Report & CR - PRPP 1/3/08

Our first stop was actually the pond at Pasir Ris Farmway Way 3. We reached there around 1:30pm and stayed for 30 over minutes. There were only 5 rods and when we checked out people's catches, we saw only 4 Taiwan Ngors. A string of 3 big ones belonged to one angler and a huge one belonging to another. The rest either had no catch yet or had kept their fish somewhere else? During our entire stay we saw only 2 Pek Tiams landed, but there were 2 instances when lines were burst when the fish dashed under the keepnet stilts. Thus, we decided to take a look at PRPP.

We were surprised to see the fish delivery truck there again! As mentioned in our last PRPP CR, we saw fish being delivered last Monday. Could it be a change in schedule or the owner is getting the truck to come more frequently?


Instead of driving in all the way, the truck parked at the round-about directly in front of a staircase leading to the main pond.





After the fish was weighed, they ran down the staircase and poured the fish into a rectangular plastic trolley with wheels. When the trolley was full, they then pushed it towards the pond.


A trolley full of Taiwan Ngors.







There were about 60 over pieces of fish in that trolley and we saw that 20 were released straight into the pond!


Taiwan Ngors being released into the pond, were there any other kinds earlier?






As we had arrived at 2:30pm, we were unable to tell if other kinds of fish were brought in earlier. Well, I must say we didn't ask anyone lah...
There was only 1 angler there all this while, a young man, but we saw no action. At 2:50pm, one of the uncles working for the pond caught a Taiwan Ngor to demonstrate to a waiting angler that it was time to start fishing. True to his words, the sole angler at the pond landed one immediately after him.

Surprised that the fish woke up so fast this time, we quickly got our gear from the car. When we came back, the uncle told us that the young man had landed 2 more while we were gone! ACKs!
Confident now that the fish had started biting, we started fishing...


We decided to go for it at 3:10PM!










We landed 1 Taiwan Ngor within 5 minutes and a total of 3 fish within 30 minutes. We thought this should be a day even more fruitful than the last. Well, we were right and wrong at the same time. Between 3:45pm to 5:45pm, there was a total of 4 bites but we landed only 1! Sigh.... The first miss, we believe, was due to the hook tearing out. The fish, an ACK, had tried to dash into the keepnets and we had to lock drag and pull it out. This may have torn the lips of the fish as it slipped off the hook just when we were happily going to pull it up.

The second was entirely our fault. We were so busy cutting up bait that we did not notice the float disappearing. By the time we realised the rod was shaking, the Taiwan Ngor had swallowed another angler's bait and he was already fighting the fish...
The third was a simple case of bad timing when striking. No fish too.

Finally, at 6pm, we caught our fifth and final fish - a Kim Chew! Our total catch weighed 6.5kg. The bigger ones should be around 1.2kg each with the Kim Chew around 500g.


Our catch made us wonder if the fish released was like last Monday - 20 Taiwan Ngors, 20 Ang Chor Kees and 10 Kim Chews...







During our time spent there, we witnessed the pond staff pulling out 2 dead fish. We also saw a total of 6 dead fish in the 2 dustbins nearest to us. Our guess is that the pond operator knew the fish was falling sick and not biting, thus he arranged for more frequent deliveries so that anglers could catch those that were healthy and would not go home empty-handed. If this is true, then I would definately support this pond more often!