Boatfishing-Boat Fishing in Singapore with Conrad updated 14 Aug 2011

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th

visitor since September 1999?

Introduction

Hi, I'm Conrad and one of my hobbies, besides badminton, golf and playing various musical instruments, is fishing. Whenever I'm free, I just gather a few friends to go fishing around Singapore's Northeastern Waters. Sometimes we get good stuff, sometimes nothing spectacular appears, but always, it beats sitting down in the office!!! Here's a site just to keep you updated on what's biting around our waters, and to share some fishing stories. Do enjoy your stay and don't forget to bookmark this page.I'll frequently write new stories and upload new pics of fish, so stay tuned.

Latest News, Fishing Schedule and Catch Reports

Newsflash

10 April 2011 At last, an update. Many things have been happening but I'm still fishing every Saturday. My trusty nokia handphone finally died together with the pics stored with them. My new samsung galaxy can't send the pics over to my pc without the cable so it's very lei chey to update. But I realized I can upload pics to my facebook so that's where I have been updating pics of my catch for 2011. Been having nice fish around Ubin and Southern Islands. Looks like I'll be winding down this website and shifting the catch reports to my facebook fishing group. Just included a few pics I managed to save from facebook to my pc.

Fishing Schedule

Still fishing almost every Saturday of every month in 2011. Friends can call or sms me anytime before any Saturday if you're keen to join.

Trip Reports from Apr 2007 till Dec 2011

2011 April Looks like the end of websites like this is near. In 1999, I formed this website. Then around 2004, personal websites started giving way to blogs and this ended up more like a blog. Now of course, there's facebook, which makes it so easy for me to upload pics and even videos, even when I'm not even home after a fishing trip yet.

So that's where my fishing pics have disappeared to, if that's what you're wondering... FACEBOOK.

So until the next big thing on the Internet happens, facebook is where u'll see my fishing updates from now on.

Thanks for following this site for so long, I have received lots of email over the 12 years of this sites existence. It will probably exist as an archive until dear old Pacific Internet folds, cos that's where this site has been hosted ever since 1999.

Take care everyone, it's been a fun 12 years, but I guess age catches up with everyone, and I have to move along with technology. See you on my facebook group (which I'm actually still trying to figure out, haha!)

Some recent pics on my fb acc

Erwyn's last trip before he flies off to the US of A. 13 Aug 2011

landed 7 nice garoupas and 8 Snappers.

Here's one I caught, and below that the Anchor with the Angchor.

Biggies like these are still around

Caught some nice little Anchor like these.. oops, I meant Angchor. Oh well, both are good.

Last week everyone on board landed at least one nice Barra, and I topped it off with a biggie Barramundi.

And here's probably the last pic I'm going to upload on this site before the move to facebook. Landed plenty of Barramundi in 2011, together with some Mangrove Jacks, Snappers and Kurau - but I guess the best way to end it is with my Ubin Specialty - the mighty Barramundi!

Here are twins I landed when everyone was busy catching their own barras.

Will be seeing ya around!

Sep and Oct 2010 - Somehow got my mobile phone camera working again and managed to take some decent pics. Lost a coupla nice photos due to memory card problems.

Chng expertly handles a gleaming 1.8kg Wild Barrumundi

The most recent trip on 2 Oct 2010 was a Barra hunting trip with Hokkien Pro (cos he speaks Hokkien like a Pro) and Chng. There were signs that Barras were on the bite since the previous trip's catch included 3 Barramundi.

This time, we moved around the whole of Ubin and landed 5 Golden Beauties for our efforts. Chng landed 2, I landed 2 and Hokkien Pro thought he was going home with zero, started singing some sad Hokkien song about bak sai, and then he pulled up the final Barramundi for the day, a fat one too.

Here's the crammed ice-box after the trip. Can you count the Barramundi heads?

The previous trip on 25 Sep 2010 was a fun trip with Norm and his family, and Hokkien Pro came too. Went to a surecatch spot where everyone landed some fish, and then moved to hunt some biggies.

A nice Threadfin turned up on my rod, taking prawn meat as bait. And Hokkien Pro also turned in a Barramundi on prawn meat.

Here's my Threadfin and HokPro's Kim caught within minutes of each other

When we moved to our final spot, we landed another two Kims and then called it a day. Looks like the Barramundi are on the bite all around Ubin.

Here's the group back at the boatel, with a part of the catch

OK, had to put up this pic of David with an interesting oversized Spanish Flag Snapper.

And here's a tribute to Emmalin and Hiutsuri, victims of bad weather.

29 May till 5 Jun 2010 Light Game Fishing - SHARK and SPANISH MACKEREL in local waters Since the oil spill has affected the Changi area, I was forced to fish more towards the South of Singapore, using my smaller boat. And it turned out that some amazing fish were waiting for us.

