging rod and my Daiwa Caldia Kix4000 reel had no chance to perform due to the poor jigging result for the whole day. In the end, this 500 over bucks equipment was used with the Sabiki jigs to jig for small fish...and i really meant it. Hahahahaaa.....when one's really damn boring, he will likely to do all kind of funny stuff.

Icebox too small for the cobia

Say cheers!!!

Who owe the Loanshark $$$!!!

A long waiting dinner at the Pekan

The fishing came to an end at around 6pm and i really glad it finally ends. After unloading our stuff from the boat, we went to a nearby shop for a drink waiting for our driver to fetch us back to the boatmans house for a much needed shower. At around 7:30pm, we headed to a nearby chinese restaurant for our dinner. The Parrotfish which was caught in this trip was included as one of the main dishes in our menu. All of us had a great meal and its pretty cheap as well. The long drive back was really tiring. At roughly 2am, we finally reached Johore.......and thats what i meant for a 24hrs fishing trip.

My Pekan Light Jigging Preparation

2008-06-13T14:27:00.006+08:00

This Pekan trip was confirmed only by this Tuesday and was kind of rush mainly due to the recent increased of petrol pricing causing many Malaysia boatman to increase the price at the very last minute. Since this Saturday trip was solely for light jigging, luring jigs of 40-60grams is needed as the water at Pekan is not very deep and the gears for this trip does not need to be too heavy. Nevertheless, really hope that this Saturday trip will be a very promising and fruitful trip for me and my friends.

Kabura Jigs

Jigging hooks

My range of 40-60grams Jigs

The Jigs that will be used for this trip

Jigging Rod: Majorcraft Offblow Jigging game
(Model:OB-S58/4 PE1.5-3 )
Jigging Reel: Daiwa Caldia Kix 4000

A Prawn Fishing session for my friend

2008-06-13T13:41:00.009+08:00

Met Joon roughly at 6:30pm at his work place and then drive to Pasir Ris. After visiting a tackle shop at Pasir Ris Paypond, we headed to a nearby food court for our dinner. Since my job for the night is to teach my friend how to do prawning, we went straight to a nearby Prawning Paypond at Farmway1. Surprisingly, Not many people were doing prawning when we reach our destination but this doesn't means good news for us.......saw some dead prawn floating in the pond and it could means that the water condition is not that good and also, the bite rate will be affected. Anyway, we just settled for a 3hrs session with one Prawn rod and hoping for the best.

The Paypond counter

The receipt for Prawning

Bait for the Prawns...chicken liver

Waiting for the target

Busy man

Dead Prawn Floating

The 3 hours catch

Location: Pasir Ris Farmway 1 Fishing and Prawning pond
Time: 8:25pm till 11:25pm (3hrs)
Price: $30 for 3 hrs
Catch Rate: Simply pathetic
Conclusion: Many dead prawns floating and the kind of bite rate...really speechless.
Will most likely trying out other prawning areas.
Main Objective: Luring my kaki into prawning...Fully Accomplished.
Hohohooo...My friend decided to get a prawning rod :P

Fruitless Luring trip at Bedok Reservoir

2008-06-10T22:32:00.013+08:00

Date: 10th June 2008
Location: Bedok Reservoir (Legal fishing site)
Catch: A big Dinosaur Egg

After sleeping from 10am till 3pm after a tiring night shift, really need some motivation. As i could't bring myself to sleep , decided to have a fishing session somewhere nearby. Since i have not done freshwater luring for quite sometime, luring at Bedok Reservoir will be a good choice.

As i'm quite new to this reservoir and i have never done any luring/fishing in this area, it will be a good try out for me. Usually, i would drive to fish but recently, i just bought a class 2A motorcycle meant for my fishing trip, it will be a good travelling distance to warm up my bike since i have not use it for around 3 days.

I arrived at Bedok Reservoir road roughly around 4pm and had spent some time finding a sheltered parking lot near the SS supermarket. With my gears, i started searching for the fishing jetty for nearly 15 minutes for the legal fishing site. Finally, then i came to know that the fishing spot is quite far away from where i am..... Seriously, i almost decided to give up searching for the Jetty. Immediately, i ride my way to my destination to prevent wasting my golden opportunity on catching my prize fish. Hehehe....no matter what, i got to wet my line.

