Log VI - Captain Q Junior

As the title has said it all, this little fella joined me for the first time for our boat fishing trip.

He had been fishing with me since he was 2 years old, mostly at the kelong though. This time would be a good opportunity to see whether he would get sea sick. I did not want to go far so our first spot was somewhere before reaching Pulau Tekong. I heard it was the Chermin season and that spot apparently is a good spot for this species.

There were a lot of sea birds hovering over that area when we arrived. It seemed like there was potential and we dropped our lines quickly. It was not long before we got our first catch. It was not a Chermin though, it was a catfish. The second one followed not long after, then another, and another. All the boats around us were also catching this slimy fish, so I decided to move on.  The only fish out of the norm was a sizable Chao Xi. Furthermore, it was quite windy at that area and Junior was getting a bit uncomfortable.

We moved on to our second spot near Pulau Ketam. I chose this spot was because it has the calmest water in that area. I suppose that may improve Junior's seasickness. It really did help and with the new found energy back in him, he was asking to go on shore. Since there were also a few female anglers on board looking desperately for a place to relief themselves, I decided to land the boat on a small beach at Pulau Ubin.

After running around the beach for a while, Junior was satisfied and return to his steering wheel. I decided to test his endurance at more choppy waters again since he looked fine now. After we reached the spot, the water was even more choppy than the first one we went to but Junior seemed to handle it well. Looks like he had leveled up on his endurance already after the morning experience.

The bites were slowed, we caught a couple of small groupers, some were released and some were kept. A deep sea bass was also landed. I decided to try my luck as for the past whole day, I was busy taking care of Junior, tying knots and stuff for the beginners on board. It took only about 10 minutes before I landed a reasonable size Golden Snapper at around 2kg.

 

We decided to call it a day after that. And when we reached the marina, a surprise was waiting for me. After the boat was lifted up to be stored on the dry dock, we discovered these.

 

The propeller was chipped off and the fin was broken too! I suspect it was due to landing on Pulau Ubin beach that caused this. It was an expensive lesson learned but yet a wonderful experience as Junior seemed to be enjoying his first day out at sea with Captain Q.

Observation Beta - Pekan

For those anglers who had been to Pekan before, they would know that the river mouth to the sea is unique. It requires certain level of boating skills and knowledge of the place to get out from the river mouth to the open sea safely. When to increase the throttle and which direction to steer is crucial for a safe and fast ride out of the danger zone. So this time round, other than just sitting there trying not to let my butt slammed on the seat too hard, I was also observing carefully how the captain manuveured and controlled the boat.

Other than the skills of the captain, the design of the boat and the power of the engine played an important role in tackling this tricky river mouth situation. The hull has to be able to cut waves, and the bow has to be high enough so that water will not rush in after the boat slams back down into the water after riding a huge wave. The power of the engine is critical to bulldoze the boat against the incoming waves and also to slice through the waves faster, thus reducing the time spent in the risky waters.

From the fact that I was writing this, the captain had managed to bring us back safe and sound from a wonderful trip. First day was fun with lots of squid and small fish actions. I had also learnt how to catch trigger fish which is one of the hardest fish to land. They can grow to quite a reasonable size and strong enough to pull drag out of a light setup. But its mouth is as small as of a selar! This created a challenging task for us for trying to make it our dinner. We only managed to catch two but we were satisfied as the amount was just nice for four hungry stomachs.

We also landed three mackerals which we sashimi half of one of them together with two giant selars for our appetitizer. This dish was prepared in a Chinese style rather than Japanese. Everytime I introduced this to my fellow anglers, they would always enjoy it. Wonder how it tasted like and how it was done? Simply join me on one of my fishing trips and hope that we can catch something that is fit to be eaten raw.

Second day of the trip consisted of mixed feelings. The waves were bloody high at an average of 1.5 metres. Higher ones were easily over 2 metres! This was something not so favourable for such a small boat that we took. It also made casting out of the question, so my popping rod was just out for a ride to catch some sea salt. But the consolation was that we managed to land the biggest Chermin based on my personal record to date. This bugger tipped the scale at a whopping 9kg with the smaller one at 8kg!

As weather was bad, we didn't move around much. We stayed at one spot much longer than usual. Getting around from spot to spot would mean getting ourselves drenched all over again everytime. This was what happened to us when we rode back to the harbour. It was a very wet but yet enjoyable day. Luckily no one got seriously sea sick.

Land Log III - Fishing Workshop Part II

The second day of fishing started after our lunch. The current was moderate when we arrived, just the right speed for fishing. My friend was the first one to cast out his line. Within 3 minutes, he landed the first parrot fish.

Soon, I also landed mine. There were many takes and we released all that were too small for a meal like this...

Once our live prawns were depleted, we left to get more baits. These were the total catch in a 2 hour plus session.

After buying baits and settling our dinner at Beach Road army market, we went back for our second half of the "workshop". This time with another friend joining us.

The bite rate was slow but once a while we would be greeted by a sweetlip snapper.

We caught three of this snapper and the last catch of the night was a blue spotted stingray again.

It also gave birth to it's baby but sadly this time around, it didn't manage to survive.