On Saturday the 29th of May, Richard, Alex, Dave the Pro and me went off in search of some food fish. The target was Coral Trout, Scarlet Breasted Maori Wrasse, Trevally, Spanish Flag Snapper and Waigeu Sea Perch. When Richard went to get the bait from Ah Kow, it was a hunch that made him buy 1.5kg of prawns (500g more than our usual)... and this hunch paid off big time.

When we reached the fishing grounds around reef 40-47, we were welcomed at every spot with a flurry of action. All our target fish obliged in decent numbers, and we all landed Coral Trout, Trevally, etc etc.... until we ran out of bait.

A happy Richard holding up two of the Trevally back at the boatel - enough fish for our refrigerators and stomachs

At one of the deeper drop offs, we realized a few of our lines were bitten off at the hook, but we had run out of bait and so we had to call it a day rather early.

Notice that boats which return early are normally the ones with pretty good catches cos they have run out of bait. (But of course there are exceptions when one is armed with plenty of bait and would not stop fishing when the action is hot.)

Here's a closer look at the mixed catch - if you're wondering why we kept those small chocolate hinds, well it's because Richard found an old lady who specially requested for that particular fish, which she eats for every meal ... so we kindly obliged (Now it's called the grandmother fish cos of that)

Another interesting incident took place, where for the first time (not on lure) I landed two fish on a single hook... how in the world did it happen??

This Perch and this Hind must have been fighting for the same bait... so they end up with the same fate

Anyway, the next day, Dave the Pro got his revenge on one of the line biters when he landed THIS AMAZING SPANISH MACKEREL!!!

Why do people travel overseas to catch this fish when we can catch them in our very own Southern Islands?

And of course I had to get in on the action the next Saturday 5th June. I came with my light game outfit, ready for a decent biggie, and well, didn't land a Mack this time, but landed his buddy, a Black Tip Reef Shark, which Dave had been longing to eat. (Yes, he loves eating Sharks, that's why he's Dave the Pro.)

Well, since I was using a wire leader, I wasn't worried about any fish biting through the line and when I had a big bite on my big bait, I knew I was going to enjoy the fight. Well, looks like the big fish are around if you know how to look for them and how to fish for them.

A handsome, powerful fish ... one of our plentiful Blacktips

I always wanted to do this with a Shark, like on a fishing magazine, and now I got my chance

Wow, once you start catching biggies locally, everything else you catch, like Snappers and Trevally, starts to look like bait. Well, till next time, tightlines!

May 2010 Had some fun relaxing trips with friends recently. Here are a few pics.

Brought Chris and her family out for some fishing fun... here is a Grunter

Just had this for dinner, yum yum... another beautiful coral trout. Looks like their numbers are increasing.

And of course, I had to target this Scarlet Breasted Maori Wrasse, which is extremely beautiful

How often do you land these two beauties on the same trip? I think I've done it several times now.

Hard to go home empty handed when the fish are hungry... here's the ice box. Silver Trevally, Snapper, Sweetlip, a couple of Coral Trout, Maori Wrasse etc

Here's another small catch for a short trip... at least the Trevally cooperated

Well that's all for now! Will probably fish much more in June.

Video Experiment. Fought a nice Queenfish, tryin to embed a video on the page. Let's see if it works.

2010 New Year Update - managed quite a number of fishing trips, but my camera phone's memory card gave some problems, and I had little time to update the site.

What's interesting is that a long time fishing buddy of mine, who started fishing with me since he was a schoolboy, has opened a freshwater catch and release fishing pond in Yishun. Of course, as soon as I saw Samuel's pic in his website (Fishing Paradise), I couldn't help but visit the pond for a look see and a try out.

Kings joined me there and Samuel was a very good host, showing me where the fish were and what method to use. But before that, I must admit that the Black Pepper Crab Bee Hoon at the bottle tree village was wonderfully washed down with some ice-cold beer.

Ah, back to the fishing. Well, some guy landed an Arapaima on lure just before I arrived, so I eagerly set up my heavy gear. (Remember, for a higher chance of the released fish surviving, the fight must not be prolonged ... so light lines are out of the question here.)

Anyway, most of what I caught were Walking Catfish. Some smallish Patin came to entertain too, and I landed a beautiful Gourami (Kalui).

The staff were very helpful in landing and releasing fish, and I landed this nice Kalui, among others

Overall, I still wish the Monster Fish had been more cooperative... maybe a Red Tail Catfish on my next trip?? Anyway, keep up the good work Samuel!!

Not forgetting boat fishing - while my bigger boat is undergoing a face lift, I managed some nice trips on the small boat at the Southern Islands.

With Chinese New Year's Eve dinner in mind, I took a short trip out to see if I could land some fresh fish for dinner. I got more than what I bargained for, as usual...

We hit a school of decent sized Trevally (Sagai) and had a ball of a time filling up the ice-box... which we promptly topped off with crushed ice. Had one of them for steamboat reunion dinner that night.... delicious!!