After reaching the Jetty, i can see some Uncle doing their fishing at the Jetty as well. They seems to be using live baits which is illegal and its a no..no as it will pollute the water in this area (Drinking water). Only artificial baits are allowed to be used in our local reservior. Got to be more considerate for other people as well as for yourself.

At the Jetty, I can see a couple of juvenile Peacock Bass swimming around and the bigger ones are roughly around palm size. Moreover, i can see some surface action at the wafer but every cast is a disappointment. It seems that no fish were interested with my lures. For this Fishing session, i used my 2 River2Sea lures (Humbug)and a Cultiva pencil to try out this spot. Sadly, No bite at all!!! Hence, no chance for me to post my catch today.

Nevertheless, i will once again give it another try luring at this nice fishing spot or maybe gather my luring kakis to fish here. Believe me,I'll be back soon.....:)

The Blue Angel at Bottletree Park

2008-06-06T13:22:00.005+08:00

Its been many weeks since my last Fishing trip at Tanjung Pinang trip and the "Fishing Urge" really kills!!!

In order to stop it...or maybe cure it for the meantime, i need to do something....and the best temporary solution is to do prawning :P

Date: 6th June 2008

Time10:00 -11:00

Weather: A bit hot but still not bad

Gear:7ft prawn rod

Total catch:26pcs

My new Penn Senator Baja Special -113HN

2008-05-15T11:14:00.007+08:00

Penn has been a pioneer in manufacturing fishing equipments and many people would definately know the reliability and toughness of the products from this company. Previously, Penn products are mainly made in USA but recently, some of their lower range gears started to be build in China and the quality seems to have deteriorate. Luckily, their main stream products are still manufacture in USA which is really a grade better than those china made ones.

Senator series has been around for many years and till now, there is not much model change on this series except for this narrow-bodied 4/0 113HN which was introduced in year 2005-2006. This senator is powerful with strong Versa-drag and one can feel its solidness once you handle it. No doubt, many anglers from all over the world has been using Penn to land big Marlin, enormous Sharks and many big fish over 100kgs and above. Despite of it, due to many new fishing equipment manufacturer coming out with better products in the market, the popularity of Penn has dropped since then. As for me, i still have lots of confidence with Penn USA products such as the Spinfisher SSM series, Penn Senator and last but not least their Penn International Series.

113HN Senator Baja Special, the choice for my bottom fishing whereby i'll be matching it with a Calstar 40-100lbs self-customize rod.

Model : Penn Senator Baja Special 113HN
Size: 4/0
Line capacity(yds/lb) : 375/30
Gear Ratio: 4.25:1

The best Tanjong Pinang Offshore Fishing

2008-04-27T15:23:00.010+08:00

The 3D2N battle in TP

Date: 22nd April 08 - 24th April 08
Total Anglers:10 pax
Level of confidence: 101%

On the 22nd April 08, 10 anglers went on an offshore trip to Tanjung Pinang (TP). Early in the morning, at 8am, all of us met at TMFT to check-in our Fishing equipments and baggage. At around 0930am after having breakfast, we took the Wavemaster ferry from TMFT out to TP and reached the TP jetty at roughly 1030am. Seriously, every one of us was extremely excited and most importantly ready to fight the TP big monster from the deep.

Our battle gears

At 11am, we took our early lunch at a well-known Chinese restaurant with pretty decent Chinese dishes served to us especially the cuttlefish ball and the Fried Oyster which really suit my taste. After our mouth-watering lunch, we took the transport to our Jetty which is roughly 45minutes away from the main TP jetty. Along the way, we stop by to buy some groceries from the local supermarket.

