The MFF Blog

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

CR - S'pore shore 071208

After checking the tidal table, we found this weekend to be suitable for some chermin hunting so decided to do some breakwater fishing which we've not done for quite some time.
Reached the spot at around 5am and fished till 10am.

300g of live prawns - $10
Lack of sleep due to waking up early - 4 hrs

My chermin catch - Priceless...










Yeah!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

CR - PREP 23/11/08

Hands were itchy as we had not fished since the kelong trip, so bought some dead prawns and went to recce the ponds in Pasir Ris.

First stop - Farmway 3. There were about 5 rods but none of the anglers were particularly hardworking as the sun was mercilessly beating down. After half an hour of observation, we saw only 1 fish landed but 5 sickly fish netted!

So we proceded to second stop - Farmway 1. Water looked terrible... The pond was drained when we were last there 2 weeks ago and apparently it had to be done again. The workers were busy pulling the fish out from the keepnets into a box. Haiz...

We then went to our 3rd and final stop - PRPP. To our surprise, no one was fishing at the pro pond, but there were about 10 rods over at what was used to be the event/big fish pond. Within 10 mins of arriving, we saw 3 fish landed, including a big 3 to 4 kg kbl that was released back! Hmmm... not bad... Also, the operator was loading the keepnets and released about 10 fish into the pond. As the board stated that the next fish release timing was 4pm, we decided to have a late lunch before starting to fish.

Came back about 3:30pm. Again, about 4 fish were landed within 10 minutes so we did not hesitate any more. The operator was extremely efficient and once we were ready, he appeared to collect $$$. Only then did we know that the charges were $60 for 3 hrs and $100 for 6hrs. The man explained that they released more fish and that there were big fish up to 10 kg in the pond. However, he clarified that any fish above 2 plus kg had to be released back.

So we paid up. As we started fishing, it started drizzling. We managed to lose 2 fish due to bad hook-ups and land a kbl before the skies opened fire on us. Our initial thought that this could just be a passing shower soon was proved wrong as it continued to rain, and so heavily, that water poured into the pond from the slopes.

We almost lost our 3rd fish when the hook slipped out from its mouth right at the edge of the pond. WT immediately knelt down, plunged one hand into the water and tried to grab the fish. I was truly amazed when he stood up with the unlucky fish in his hand! In fact, the anglers at the adjacent table cheered for us. When they left, they actually gave us 2 fish. I think they were impressed by WT's skill in retrieving fish bare-handed... lol...

As the whole pond slowly turned brown from the soil in the run-off, we despaired of catching more fish. Surprisingly, the bites continued and we went on to catch 2 more in the pouring rain! The thunderstorm finally abated at about 6:30pm. We caught 1 more and lost another before deciding to pack up.

After a last cast, I reeled the line back only to discover that there was a bad wind-knot into middle of the main-line. WT gallantly offered to help me to unravel the mess and while he was doing it, the float which had remained in the water only 30cm from the edge went down! Thus, hand-line style, he 'fought' and landed a chia-chor - our final fish that did not make it into the photo as everything was already packed up...













In conclusion, we felt that the $60 charged was still reasonable as the bite rate was pretty good considering the weather and water conditions. We would definitely go back on a fair weather day to see if we can do even better!

Friday, October 31, 2008

CR - HB Kelong 23 -25 Oct

As usual decided to go kelong relax a bit, but this time we went earlier before the NE monsoon because during year end, we can't go fishing anymore.

Though we were not going during the good times, we still enjoyed the trip Smile

On the first night, fought a sea turtle for 30 minutes and decided to burst line. Later on, got a strong take, confirmed not sea turtle and fought for only about 5 minutes, the crimp for the steel wire leader slipped. Next time not going to use crimp anymore. Tying is still more reliable.


On the 2nd day, managed to catch the biggest wolf herring aka saitoh I've ever caught weighing 1.7kg.