We caught one ice-box full of these on Chinese New Year's Eve, really good fighters on light tackle... a far cry from the usual 3 boxfuls, haha...

Oh well, that's all the time I have for a quick update. Have a Great 2010!!!

Dec 2009 UPDATE - The Monsoon period is here, and heavy rains that last the whole day are the norm. With the influx of freshwater, lots of fish die, so the bottom feeders get big and fat. Normally, this signals Garoupa season (and crab season too)... well, this year is no different.

Made a number of short trips in Nov and Dec, and caught plenty of Snapper and Garoupa from my usual spots around Ubin. During a heavy downpour one afternoon, we even landed more than 30 of those tasty buggers, but got drenched in the process. Who says fish don't bite during wet weather?

Here's a typical small Garoupa just right for a small family dinner, my favourite, yummy!

Here's the group that went out for a short morning trip, got caught in a heavy downpour, and landed more than 30 fish! Everyone got drenched, but no one's complaining.

Usually, among the Garoupas, a sudden strong pull and hard fighter will appear, and we know we have a Golden Snapper on the line.

Small Ubin Snapper like this one usually hang around with the Garoupa. Looks like Ubin produces Snapper, just like the Southern Islands.

And then once in a while a larger fish appears to make everyone excited. During this period, we had several bust-offs. For example, Matt learned the importance of tying strong triple joints for apollo rigs... when he lost a fish that bent his rod tip into the water... while his rod was still in the holder!

I lost a monster on handline too! Simply unstoppable!

But we did manage to bring up some of the manageable ones. Those around 2 to 3 kg were still manageable.

Slightly bigger brutes like these made it just in time for Christmas dinner, haha.

Looks like Ubin still produces the goods!

Here's a young angler about to start fishin.

And of course I have to squeeze in this pic of a Cobia I landed from a new pond in Pasir Ris. Sometimes when the weather is really bad, I guess even I have to do some pond fishing. Sheesh...

Well, that's all for the Dec update. Busy doing lots of fishing! But expect the fishing to get better, especially towards Chinese New Year.

Early September 2009 updates - Since the Snapper are around, I made a few more trips to our Southern waters and landed more Snapper. These are beautiful fish indeed, and really strong fighters!

Check out the beautiful golden sheen on these Snappers - only from freshly caught fish

Then just yesterday I took a short trip with Matt and his wife, and we landed the usual reef stuff. What was nice was when a small school of Yellowtail Fusiliers came to entertain us. (Hang Tze He - fishball fish)

Wanted to try one of them for dinner but my maid misinterpreted me and fried a Timun (Spanish Flag Snapper) instead.

Anyway, landed a lively coral trout for family dinner too, and we cooked and ate it immediately upon reaching home. That was wonderful tasting. Even my kids who eat fish every day commented on the quality of the coral trout. Nice tasty soft white flesh... yum yum.

Here's what I had for dinner last night. Check out the metallic blue spots on this coral trout!

OK will be doing another short trip today to bring my friends out, hope we get some interesting fish! I'll upload the pics if something interesting turns up. If it's the usual fish... we'll wait till next time.

August 2009 updates - managed a few trips when the weather was ok, and some quality fish were landed.

Here's the usual small fish to keep us occupied while we targeted larger fish... take a look at our Kaci with Timun stripes... called Kacimun

Of course, I've started trying new techniques aimed specifically at larger fish, and they've begun producing results. Will probably start catching larger and larger fish in the coming months.

The Richard and a Blue Tiger Fish... ok, just a 3 kilo Cheng Yi

Just yesterday, while waiting for Giant Trevally, this nuisance fish took my light line bait and gave me a fun fight.

This one weighed in at 4.5 kg... nice fight on light gear

But of course, we caught some good stuff.

Here's the Golden Prize - a Snapper weighing in at 4.2kg

ok that's the end of my short update, till next time, tight lines!!!

25 July 2009 - simple day trip Went for a simple day trip with fishing pro Dave and Handyman Alex... very fun way to spend a Saturday.

Caught some nice reef fish then went for big stuff using the fish we caught from the reef.

Alex opened accounts with a big take on a 200 gram piece of bait

We were all disappointed when it turned out to be just a Queenfish... sigh

But towards the end we did hook some big stuff. I had a memorable fight using a 300g bait when a huge Black Tip Reef Shark around 5 ft long took the bait, gave a solid adrenaline filled fight, and broke the metal gaff cos it was just too big and heavy.

Of course we went home happy with some of the usual good stuff.

Yummy top grade eating fish like Garoupa and Blackspot Tuskfish (which many people call a Parrotfish)... the usual

July 2009 Looks like the trevally are around, we've really been catching lots of them but I couldn't put up the pics to protect the spot. These are solid fish for steaming, you know? Short 3 hr trips are more than enough.

Here's a quick pic I took of one of the catches... not much left already

May 2009Did quite a bit of fishing at reefs 40 to 47 around the Southern Waters in the month of May.