This wrapped up our Fishing Workshop. We had a couple of exciting moments, some long periods of no action and some bite marks left behind by sand flies on my arms and legs which are still irritating me now. With the excellent company, I can say it was a great success!

Land Log III - Fishing Workshop Part I

It has been years since I last visited this fishing spot. As I had some businesses nearby, I decided to drop by to wet my lines. It was near high tide when I reached there. The current was still as strong as what I can remember. I cast out my live prawn and started spinning it while the strong currents swept my line across rapidly in front of me.

There were lots of nibbles and the live prawns were being used up in an alarming rate. The abundant coral reefs in the area also contributed to depleting my bait supply faster, as some were lost when I had to force my line out of the reefs. It was not long when I landed a flathead, a common species that you will find lazing around on the corals.

It was released back after my short disturbance to it's afternoon nap. A few other coral fishes like Spanish flag, etc, were caught and released.

All the live prawns were used up around dinner time and it was the anglers' turn to feed themselves.

The bite rate during the day was encouraging, so we went to get some kelong sotong to continue our fishing in the evening. Night activities were no less than during the day. The small coral fishes were soon feeding fast on our expensive squid bait again! Then a baby shark was caught by my friend without putting on much struggle.

As the tide was reaching its lowest, the current finally started to slow down. This was when there was a sudden strong pull on my rod. The line was dashing towards a nearby column fast and I had to be even faster to retrieve it back against the strength of the fish plus the current. After a short tug-of-war, I was beaten. The prey had managed to seek refuge at the column. Resigning to my fate of adding another lost unknown to my statistics, I decided to free the line by breaking it forcefully.With drag tightened and thumb on the spool, I managed to pull it free with the fish still hooked at the end of the abraded line precariously!

 

I was very lucky to have landed this grouper, and it was joined shortly after by a blue spotted stingray.

 

It gave birth to its baby soon after it's captured. The baby was released unharmed and the mother into the keep net. We decided to call it a day after all the baits had been used up, and looked forward to the second day of our "workshop". Stay tuned!

Land Log II - Titbits

It has been some time since I last had fish as "titbits", so I decided to catch my supper. It required a bit of simple preparation.

 

Using bread as bait, these were our harvest after about half an hour.

 

 After processing...

 

 And after frying...

 

Just nice to go with the ice cold beer in my fridge. It was such an enjoyment to catch your own food.

Log V - The dinner

This is an overdue log of our dinner after the fishing two weekends ago. It is worth mentioning as it was the most comfortable dinner so far compared to our last few trips.

First of all the restaurant is air conditioned. The seats are cushioned. There were not many customers when we were there so the waiting time was not long. The staff were very attentive too. Most importantly the food was great!

We order tom yam steam for the grouper.

And the usual Hong Kong style steam for the leather jacket and the other two smaller groupers.

The steam timing was just right for the tom yam steam. As for the latter, the leather jacket was a bit over cooked but likely it was due to the bigger size grouper which was steamed on the same plate.

Of course, this standard of service and food would not be very healthy for the wallet - we spent about $140 for six person. Still, it was the best part of the fishing trip for me!

Log VI - Kayak

With modern technology like GPS and fish-finder, we are able to convert a kayak into an effective fishing vessel too. Sometimes can comparable to a boat or ship, provided you have strong arms that is.

The main purpose for this trip was not for the fishing actually but for harvesting mussels. Fishing was a bonus. Since we had already spent so much effort waking up early on a public holiday and pumping up the kayak until my back ached, we might as well make it more worthwhile.

After a slight delay to our plans due to drizzling in the morning, we excitedly launched our kayak at Punggol jetty. It has been 3 years since we last kayak out to harvest some home grown mussels.

It didn't take long before we filled our pails with mussels. Extracting them was fast, it was the clearing of the stubborn barnacles that grown on them which was time consuming. As I was chiseling away the barnacles, my friends were trying to get some bait fish for later use. By the time I was done with the mussels which also worsened my back ache, our bait wells were still empty. We continued on to our bonus stage anyway without any baits.

With the help of our GPS, we paddled towards a nearby sunken kelong. When we reached the area, we were greeted by schools of bait fish playing near the surface of the water. We managed to fill our bait wells with tambans in no time.

 

After scanning the area  with our echo sounder, we decided to anchor at a spot where there was an underwater structure and the fish finder was registering a lot of fishes. We threw in our self designed and self made anchor and started fishing.

 

That was when we could take a rest and take some photos with the fishing spot as our background. The schools of fish just kept surfacing and swimming all around us. I thought we would have a high chance of getting their predator, but I suppose it was not their meal time yet that day. We tried live tamban and even live anchovies which we caught over there, but the only fish we caught was a Sergeant Major.

 

After a while, another boat joined us and started fishing there as well. The anglers on board claimed that there are many sea bass in this area but we would have to be patient. Still we decided to call it a day as we were going to continue on to our last and best part of our trip, and that was to BBQ our harvest.

 

The mussels tasted simply great! They were very fresh and sweet. It was a tiring but very fun day. And now I have another spot to go to when I need to catch some bait fish, and also to prove what the anglers on the boat told us is right.