During the night, fought another suspected sea turtle again!! Didn't get to see it because it stripped my size 2500 reel. No chance of stopping that turtle. After that when I was going to take a break and sleep, managed to catch this ugly monster. Also a record breaking one for me!












Want to know how we cooked the bakdao? Do look out for new recipes which will be uploaded soon...

Monday, October 13, 2008

CR - Sentosa 1/10/08

After checking the timing of the tides, I realised that today's high tide fits my schedule to do some fishing. So decided to pack my fishing bag and go for a quickie.

After reaching the spot at around 10am, I noticed that the tide behaviour at the place is slightly earlier than what was written on NEA website. But nevertheless, we still took our own sweet time to setup our gear. After a few cast we got a wrasse, not bad for a start. Shortly after, we got another wrasse and both the parrot fish followed very closely behind. The last fish of the day was the grouper which made my day.


So as planned, we left at about 2pm, looking forward to our dinner of a freshly caught grouper!

CR - Pengibu 15 to 18 Oct 08

After last year's enjoyable trip, we decided to go Pengibu again. During the first day, we travelled for about 8 hours before reaching our first spot. It was not as productive as last year where we got about 30+ ang kueys during our first few spots at night. This time round we caught about less than 10 good sizable fish on the first night. Sad










During the 2nd day, we've reached our jigging spot. I have been waiting anxiously for this already to try out my new jigging gear and jigs. Very soon, a bulat was caught on jig with Ima jig. I changed mine to the exact same colour and this was what I caught. Not too bad for warming up.










This jigging spot was really productive, during that period of time almost everyone jigging caught something. Chermin was one of varieties caught and they are nice to fight as well.













We did not
wait long before we hit tengirri - double hook up! There was a hit on a GT at the spot and it put up a hell of a fight, but since the camera man was also busy jigging at this hot spot, no photo was taken... d'oh!










When everyone was tired and the frenzy died down, one hardworking angler was rewarded with the last fish at the spot. From the way the fish was held, can tell that the arms must be aching already.










On the 2nd night, we reached this spot that w
as supposedly able to produce some monsters. So some of us were using big slices of tuna meat and preparing heavy bottom gear for battle. As we waited for the bottom action, some of us started to use lumo jigs to try jigging for Big-eyed Jacks as quite a number of them was caught at night last time. I didn't bring any lumo jigs along, so I decided to use a dark purple jig for sihouette and try jigging under the moonlight since it was full moon that night.

It was like only about the 4th or 5th cast before I caught this bugger at the front of the boat, I was shouting for help as everyone was at the back and luckily the deckies came to the rescue. This was the best fight I encountered for this trip. And of course, there's more exciting stuff yet to come.














Back to the big slices of tuna. The whole bonito was cut into about 5 pieces and if I didn't remember wrongly, 1 was chewed into pieces, 3 was bitten off together with the hooks but the 5th managed to produce something. The sea bed was about 80m deep. After the initial burst, the angler managed to pull the fish up to about 60m and it decided to stayed there. After don't know how much donkey minutes had passed, he managed to get it to 59m. Too pathetic and too boring and so another 2 anglers took turns to take over. They managed to change the depth but to about 64m after 5-10 minutes. What a waste of my memory card as I was filming the whole process.

Anyway to cut things short, it was the strong deckie who came to pull the monster from 60m straight up to 20m. Then he passed the rod back to the tired owner who continued the fight and ended up with a backache. It was tough and messy but everything was caught on video (which is posted at the gallery section of www.myfishingfrenzy.com). So this was the monster posting with the guy who caught it and who somemore needed the help of others to carry his catch.













The total catch was not as good as last time but the jigging was much better. Maybe there are more anglers doing jigging this trip. Anyway the weather was quite windy but still generally acceptable. One angler was quite badly hit by sea sickness and missed out a lot of action and good food, but gained a lot of sleep.
No matter what, we will probably be back again next year!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

CR - Changi Board Walk 24-May-08

It's been a while since we went fishing. Were saving up money for a big trip next year, so we didn't go to any paid ponds for 2 months already. Hands got damn itchy during that weekend and so decided to fish at Changi Board Walk, which is of course free.