On labour day, Matt, Melissa, Kings (sorry for the typo, haha) and me (not forgetting Chewy the dog) came for a half day trip where we mostly hung around 43 to land some nice Spanish Flag Snappers, Waigeu Sea Perch and SBM Wrasse. Plenty of action that day.

Check out this beauty - SMB Wrasse with tender white meat

The 11th of May was not as productive in terms of numbers, because 43 was unavailable, so we stuck with reefs 35 to 39. Yet, we managed to make up for it with quality. I managed to land a nice Coral Trout along the way, as well as a decent Greasy Garoupa.

Can you see Matt salivating in the back when I lift the Coral Trout?

Of course, the SBM Wrasse obliged too

And then on the 23rd of May, Richard and me went on a half day trip. Reefs 43 to 47 were all firing up and we managed plenty of good fish. I even managed to land 3 Coral Trout within a few hours, on top of big SBM Wrasse, plenty of Snappers and some Sea Perch.

Here's a sneak peek into my ice box on the 23rd of May - high quality stuff

In fact, all the Coral Trout were immediately steamed Hong Kong style after each trip and enjoyed with the family members. I even tried a taste test for the Greasy Garoupa, Coral Trout and SBM Wrasse. The Trout and Wrasse were tied for first with tender tasty white flesh while the Garoupa was slightly tougher but still better than most fish you can buy from the market. Well, that's the update for May 2009. Till next time!

David gives this 10 lb Blue Threadfin the thumbs up... Boga grip comes in handy

28 Feb 2009 - BIG KURAU - What an amazingly strong fish the Blue Threadfin Salmon is! I just went out on a short trip with the golfing gang and had a most satisfying and arm-aching fight with a 10 pound Threadfin Salmon.

When the fish took the bait, I immediately knew that this one was different. There was a typical lag period and the weight of a heavy fish before the fish took off on a blistering run. When I managed to get some line back, it would take off on another long run, making me worry if I had enough line in my reel. For the first five minutes, the fish was in control and I gave more line than I took. And this sure wasn't a stingray because of the violent head shakes I felt at the end of my line.

Around the 10 minute mark, the fish started heading towards the surface and I thought I had a huge Queenfish on the line, but the fish did not jump, and suddenly made another blistering dive deep into the 100 foot mark. Obviously this fish did not intend to go gently into the good night. Down deep, the violent headshaking continued, and I began to worry that my hooks might get dislodged from the mouth of the fish because the puncture wound would definitely get larger and the hook would get loosened. So I was extremely careful to ensure that I kept steady pressure on the fish and used a smooth pumping action to retrieve line.

Finally, after brusing my mid-section with the butt end of my rod (I forgot to wear my fighting belt), fifteen minutes into the fight, the fish slowly but surely started tiring out, and I managed to gain line bit by bit, with a few final spurts of energy, and then, just before my right bicep started to cramp, the fish surfaced and Richard promptly netted the bugger.

"Wah!!!! Big Kurau!!!" This was really a great fight and the moment the fish was safely into the boat, the muscles in my right arm seized up and I had to do a little stretching before I could start fishing again.

This Blue Threadfin Salmon weighed 10 pounds on my Boga grip. So far, the largest Blue I've landed. It's close cousin the King Threadfin can grow much bigger, and used to be more highly prized. But recently, the Blue Threadfin and King Threadfin are starting to be equally prized for their eating qualities. And of course, the Blue Threadfin fights much harder! And that's what counts!

Of course, there were some garoupas which were fat and healthy, with a couple hitting the one kilo mark, but they look tiny next to the Threadfin that I landed.

Don't these Garoupas look small beside my 10 pound Threadfin?

Could have caught many more of these Garoupas if we didn't have to outrun a storm and head back to shore around 2pm. But I guess there's no complaints, with such an amazing fish putting up a guest appearance.

Here's the group back at the boatel early... at least we managed to stay dry and avoided getting soaked in the rain.

Early 2009 short trip - Just decided to upload a few more pics from another trip in early 2009. So far the Garoupas are out in force, and so are the Snappers. My good ol spots are really producing nice fish, and Lau Di Fang at Ubin is still coming up with nice Flathead for my BBQ parties.

Compare the size of the fish with my arms... Nice Flathead for BBQ... will try some sambal this time

Richard sure knows how to enjoy the fight with a strong fish

A healthy Snapper like this can put up a really good fight on light gear

Here's a pic of another average catch for a short fishing trip... enough fish for the week! Yay!!!

14 Feb 2009 - Valentine's fishing Arthur, David, Matt, Melissa and me decided to do some Valentine's day fishing before the night's dinner. So we met at Punggol in the morning, took the boat to the aunty's fish farm, bought 1.5 kilos of prawns and zoomed straight to the spot where I've been landing pretty decent garoupas for the last few months. The idea was to catch some nice fish for the week.