Its lunch Time

The Chinese Restaurant at TP

At around 2pm, we boarded onto our big and comfortable fishing boat which we will be staying for the 3 days 2 nights. Onboard the boat, there is a Captain, 4 deckie and a cook following us throughout the trip. Before my TP trip, I have read up many TP catch report whereby many anglers had successfully landed biggy and therefore most of the anglers would bring their slightly heavier tackles to target the big ones. In our trip, there is a couple of expensive and medium-heavy equipment brought by our fellow anglers. There were Shimano Tiagra, Accurate 665H and 270, Banax Kaigen Electric reel, Shimano Kaikon 3000T which are mend for and very much adequate to fight any big ones above 10 over kgs in weight. As for my arsenal, I brought along my ShimanoTorium30 matching with my PE6 Shimano Jigwrex which I used for challenging the bottom creatures, Shimano Aerlex8000 with my PE2-4 Zeus Legend Spinning rod for light bottom or jigging and lastly for the light jigging setup, a Daiwa Caldia Kix 4000 with my newly bought Majorcraft Offblow PE1.5-3 jigging rod.

My Arsenal for TP

Our first spot was approximately few hours away from our starting point and we have ample of time for us to setup our gears. Along the journey, Kelvin Lee and O’hara setup their trolling gears hoping to land some surface feeding monster. One of the Malay boat helper, Gus, who can speak pretty good Teochew dialect, helped everyone to tie the bimini knot with our braided lines onto a shock leader and I mean he can really tie the knot pretty fast and skillfully good. As I only believe in FG knot, I usually prefer my setup to have such knot on my lines. Seriously for bottom fishing, 50lbs and above braided is a must and for shock leader, 80lbs FC or Mono is highly recommended for TP water.

The injured trolling Lure

At around 6pm, Kelvin Lee’s Trolling setup suddenly screamed at us for helped. All of us can see the speed of the line coming out or should I put it bursting out from his Accurate 665H at an alarming high speed. Something big and powerful should have taken his Rapala X-rap and there is no way for him to be in control even with his full drag on. It was quite impossible for any Accurate reel with full drag turning on and yet unable to stop the big bugger. After checking,then he found out that his Drag was not setup properly and that is not the worst as the scariest moment for Kelvin is that all his braided is almost used up and any second, he could lost all his Power-Pro lines to this monster. Fortunately for him, at that very last moment, the Rapala came out of the monster mouth and he was able to recover back his few hundred meters of line. While inspecting the lure, we can clearly see the tooth-marking on the middle part of the Rapala. What a moment for Kelvin Lee on his encounter with the big monster indeed.

After our luscious dinner, we reached our first fishing spot. Kelvin Lee and Sulin immediately got a respond on their line and a 3.5kg Crimson Snapper (Ang Kuey) and a 6kg Sweetlip (Kaci) was landed respectively after a good rod bending action for the 2 of them. Not too long, Kelvin Ng also landed a 5kg Crimson Snapper on his electric Banax reel. Sean who is using his Accurate 270 landed a 6.5kg deep-sea Catfish. O’hara the man who brightens up our trip with joy and laughter landed an almost 7kg Crimson Snapper with his handline. In fact, I can clearly see O’hara had a very tough time bringing back his line from the 60m bottom as well as fighting up the big snapper. Desley also caught a 3kg Tengirri with his bottom setup and Sulin caught many big ones at her particular spot with another 6kg grouper and a couple of big catfish within an hour with her Shimano Kaikon setup. I being the unfortunate one did not even have a chance in contributing bring up any fish at that point of time. No matter how the Deckie and the Captain helped with my tying of leader, changing fresh bait or even trying jigging my line to attract the fish attention seems useless. Everyone was laughing at me, and what can I do? In the end, the Captain went into the Kitchen and brought out a small pail of water. I was a bit puzzled of what he was doing and finally realized that the water was used to sprinkle and washed away the “Bad luck” on my setup.

Kelvin Lee with his Crimson Snapper

Sunlin with her big Sweetlip

Wanna lick Me?

Kevin O'hara with his big Crimson

Kelvin Ng with a Crimson Snapper

Who let the cats out of the bag

Michael with his Greasy

Surprisingly, after 5 minutes, I managed to have my very first fight of the day. It was a tough fight and my PE6 Jigwrex was bending like an alphabet “C” with the line rushing out from my Torium. There is no way for me or the fish to admit defeat at this moment. After 10minutes of fight, the fish finally surrendered to me and a big Stingray was landed. Hooray…What a victory for me! Throughout the night, many monster sized catfish and reef shark was landed. A couple of big Kaci was landed as well and for me, I managed to fight 4 pieces of big Crimson Snapper with my Shimano bottom setup. All of us had a pretty good result for our first night fishing.