We checked the tide tables, bought 300 grams of dead prawns from the market and set off to Changi. We took our time to set up our gear and spent some time retriving our rod which fell into the sea. Luckily it was floating and some one helped us to hook it up.

My family joined us shortly after we set up all our 4 rods bringing with them curry chicken wings.

With just a few cast, my brother-in-law who is new to fishing caught a kim chew! We were very surprised to see this at Changi, must be some escapee from the farms I suppose.



We caught a few other small assorted fish while waiting for some big fish to take our live fish bait on the bigger setup. Then this bugger showed up.

A stingray of this size looks tasty, I suppose, as the meat should be tender. But I'll prefer to eat that in a hawker center and released this baby to fight another day.







At the end of the day, every family member caught at least one fish each, with my brother-in-law catching two. Since his dinner was already secured with the kim chew, we decided to release that damn ugly fish, hopefully not to fight another day.

Time taken - 4 hours
Cost - $3 worth of prawns
Reward - Priceless

Friday, April 25, 2008

CR - 18/4 to 20/4 SCS

Its been weeks since we visited a pond as we had to save up for this boat trip! We spent an enjoyable 48 hours with a group of very friendly people and came back with quite a good catch. The sea was calm throughout and other than a couple of sudden showers, it was good fishing
weather...


My first good catch of the trip was this grouper that had faint orange spots, the very first was actually a shark.







A lucky catch for me, as no one else managed to catch them, but unlucky for the fish... Only when landing did I realise that this batang was foul-hooked!






Another orange-spotted grouper. We caught four of them in total, all weighing between 1 to 2 kg.









During the first night the barracudas were out with a vengence. We had lines snapping one after another and numerous barracudas were landed by those whose lines were not severed by those sharp teeth. Just for fun I decided to try bully some barras by jigging for them and caught 2! But due to insufficent training, my arms started aching soon I went back to bottom and being bullied by the fish. Haiz...


A lengchiam was landed on his rod by me, because he was in the toilet when the fish bit!







A trigger fish - there altogether 3 landed by everyone.







At one point on the second night, we were anchored at a spot that was supposed to yield ACKs. They are usually active when currents are strong and the the current there forced us to use weights of size 30 and above. When the fish bites, the rod only registers a very slight shake at the tip and you have to keep your eye on the rod!





My last catch for the trip, another grouper. Yumyum...







Total catch by everyone. Groupers took the centre stage this time, with an diverse assortment of other fish. A few hard-working anglers managed to catch 2 baskets full of small fish for live bait. Glad there was still quite a lot left for the humans!




The food was fabulous, the company fantastic and our catch marvelous - what more can I say?

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Prawning and Fishing CR at Pasir Ris FW3

We went for prawning and fishing on 30 Mar. The prawns caught and the unused prawns from fishing were bbq on the spot.

These prawns taste much better when bbq instead of bringing home to cook.







Nothing was gone to waste, but a strong stomach is required to taste the essence of the prawns.







As for fishing, this is our total catch. A 3+kg Taiwan Ngor and 2 1+kg MJ. Generally the fish released are bigger now but the number is reduced.






This sure is one good way to enjoy your weekend. Can cure the itch for fishing and at the end of the day, can have tasty bbq prawns for supper and their heads for desert.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

CR - 15/3/08 Pasir Ris FW3

We saw 4 fish being caught in 5 minutes after we arrived at the FW3 pond and without a word, went to the car to get our gear. As the weather was good and there was only 3 anglers there, we knew it would be a good day.


Great weather after a few days of prolonged raining!







A friend who was following us on our weekly recce also eagerly decided to start. So we paid for two rods and quickly starting fishing.


The uncle pasted the stickers on the table instead of our rods as there were so few anglers it was easy to keep track of us.