The day started slowly, with several lost fish, especially when Arthur's fish (the first hookup for the day) escaped. So we moved around quite a bit, and I was quietly confident that the fish would turn up eventually.

I predicted that the fish would start biting at 2.30pm that day, but the fish were early, and started biting at 2pm. The moment the first rod took a fierce bend, the action was fast and furious till our 1.5kg of prawns dwindled to only 5 prawns.

We landed several garoupas and threw back the small ones. Landed 4 snappers too and 1 Grunter. But what was surprising were the 2 nice Parrotfish which showed up for Matt and Dave.

Matt with a beautiful parrot which he said sold for $120 per kilo in Chinese restaurants ... in fact he was at Crystal Jade that night and saw the same fish swimming in the tank

Actually Melissa was way in the lead with several good fish caught before the rest of us caught up with her.

What's Valentine's day fishing if you can't bring your wife? Matt and wife

Me and Arthur were happily landing nice Garoupas and double hookups were common.

My new Transitions lenses at work... too much staring at rod tips in bright sunlight can cause cataracts

And the last to start catching fish was David, but he quickly made up for it with a good variety of quality fish like a Parrot, a Garoupa, a Snapper and a Grunter.

David opens accounts with a Snapper and he wants to eat the prawn too!

After the feeding frenzy, we decided to head back to shore early cos we had to meet the wives for dinner and karaoke. Anyway, one shouldn't be too greedy where fishing is concerned. Managed to release many small ones unharmed (burp.. oops).

Here's our modest catch... the usual Ubin suspects

And here's the group back at the boatel... about to start washing the boat

Well, so far the fishing's been good even during the windy period in Dec and Jan. Now that the winds have died down, hope the fish keep biting. Happy Valentine's!!

24 Jan 2009 - Chinese New Year Dinner fish. The catch has been like that almost every weekend lately. In fact, catching about 10 good garoupas per trip seems to be pretty common. Must be a good sign for the year. - David, Han, Erwyn and Sam came along the day before CNY 2009 to see if we could land some good fish for reunion dinner the next day.

Didn't have to fish till evening before everyone caught some good stuff. Gong Xi Fa Xai, Nian Nian You Yu!!!

Guess which one I ate for New Year's Eve Dinner? Nothing beats fresh caught wild fish ya?

All packed and ready to go! Everyone gets to bag some good fresh fish to bring home for Chinese New Year

3 Jan 2009 - Barramundi Hunting Success Went on a trip with Kings, Sunny and Fingers to celebrate the New Year.

On the way out from shore, I was thinking that since I already had a good supply of Garoupas and Snappers in my fridge, it was time for some sport fishing for Barramundi.

So I headed for my Barra spot and not five minutes into the trip, Sunny struck into a 4 kilo Barra which put up a good account of itself before making its way into the landing net.

Then Kings had a good hookup and had a really solid fight with a 4.5 kilo Barra before also landing it.

Fingers and me had some bites, but I guess it wasn't my day. I only landed one small Barramundi, one Harry Hotlips and three Snappers in quick succession. Each time a fish bit, I thought it was a big Barra, but I guess you can't catch all the big fish all the time.

Before heading back after a few hours fishing, and several good fish later, Sunny had a good bite and was into what was probably the largest Barra of the day. But I guess we were enjoying ourself and taking too many pics of the fight that after quite a while of fighting, the hooks pulled and the big fish got away.

Anyway, it was a great start to the New Year.

Started the new year on a high note... nice big Barramundi!

8 Nov 2008 - Short hunt for dinner Needed a good fish for 20 people that night cos I had an aunt's birthday dinner to organise, so I called David and his dad, and we headed out to Ubin for a short trip.

Water conditions were bad, with an algae bloom and dead floating fish seen around Ubin, but still we set the lines and waited at the spot near the boatel.

After a short wait, my rod took a menacing bend and I struck. Immediately, I knew it was a good fish struggling to get into the snags. It took drag for a while but I refused to let it go far, jamming my finger onto the spool to prevent it from reaching the snag, and of course, risking a bust off. Then, despite full pressure from me, I felt the fish reach the rocks and then all movement stopped. I knew that I still had a chance and the next few seconds were critical.

Refusing to admit defeat, I jerked the rod a few times and tightened the drag to the max, and suddenly the fish started swimming again and I could feel the violent headshakes of a nice bottom dwelling bugger.

Triumphant, I slowly managed to gain line and after about ten cranks of the handle, I knew I had him! The fish was in the clear and all I had to do was ensure that the hooks didn't pull. So I loosened the drag and took my time to bring the fast tiring fish to the boat. When a nice big Garoupa surfaced, David netted it and we celebrated with high fives on the boat. It weighed in at 3kg exactly. Just what I needed for dinner.

We fished for a while more and had another solid fight (it was David's turn this time) and up came a nice big Sweetlip. This fish fought really well. Anyway, though the water conditions were bad, we still accomplished our mission (to get dinner) and so we headed back to shore early as I still had much preparation to do for the night's BBQ party.

