June 28th! Bukit Gombak!

This trip to the beautiful 小桂林 beside Bukit Gombak MRT was meant to a tutorial trip for the guys more than anything else, part of me always believed that fishing should always be a group sport and your attitude actually changes with the company you keep while fishing.

The main purpose of the trip is to give Anthony some exposure to fishing and at the same time it's Desmond's virgin trip. Armed with a bunch of small frogs and some baby fishes to use as live bait, we headed out to catch that elusive metre long white-ish Arowana. So without further ado, let's check out the place!


Anthony and Desmond's 1st trip to 小桂林, the beautiful and peaceful "newbie land" of the west.


Anthony, cant wait to start after Desmond the "Late King" kept us behind time by over 30mins!


I had a bite less than 30mins into the day! Turned out to be a small-sized Peacock Bass around 200~300g.


Desmond, having his breakfast as he was late and missed the feast I and Anthony had at the coffeeshop near my house.


Same goes for Wanling, the I-will-promise-to-be-early-but-am-always-late teen!


Do they have any other fishes here?


Desmond already looking the part, like a good-o' fisherman! Must be the 'Oldbie' aura around him!

Turned out that the Peacock I had was the ONLY catch of the day. Both Anthony and Desmond got a bite, but they, being new, were too anxious and didn't wait for the fish to take the full bait before attempting to 'set hook'. Oh well! The newbie days!

Wanling ended up fishing up a pair of scissors from the quarry, makes me wonder what else do they have in there! Funny and tiring day, but neverlessly fun, though the lack of bites made the guys looked restless I must admit. At least Desmond and Anthony had a tortise each! :P

Til next time, see you Bukit Gombak!

The Newbie's Setup

I have, time and again, noticed on various forums that there is a constant stream of new anglers who look forward to fishing offshore but are not aware of what setups to use. Hence, being the very nice person I am, I decided, with my limited knowledge, to help out by making a newbie shopping check list!

1) Rod : For local waters, a PE 3~5 rod would suffice, be mindful to pick a shorter rod though, not all boats have enough space for you to cast (you don't need to, anyway), so a 5"2 or 5"8 would be more than enough.

Please note that I swear by spinning reels, hence all my examples are based on spinning tackle sets.

Examples:
Daiwa Monster Mesh (Jig rod)
Shimano JigWreX (Jig rod)
Shino Monster GT
Shakespeare UglyStik

2) Reel: a 4000 to 5000, depending on your preference, there is no right or wrong reel size. I personally prefer a 4500 for local waters while my dear Da Jie likes bigger spool size to spool more line into.

Examples:
Daiwa Crossfire 4000
Shimano Sienna 4000FB
Freams 4500 J
Shimano Stella 5000

3) Line: You can't escape it, braided line is the way to go, for starters, since you have more chances in "Sangkot", pick something fairly reasonably priced. For local waters, 30lb is a good weight.

4) Leader: FC leaders. Period. Enough said. You might want something cheap, but in my opinion, you already paid so much for the tackle and trip, why strive so hard to save that $10~$20 where it makes a difference?

I wouldn't go into swivels and hooks etc since it's pretty much down to your personal preference, some people I know like to go into over-sized swivels and such. It's really pretty optional from here on.

For a typical set up, please refer to my previous post.

June 18 2009 Trip

My virgin trip into the southern Singapore waters, was told that it's a VERY rocky place. Turned out that either I am a genius or that I am plain lucky. Both, IMO.

dBs- Da Jie did an excellent job in photoshopping all the pictures and I am just plain too lazy to upload them, if you are interested, please feel free to click this link to my facebook photo album.

CLICK ME!

Setup were as followed

Rod: Shino King Fish, 5"6, PE4 max
Reel: Daiwa Freams J 4500
Line: 30lb Spiderwire 300yards
Leader: 30lb Galis Absorber (Fluoro Carbon)
Swivel: 22kg Angler's Pal
Hook: Size 1/0 2/0 3/0 Angler's Pal

17, 000 BC

After much thoughts, I decided to come up with a virtual memory or bank (or what you may call it) to chronicle my fishing career since more and more of my friends got poisoned into doing it with me. *Grins*

This will be more of an info blog on fishing, regarding set-ups, fishing spots, catch reports and what's not. Occasionally some random shit will be dumped in, it's my blog, after all.