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yet another fishing blog |
Photo: KELVIN CHNG
Saw this cool “Catch Report” and thought I’d share.
http://www.fishing.net.nz/asp_forums/big-broady_topic77579.html
Went to try out my new inflatable boat, the Intex Seahawk 2.
The camera adds 50 pounds. =p
My brother with his kiddie life vest bought in Thailand probably in the year 2000.
Saw a massive Toman, probably 20lbs here. Smashed my underwater camera into my brother while I looked for my rod. Casted out a sasuke 105 silently (lure was already on the line) but the fella ran away!
The next day tryout on a solo mission. This time round, baiting/trolling.
Sitting cross legged is best here. Otherwise, you’ll get massive back pain from the rowing. No pins and needles probably because of the soft floor. Another seating position is to sit open legged (kang kang) but does not give you enough leverage to paddle swiftly and only works if you’re alone.
The boat glides effortlessly over the water but does not track like a kayak.
Total set up time is less than 10 minutes (including double checking everything) if there are 2 people. If you are alone, you’ll probably take about 15 minutes… or also under 10 minutes if someone is watching you (trust me).
This is a pretty damn cool boat and is cheap. Definitely an excellent “first inflatable boat”.
However because the floor is soft, I’d recommend against taking this out to sea. The seams and everything will definitely hold up against the salt water but unless you’re paddling out into calm water and have some kind of anchor or rope, you may be blown out to sea.
For safe excursions into the ocean, I’d recommend that your vessel have these 2 “basic” features.
1) Tracking as it keeps your vessel moving in the direction you’re paddling – i.e. not like a raft – and saves your energy by expending all your paddling power to moving the boat forward. Imagine a hovercraft that has 2 fans on the left and right instead of 1 at the middle. If you alternate turning each fan on (like one person paddling on alternate sides of the boat), a lot of energy will be wasted by the boat swinging left and right.
If you use the oarlocks to row and are a newbie like me, you’ll find it difficult to sync your arms and you’ll still end up spinning (till you get used to it).
Because it is difficult to accurately add a tracking fin at the bottom of a soft floored boat (if you sit on it wrongly the fin could turn you left or right instead of straight and also because it will be nigh on impossible to safely fold up the boat once you’re done), you’ll be hard pressed to find an inflatable boat with such a feature. However, you could easily DIY one. But I would suggest that you add the fin by hanging it out over the stern. It will allow you to adjust your tracking while also minimising the chances of you accidentally adjusting it.
2) It should also have a rigid floor. This is typically known as a Rigid Inflatable Boat or RIB. However those labelled as such typically have the hard floors built in. You could also purchase floor boards (or make them yourself) and place it atop the floor. A rigid floor will give YOU (not the boat), the ability to move around the boat easily. This is very important in case you need to jump to push the boat away from a navigational hazard, or if you need to embark on to or disembark from the boat. The lack of a rigid floor is not a deal breaker as a rule of thumb, I’d recommend this for any ocean expedition. Sans a rigid floor on an ocean expedition, I recommend you stay where you are and position yourself so that you are in reach of the most important things.
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Kayaks are really expensive and take up a lot of storage space. Most of them also do not have the deck space to allow you to bring many things. More importantly, kayaks are potentially very unstable. There are a lot of benefits sure but weighing the pros and cons and taking the cost of an inflatable boat into account, I’d take the inflatable any day. Only the Hobie’s with their MirageDrive system (you can “paddle” the boat with foot pedals) has got me drooling.
If you don’t trust inflatables, get a portabote.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Singapore.
While I certainly don’t endorse the method shown in this video, at least we now know that it is possible.
It may also come in handy if you are alone and urgently need to remove a hook, perhaps when longlining with a fish on the other end.
These are photos from my first ever trip to Pekan for fishing and my first ever Sailfish trip in October 2011. This was with Nigel, Weiyee and Cindy on the famous Pekan Ricky’s boat.
I’m posting this for posterity.
I had brought a my brand new Tiburon Smart Shift reel for the Sailfish. In fact, I saw the guy who sold it to me also staying at the same place as us. I found that it was a bit too uncomfortable to fight a sailfish. I was not used to it and the ergonomic handle was not really ergonomic. The drag was awesome though. I later used this reel to fight a ~50lb Stingray in Singapore and found it quite good. Nevertheless, at the time I was not very happy with the reel.
The fishing was quite slow with only 2 sailfish being caught the first day and because of that, we dedicated the second day to sailfish as well. We also caught 2 sailfish this second day. Everyone shared their rods so that all 4 of us had a chance to fight a sailfish.
The guys (and gal) were very nice to me and Nigel passed me his rod and reel for the very first sailfish on the first day just so I could get a chance to fight the monster. Aside from the setting of the hook by the deckie, no one took the rod away from me. There were a lot of pointers and directions flying towards me but having fished with Icebomb and Weiyee before, I managed to filter in only the good stuff quite well.
I am very grateful for that as it is hard to find kaki like that. I am emphasising this point both because I am quite appreciative of their acts, but also because I recently went on a trip to Rompin with a friend, who’s friend kept taking away the rod from yet another guy to fight a sailfish. I know people like that.