Here's how to put the pressure on the fish

Posing with a tough fighting Garoupa with David's dad

4 Nov 2008 - trying out the Spangled Emperor spot again

Dave, his dad and Vincent came along for a short 3 hour trip to the same spot I landed the Spangled Emperor at just a few days back. This time I bought more Sheng Siong prawns and we set up 5 rods.

The action was pretty good, with a good fish biting every 15mins to 20mins, and everyone caught something. Then the weather made a turn for the worse and we made a wise decision to head back to shore since we had caught enough fish for our own needs.

I was especially pleased with a 2 kilo Garoupa I managed to land after some huffing and puffing. This trip was extremely comfortable and rewarding. Fishing should always be like this.

Every fish caught was a different species. Garoupa, Sweetlip, Parrotfish, Grunter (Guhood), Javelin (Chior Lor) and Golden Snapper.

A nice 2 kilo Garoupa showed up and put in a good fight, even getting snagged for a while, before coming to boatside

2 Nov 2008 Was supposed to bring my family fishing this Saturday but it was raining cats and dogs till 11am. So sad, I thought there wouldn't be anymore fishing that day cos my kids had swimming lessons at 3pm.

In the end, I made some calculations and suggested having a quick lunch on the boat before swimming lessons. Everyone said 'yay!!' and we went to Tapao some nice food and drinks for lunch. Along the way, I bought some fresh prawns from Sheng Siong at $1.60, hoping I could soak a line.

At 1.30pm, we reached the boat and set off from shore. The kids had fun climbing the flybridge and also playing around the sun roof of the cabin. Seeing a good fishing opportunity at a nice spot just near the boatel, I quickly set 2 rods and the family settled down to lunch.

After eating, the kids played with the nets and I practiced my ESP powers by trying to use my mind to make the rods bend. I even tried communicating through mental connections to the fish in the vicinity... and then, suddenly, as though in response to my ESP, the rod on the right just took a violent bend and line just started peeling off the Biomaster reel.

"Big fish!!!"

The kids looked on and my wife got the landing net as I slowly tired the fish out with constant drag pressure. I thought it was a ray at first but the rod constantly shook with violent head shakes from the fish, and I knew we had a good fish on the line.

After a really good fight, a flash of colour surfaced beneath the boat and I realized it was a fish I had never caught in these waters before. A Spangled Emperor!

What a trip! Spent $1.60 on a few prawns and landed a beautiful fish. We even made it back by 2.30pm and reached the swimming pool just in time for the kids' swimming lessons. I think this spot has potential!

An unexpected gift from the sea... a pretty rare large Spangled Emperor, known for its firm tasty flesh... we had that for dinner

Just bought $1.60 of prawns from Sheng Siong... good returns

This koi was on a suicide mission... so sad

26 Oct 2008 - freshwater luring session Ed kindly invited us for a picnic (on great-tasting Arnold's Chicken) and luring trip. So I packed some nice lures and joined them on this eye-opening luring trip. After gorging myself on 4 pieces of chicken, I started casting lures from the shoreline and was pleasantly surprised by a school of visiting Toman, including their babies.

Using rubber lures, I landed 3 small Toman in quick succession and released them. Then I switched to a shallow Reidy's lure and we moved to a different spot when the bigger Tomans came along. Wow! Didn't expect to get big tomans on lure at this spot when normally what we catch is Peacock Bass.

Did manage to land about 5 nice Peacock Bass and released them. Arthur was the only other guy to land a fish that day. Must have been the lures.

Well, my rubber lures all lost their tails due to the razor sharp teeth of the toman, but it was all worth it.

These two beautiful Toman went crazy over my Reidy's 6-inch lure... and both put up good acrobatics and fight before being subdued

Ed wants to say that this was caught by him. Arthur holds up his small Toman

Many good-sized Peacock Bass such as this were landed on lures. All released

21 Oct 2008 - Golfers go fishing again This time we took the small boat out around the Southern Islands and had a pretty decent catch. Of course we landed some nice Parrotfish and Timun (Spanish Flag Snapper), and of course the wonderful Scarlet Breasted Maori Wrasse. And Mr Seasick Ong delivered his Mee Soto to the sea Merlion style, with great enthusiasm. Attracted by the constant berleying efforts of Mr Bubbly-gurgling-merlion Ong, a Black Tip Reef Shark came along and gave him a good fight before making its way to his dinner table.

At least Mr Merlion-mee-soto managed to pose for this pic before depositing a huge chunk of partially digested mee soto into the sea

18 Oct 2008 - fishing with Jamie and his friends went for a short morning trip and ran into a small school of Kerisi (Yellowbelly Sea Bream). Also landed a nice Flathead. Still made it in time for 18 holes of golf in the afternoon!