The bending moment of my Jigwrex

My heavy Stingray

Desley with a Tengirri

Linus with a Reef Shark

Fighting with joy

After a tiring fight

The Second day result is not as good as the first as the sea tends to be slightly choppy than before. Although the quantity is not as much compared to our previous day, the quality of the fish remains. Fishes of sizes between 2kg-4kg was landed such as Grouper, Bream Snapper and Crimson Snapper and etc. At one of the promising Crimson Snapper spot, I missed a big one as fighting halfway through, the fish escaped. However, not long after, I managed to land a 7.5kg big papa Crimson snapper which was the biggest snapper of our catch. During the night while we are fishing, we had a surprise by a group of Dolphin which came near to our boat. All of us were delighted to see dolphin swimming underneath our boat and it was a delighting moment. O’hara was in action during the night when his Shimano Tiagra setup caught something which is very big whereby he was not able to bring up the fish after fighting for almost 20 minutes. His setup was passed to Michael, Gus and to Kelvin Ng but ended up with a “PIAK” sound when Kelvin took over the rod for less than a minute. The line had burst and everyone’s urge in seeing this monster has shattered at that very moment. Shocked and disappointment can be seen on O’hara faced. Unfortunately, there was no other big action from anyone of us after losing the big unknown monster.

My Bream Snapper

Daphne with a Japanese Red

Desley with a big Crimson Snapper

Me landed a big Crimson Snapper

Tired O'hara with biggy

The red Carpet

Partial Catch of our trip

The fishy group photo

Smile....Hello Kitty!!!

The Clean up session

Hello Kitty fillet anyone?

The Shark Tales

The "Ritz Calton" Chef with splendid Culinary

The Tag Team Champion

The TP fishing gang

Overall, we have very good company with jokes and laughter for the whole trip. Many big fishes were landed as well as many big ones were lost during the fight. All thanks to our team leader, Michael, who had organized this splendid offshore fishing trip for us. Without him, this trip will not be so successful. Nevertheless, I’ll be looking forward to fish with the same gang and for my next TP trip; I will definitely be more prepared to face my opponent.

The Victory

Relaxing Sashimi trip at Sibu Ah Ngan Kelong

2008-04-18T15:39:00.012+08:00

This is a very special Kelong Trip for me in year 2008 as my wife, Shierly agreed to join me for a 2 day 1 night Kelong getaway. The main reason why Shierly would join me is because her good friend, Guan Choon would like to try out fishing and also the other reason is to have a so called "Make new friend session" ; not for me or my wife but for my friend, Joon.

Luckily, the Jam at the Singapore checkpoint was still ok and I managed to enter Johore at 8am sharp. Joon’s friend, Vincent also joins us to the Kelong. Along the way to the Tanjung Leman Jetty, we had our “Pork Rib Soup” breakfast. The stall was situated along the road to Mersing and it has been around for quite sometime. Seriously, after the meal, I had concluded that this is one of the best "Pork Rib Soups" I have ever tasted and the soup was really damn good! So, for meat lover, next time when going up Sibu Kelong, this is the breakfast stall not to be missed and I mean it.

Vincent driving his "MYFISHING.ORG" Wira

At 1010am, we reached Tanjung Leman Jetty. There was a crowd at the Jetty as many people are waiting for the boat and I was a bit worried seeing so many people around. Fishing at Kelong is the best with minimum crowd and the after so many trip to Kelong, weekdays fishing are the best. Fortunately, majority of the crowd were going up to Ah Fatt Kelong.