We used our usual method of spinning with prawn meat, casting from the direct opposite of the prawn pond. Both of our rods caught 1 fish each pretty soon, but we noticed people catching much more from the sides of the keepnet. Unable to bear watching other people catch more than us, we also moved over there.

It proved to be a good decision, as we brought up almost 1 fish per rod every 10 minutes. Within 1 hour, our 2 rods caught a total of 10 fish! We were very excited and thought it was going to be a day of great harvest, but...

In the second hour, action had slowed down tremendously. We only managed to add 5 more to the total count. Sad to say.... In the last hour, all action slowed to a standstill. We caught no more!


The total catch of 15 fish. Total weight 12.5kg.






Everybody at the pond was catching either Taiwan Ngors or Chia Chors, so we were rather surprised when we landed the sole Kim Chew. We were quite satisfied with the catch, although someone told us that there was an angler who had came much earlier and managed to catch 20! We could only hope that such an amazing total catch would happen to us someday as well...

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

CR - Bishan Prawning 03/03/08

Prawn ponds that we knew about include Pasir Ris Park, Pasir Ris FW 1, Pasir Ris FW 3, Yishun Bottle Tree, Farmart and Taman Jurong, but we didn't know there's one at Bishan till recently. Thus we decided to give it a try.


603 Sin Ming Avenue. Beside the Nature Park Golf Driving Range.







We arrived at 1pm and after looking left, right, up, down and around, started to try decimate the population of the prawn pond. The main area is made up of 2 medium-sized ponds back to back with a wide corridor in between. If you walk inwards towards the toilets, there are a couple of smaller ponds there which you can go to as well.


$30 for 3 hours.







The bait provided is also chicken heart, but interestingly, they have cut it up for you and you get one of those white disposable plastic saucers half-filled with bits of chicken heart. Amazingly, there are many small fish swimming around in the ponds. Once in a while you will get a false alarm when they decide to investigate and nibble your bait!

Well, maybe it's because we're not used to the place, plus the fact that it started raining pretty heavily at about 2pm (excuses, excuses... ;p ), we caught less than what we usually can get.


A 'not so grand' total of 26 prawns!







Moreover, our prawns were all quite small with only a few medium ones, making the total weight seem less than usual. To be fair, we did see other anglers there who definately caught more than us and bigger ones too. Maybe they are loyal customers? At the end of the day, we think we will go back the the prawn pond that we frequent, especially when there are prizes to be won... :)

Sunday, March 2, 2008

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!

Monday, February 25, 2008

CR - FW1 Prawning 23/02/08

I have 3 friends who have never done prawning before in their lives, not to mention fishing. After hearing lots about both from me, they asked me to bring them to try prawning and I agreed. So there we were at 5pm on Saturday at the Pasir Ris Farmway 1 prawn pond. I chose this pond as I hoped that they would be luck enough to catch a couple of tagged prawns and get cash prizes.


If you catch a medium sized prawn between 6pm to 12am, check its tail - if there's a coloured staple, you've won a cash prize!




As they have absolutely zero experience, we bought only 2 rods to be shared among us 4 for 3 hours. I started off by giving them the basic to adjusting the height of the float, baiting and watching for the movements of the float. They were excited and eager to start but it was very slow at first, we caught only 3 prawns the 1st hour! There were many bites but they lost the prawns as they could not get the hang of striking at the right time with the right amount of strength.


The biggest prawn we caught that day, too bad there was no tag!





Fortunately, things speeded up a little in the 2nd hour. I found myself running to and fro, helping them to unhook the prawns as the waving pincers looked rather scary to the 3 girls. I asked them to hold the line while I grabbed the pincers, broke them off, unhooked the prawn then threw it into the keep net. They were really happy when they landed bigger prawns, unfortunately, none were tagged...


Total catch. I had started cutting the prawns up when I remembered I had yet to take a photo!