14 Oct 2008 - LONGKANG FISHING Decided to initiate my kids into longkang fishing (my favourite childhood pastime) just for fun. They thoroughly enjoyed it, catching guppies of all sizes. The small colourful males are quite pretty, I must say.

Real longkang fishing. They didn't want to go home even after a few hours with their nets. It was pretty fun!

4 Oct 2008 Brought the golfing gang fishing last Saturday and this Saturday. Last Saturday we had to stick to small fish, landed over 70 of those for the dinner table, including Javelins (Chior Lor) and Croakers. When I tried to move to deeper water, one fella couldn't take it so we hung around Ubin. But at least everyone landed something.

One week later. This time Ed, Leon, Art, Dave and Dave's dad came along and we tried a few deepwater spots for bigger fish. The Barramundi weren't biting, but the other fish were.

Of course, at the Bao Chia spot everyone landed some fish. When the count hit 50 and we had packed the fish on ice, I moved to some deeper spots.

Fortunately, the water was relatively calm, so not a single soul had seasickness. And at the final spot, the nicer fish obliged, and the notable catches were Leon's beautiful Red Snapper and my delicious Flathead.

Leon fought this fish skilfully to boatside, and his tiny hooks were almost straightened, but his skill saved the day. Nice Red One

Of course I was extremely delighted with my Flattie, cos I was having a BBQ that night and a Flattie is always the best fish for BBQs.

Here's the Flathead that got me thinking of dinner immediately

And so when I reached back, I wasted no time starting the fire and grilling this wonderful eating fish.

See the flathead on the grill? just right cos the flesh is tasty and the shape is just right for easy and even grilling, just like stingray... flat flat

Of course, I prepared two of the Golden Snappers I caught that day for the grill too.

These 'caught today' Golden Snappers look like they can't wait to be grilled. Haha!

Well, overall, this was a relaxing trip with enough action to keep everyone happy. Of course the bags of fish we took home were a bonus.

Maybe next trip I'll show them the southern islands.

13 September 2008 Jamie had arranged for me to bring his group of buddies out fishing but when I woke up at 7am, it was raining cats and dogs. Just felt like staying in bed. I called Jamie and Pin, and they told me they were already around the Pasir Ris area and would wait till the rain stopped. There was no stopping these guys man!!

Anyway, went back to sleep and woke at 9am when Jamie called again. "Uncle! The sky is clearing up. What time can we meet ah?"

"Huh? Erm... 9.30am ok?" I said, sleepily.

"Ok uncle, see you there."

So I quickly brushed my teeth, fed my koi, put on a shirt and jumped into the car. Picked the group up at Pasir Ris MRT station. There were four of them, Jamie, Emerson, Jeremy and PY. Pin was going to meet us at the boat.

We got over to Changi Village for some supplies and soon we were on our way. Once the boat was in the water, Jamie and PY joined me on the flybridge. I told them, "hey it's still raining you know, the rain can be quite painful when we're moving at high speed."

"It's okay uncle, we can take it," they replied.

You should have seen the look on their faces and the shouts of pain as the rain came horizontally into the flybridge when I pushed the throttle forward. Quite a sight! Well, I slowed the boat down when I saw that they were suffering from the cold and driving rain, and eventually we reached the Cliff zone and dropped anchor. The moment I cut the engine, the rain stopped and the fish started biting like crazy!!!

Basically, we landed a huge assortment of fish like Black Sweetlip, Garoupa, Croaker, Mangrove Jack, Tiger Tooth Croaker until we ran out of bait. After the first 2 hours, I counted 40 fish in the bait well. At the end of the day, we were picking up scraps of bait from around the boat just to keep on fishing, even though the live prawns were gone. Landed close to 100 fish, of which around 15 were lousy catfish which we released. Everyone went home happy with a huge bag of fish.

Guess this is what fishing after the rain is like. But I'm most happy with my 1.8 kilo Mangrove Jack.

How's this for a wild Mangrove Jack? Wonderful tasting fish with succulent flesh, no wonder PY looks like she's about to eat it.

Here are the four of them enjoying some quiet moments at the back of the boat since we had run out of live bait.

Overall, that was a really fun trip. I did go on other short trips and managed some good stuff.

Landed this red one in early September from Southern waters

Daniel also came back for a short holiday from Australia, and we went for a short trip, where David came along too. Did some drifting and Dan had all the luck with a Snapper, a Garoupa and a Grunter.

Here's Daniel with a nice healthy Golden Snapper, just before flying back to Australia

will probably fish more in the coming weeks. I think I'll try to target Snappers on the next trip this Saturday.

12 July 2008 How time flies! I remember the last fishing trip like it was yesterday. In fact, when I look at some of my archived stories, I cannot believe those trips took place so many years ago... they all seem to have happened just a while back. Now, this site is around 10 years old, and I'm amazed at some of my old galleries, at one point I didn't even know how to insert pictures.