Happily going to Kelong

Loading the stuff onto the boat

The sea was calm and the weather was really good. I managed to chat with Ah kok, the manager of the Kelong who is also on the boat with us. I was told that although water is very green chances of getting big "Green eyed cuttlefish" is pretty low and there are many jellyfish on the surface due to the water is pretty cold. On the Kelong, there are already about 20-30 people and I can see that most of the people are doing fishing and the potential spot were all taken up. Hence, I don’t really pin high hope in catching anything but bait fish. True enough, many bait fish was caught using Sabiki day and night. Not too long after our lunch, the weather turned bad and it started to rain for a couple of hours.

So many people doing fishing

Setting up our fishing gears

My live baitfish

Going to rain soon

During the night time, I managed to catch 5 pieces of small green eyed cuttlefish and Joon managed to get 2 pieces as well. Vincent, Guan Choon and my wife had no luck with the cuttlefish but all of us had a good feast on our catch. After cleaning and washing the cuttlefish, Joon used his razor sharp cutting knife to cut the cuttlefish into slices. Dipping our fresh Sashimi with Wasabi and Soya sauce was really fantastic. It was the best supper I had in Ah Ngan Kelong after so many trips.

Cuttlefish caught during the night

Quite small size

Preparation for Sashimi

Peeling off the cuttelfish skin

2 big plate of Sashimi

Cuttlefish caught by another uncle using it as bait

Cheers before our Sashimi feast

Wasabi and Soya Sauce for our Sashimi

At 12 midnight, I was too tired to fish anymore after squid jigging for the whole night and eventually I find my way to my dreamland till 7am in the morning. Which i don't usually practise during my Kelong trip.

Morning Sunrise

After having my morning breakfast with my wife, I continued targeting bait fish for a while but decided to stop as all my weight which I had bought was used up.

Chit-chatting and Prepare to go back home

Anyway, for this trip, although fishing result is the worst, it is not really that important to me at all. I’m very contended to have my wife accompany me on this trip and after all, i'm here to relax myself and also to accomplish my mission.

My newly acquired Daiwa Saltiga Z-40

2008-04-11T19:02:00.009+08:00

Daiwa Saltiga Z-40

Specification:
Gear Ratio 5.4:1
#Ball Bearings 7+1
Weight (g) 680
Spool Capacity PE4(40lb)-500mPE5(50lb)-400mPE6(40lb)-300m

After countless of sleepless night, finally had decided to go purchase it. The reason why i have chosen this reel instead of the Shimano Ocea Jigger 4000P is because of the size and the design of the reel. Many boat fishing anglers had already proven that this reel can catch monster. For me, possessing it is indeed an honor and 101% satisfaction. Will be matching my new Saltiga Z-40 with my Shimano Jigwrex PE6 rod and with such powerful weapon, it will be fun and adequate to target any monster for my deep sea fishing.

St.John Island on 22nd March 2008

2008-04-11T18:05:00.009+08:00

Has been many years back i had last visited St.John Island with my Dad. To be exact, should be 10years ago and now, St.John Island is pretty much different comparing with the images in my memory. Met up Arthur and his family in the morning to catch the 1st boat to the Island at 9am. If you are driving, parking fees is another factor to consider as the parking inside the Ferry Terminal is really expensive and the best way is to park outside the Public Carpark which is the normal Singapore parking rates by per hour. Adult Ferry Ticket to either Kusu Island or St.John Island is SGD$15. Along the way to the Island, there are many potential fishing ground to be explored especially for anglers who does luring and surfing. Its an Island not to be missed and the beautiful scenary is worth to visit as well as having some photo shooting session.

The St.John Island

The Jetty

The Island Map

KFC anyone?

The remaining locals on the Island

Monitor Lizard having Sun-Bathing

Nice fishing Spot

Arthur busy with his Deep-Diver lure

Hook up Arthur's lost Diver Lure

Nice Water to Fish

The Breakwater with Fast and strong current

The focus Luring Angler

Me Fishing at a shady spot

Mangrove Area

The Sampan

A bunch of Night Fishing Anglers

Nothing was caught with our lures in this trip but Arthur who is pretty lucky with lures did managed to see something big chasing after his lure. Both of us had a good time luring under the hot sun and it was really an enjoyable trip for us. Will try fishing again on this Island maybe with live prawns which will be more promising.