At 730pm, the sun started to set and the action slowed especially when the girls found it very difficult to watch the float properly in the rapidly darkening surroundings. Leaving them to continue trying, I starting a fire at one of the BBQ pits available there beside the pond. The prawns were washed and cut up and soon, cooking on the grill!










For the recipe, go to http://myfishingfrenzy.com/bbq_prawn.php

At 8pm, we returned the rods and started eating. The total catch was only 26 prawns but we went away happy. My friends said they could now tell people they gone prawning before!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Report & CR - PRPP 18/02/2008

We knew that PRPP was to be taken over by the operator of the skill fishing pond, but we did not have a chance to check the place out till yesterday 18th Feb. Prices were of course the same, with the release timing beginning at 9am, then every 3 hours consecutively.

1415 hrs
We reached the pond and bumped into the fish truck making a delivery. Does that mean that the pond gets fish every Monday at 2pm? Hmm... Anyway, we sat back and observed the transportation of the fish.


Truck delivering fish for both pro and skill-fishing pond.






We witnessed quite a bit of fish being hauled from the truck into the pond. Surprisingly, there were only 3 kinds of fish - ACKs, Taiwan Ngors and Kim Chews! Not sure if they had already put other kinds in before we arrived, but we certainly saw only these 3 types of fish. What's more, the fish were of reasonable size - all were at least 1kg and some even looked much bigger.


Fish released straight into the pro pond.







1430hrs
We saw a total of 5 'baskets' of fish - about 10 Kim Chews, 20 ACKs and 20 Taiwan Ngors being released directly into the pond. That definately caught our attention! We assumed that these fish counted for the 3pm release, and even though all the fish floated around for about 30 seconds before swimming feebly away, we thought they might wake up soon?

1445hrs
We took a walk around to check out the surroundings. By the way, ex-pro pond operator Albert has moved on to take over the event pond and calls it the Big Fish pond. It is opened 24hr and charges are $100 for 3 hours. Only 1 angler was fishing and he caught a 2 plus, almost 3 kg KBL.


All fish in this pond supposed to be at least 2kg, if not above.






1500hrs

There were already 3 rods in the water when we arrived, and more people slowly appeared to observe the situation. The water seemed clear enough with no froth or muck on the surface and the weather was good. However, we then spotted 2 dead kim chews floating on the surface. They were quickly and efficiently removed but half an hour later, another 2 floated up.

To be fair, those dead fish looked very small, much smaller than those that were brought by the fish truck. If today's delivery was an accurate indication of the size of fish the new operator bought, maybe the dead ones were left over from the previous? We were impressed when the dead kim chews were speedily removed, together with a sickly looking Ang Kuay that looked like it was near its end.

1520hrs
All of a sudden, there were 2 strikes back to back. Both anglers pulled up sizable ACKs that looked very much like those released. Our eyes narrowed and our fingers started to reach for the tackle...

1530hrs
2 more strikes were registered, one fish was lost and the other one landed was another ACK! We could not resist any longer...

1545hrs
With 15 minutes, we landed 2 Taiwan Ngors about 1.2 kg each on Kembong meat. Angler beside us landed 2 ACKs using live prawns within the same time period. Sorry... too busy to keep track of other anglers.

1600hrs
Operator came to collect the fees. To our immense surprise, the starting time they wrote on the sticker was 4pm even though we had already landed 2 fish! There were only 8 anglers so it couldn't have been a mistake. Maybe this is a weekday afternoon special offer? Haha...

1630hrs
We landed 1 ACK but our neighbour managed to get 2 more! We had high hopes, but there was a long lull...

1800hrs
Fish released. We caught 2 more between 6pm to 7pm, 1 more each of ACK and Taiwan Ngor. The ACK was almost 2kg! Just when we were going to take a photo of our total catch, the battery in the handphone died... No photos of the fish, sorry...

Although we did hope to get more fish, we were rather happy with the 5 as the total weight was quite substantial. Of course, the very positive attitude from the operator helped. All in all, we enjoyed ourselves we will definately come back again soon!
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