Anyway, on Saturday 12 July, Kings wanted to go fishing for a while, and since the small boat was out, we decided to use the big boat at Loyang. What a good decision!

By 12 noon we reached the first spot off Tekong and started tying our rigs. The current was weak and the spot looked promising. But by 12.30pm, all rigs were baited and in the water, and there were only some small bites with no positive hookup.

So I shifted the boat to another part around the reef, and then the action began. My Surecatch $16 rod suddenly jerked in the rod holder and I grabbed it. Feeling a fish on the line, I reeled in some slack and struck!

Line started peeling off the Biomaster reel and the lovely sound of drag filled the boat. There was obviously a good fish at the other end of the line. There was a lot of head jerking action and Kings and me thought we had a Permit on the line, but to our surprise, a nice 1.5 kilo Grunter surfaced and was netted.

Soon, I re-rigged and cast to the same spot. It was 1.15pm now, and there were dark clouds looming over the horizon. Anyway, Kings had an appointment and we had to end our fishing by 2pm, so I was eager to land another big one.

This time, the bite on the same Surecatch rod was small but unmistakeable. Some light tapping got me alert and I picked the rod from the holder again, waiting for the pull. When the fish finally took the bait, the first run got me by surprise, and I almost lost my grip on the rod. There was a violent fish on the other end.

Going by the swimming action during the runs, we both knew it was a Permit. Huge body surface area allowed it to generate powerful bursts of speed. One again, the beautiful melody of a screaming drag filled the boat.

The fight was really awesome, with the fish staying just out of sight below the boat for quite a while, when finally it got tired and we got a glimpse of a golden Permit cruising like a ghost beneath the boat. With much effort, I guided the fish into the landing net and we exchanged high fives. This was another big Permit from the same spot I landed a Permit a couple of trips earlier.

Beautiful fish! 2.5 kilo Permit and 1.5 kilo Grunter -- how's this for a 2 hour trip?

These Permits are great sportfish when they get to this size, so Changi anglers can expect a good fishing time ahead, cos it looks like these fish are here to stay.

Anyway, soon, Kings had to keep his appointment, and I had fulfilled my mission for the day -- catch big fish!

Archives- Pictures and Stories JUL07toJUN2008International fishing team, usual Ubin fish, nice Toman too. Period of awakening. APRtoJUN2007Kurau and Giant Garoupa from The Southern Islands JANtoMAR2007Big Barramundi on tiny hook! Haruan Fishing Adventure OCTtoDEC2006Big Grunters, Barras and a Mermaid JULtoSEP2006Big Grunters, Barras and a Yellow Croaker (First and only one I've landed) APRtoJUN2006Mersing Trip, Family trips, coral trout and Tiger Garoupas, big Garoupas and a short video JANtoMAR2006 solid garoupas and good fish for the new year OCTtoDEC2005 record Grunter, female deckie, giant Queenies JULtoSEP2005 20kg garoupa, toman on popper, barramundi APRtoJUN2005 big barra, threadfin JANtoMAR2005 family trip, big barra season OCTtoDEC2004 monster 10kg barramundi, freshwater escapade JULtoSEP2004 goodbye Ranger, hello Treva Berkley, new boat, 6kg barra APRtoJUN2004 star snapper SEPtoDEC2003 barramundi fever... you gotta see this, sometimes over 20 barra per trip JANUARY2003 5.6kg barra, 2kg kurau NOVtoDEC2002 GT, Australia, baby 15 mths AUGtoOCT2002 6kg eagle ray, Jewfish, Sporty Gals, baby 12 mths DECember2001 peacock bass, 6kg lured Cuda, MJ, baby 4 mths OCTtoNOV2001 swamp fishing, baby 3 mths SEPtoOCT2001 baby's 1st toman, big snagpile garoupa AUGUST2001 baby at home, the Good Feeling Garoupa JUNtoAUG2001 newborn baby, chermin, snappers, garoupas APRtoMAY2001 coral trout, big garoupa OCTtoNOV2000 pre-wedding September2000 big ray, big barra, good company JULtoAUG2000 tiger tooth croaker mistaken for jewfish MARtoMAY2000 sailfish, gals with big barramundi JANtoFEB2000 barra with colleagues story, bream December1999 barra eats tuna sashimi, gao tun NOVtoDEC1999 kurau school OCTtoNOV1999 garoupa festival, kenny's guhud OCTtober1999 6ft Conger (malong) SEPtoOCT1999 barra, snapper, garoupa - 3 targets September1999 big snappers, 8kg barra 19September99 Barramundi Story - 8kg of solid muscle JULtoAUG1999 queenfish catch and release festival, kurau JUNtoJUL1999 Kurau, Octopus games, Kiss da fish before release MAYtoJUN1999 daniel's lobster, mangrove jacks MARtoAPR1999 river mouth fun, desmond's kurau JANtoFEB1999 early expeditions on ranger fromAPRIL1998 9kg garoupa story, early success on first own boat