Anyway, back to this trip. As far as sailfishing goes, this was not a really good trip and according to Nigel, it was a disaster. But in terms of the experience, for me, it was awesome.
So anyway, here are the photos.
An old classmate from secondary school asked me in early October if I wanted to go fishing in Rompin.
I was keen to try Rompin and since one of my guru kakis (Nigel) was unwilling to plan a trip up there, I said yes. I was initially hesitant as my work schedule generally precludes me from planning anything that far ahead.
True enough, early in 2012, I got a call from a client asking me if I was free to work in Guangzhou, China for 5 days, 3 of which coincided with the trip. Having psyched myself up for this trip, I turned them down (a first! – One in december and another in February were turned down as well but those were not turned down for fishing!).
I caught no fish on this trip (aside from baitfish) and the overall catch across all the boats was relatively bad.
We arrived at the chalet at about 2am but had to wait because the room organiser was late and had booked at least 2 rooms without toilets so there was a slight kerfuffle regarding room placements and I was to be in the room with Dansen, the boat organiser. By blind luck and because some of the people had rushed into their rooms, Fabian, Dansen and me were left with the room with a toilet.
The toilet door “knob” was evidence that McGuyver had been here.
Exhausted by the long ride, I quickly tucked myself in while the other 2 started on getting ready for tomorrow.
Despite our exhaustion, we wok up at about 6am the next day due to a ceiling light that was on. We swore that all the lights were off yesterday. We later discovered that one of the switches in our room controlled the lights next door and one of theirs controlled ours! We had our morning shower in relative comfort (me especially because I got the water heater working while the rest couldn’t) and walked just 30 seconds to the restaurant which was serving breakfast.
After breakfast, we took a quick dump before heading out.
The fishing was mixed that day with quality fish but lacking quantity. I had absolutely no takes on my rods today. I had prepared for jigging and not bottom fishing and my leader was extremely thick. My spare rod that I had brought for bottom fishing or trolling was left in our room.
Tengirris were the fish of the day.
Ray with a Tengirri.
Yang Pin with his Tengirri.
At one spot, we saw one of the guys (who had helped us by putting our tackle boxes in his car) landing countless cobia on kelong sotong. He had come prepared.
Then Dansen had a massive take on his PE1-3 rod with his unmatched Shimano curado. He struggled to fight the fish and I think I recognised the look on his face as one I had experienced before. The look that your face shows when you’re fighting a fish with a baitcaster.
He brought it up and I was shocked to see a cobia! Dansen had been using live prawns on a simple pseudo-apollo rig! I knew that cobias eat a lot of things but for a cobia this size to properly go after such a tiny prawn was surprising to me.
I chalked this up to just luck but no sooner had Dansen dropped his line again, he hooked up yet another fish. Near the end of the fight Dansen started asking if anyone wanted to fight the fish for him. Before he finished his sentence, Ray was holding his rod. lol.
Within seconds the fish was up, gaffed and landed.
Then it was Yang Pin’s turn and he landed this beauty, also on live prawns!
Despite using the same rigs with live prawns, I caught nothing. 
We moved off shortly after this as the horde of boats surrounding the spot meant that the fishing was relatively dry.
The boatman was friendly, extremely active and compromising. He was constantly thinking about the fishing and even proactively checked the bait wells to make sure we had enough selar. We didn’t, so he brought us to jig for a few selars and no sooner had we hooked up the number of fish that he was looking for, we were off.
We started trolling the waters.
Fabian hooked up a baby sailfish.
Unfortunately, the rod was removed from his hands for most of the duration of the fight by someone who wanted to “help” him. The fish was lost when this person, then decided to land the fish from the bow of the boat.
Not long after that, Jason hooked up another baby sailfish on his setup. He was using a Penn Battle with a Eupro Salty Fighter! I hope you appreciate just how badly outgunned we were.
Through sheer patience and big muscles, he managed to land this beauty.
We went back shortly after this.
Dansen trying to grip the fish with his tiny lip grip. He only managed to hold it up long enough for me to take this photo. It slipped right off once the flash fired.
Due to some weird reason, we lost one room and Jason and Yang Pin had to join us in our room.
Jason “volunteered” to sleep on a mattress on the floor after Yang Pin secured the remaining bed. lol.
We had a very eventful sleep. Every move we made, made the beds squeak. So when one person moved, we all woke up. And when we woke up, we moved so the cycle was never ending. All of the guys were very understanding though and minimised their movements.
The next morning, we woke up and again conveniently walked just 30 seconds to the restaurant.
This time though, we were fishing on a different boat with 3 other people. We were going for tengirri again. I was really looking forward to the ebek fishing that was promised for this trip but not wanting to make waves or make my friend’s life harder, I said little. Besides, tengs are good eating!
Dansen, Fabian and me joined Vincent, Ryan and “fishingkaki/fk/Leng Chiam” on their boat. Their boatman was quite disappointing, parking out in the middle of nowhere, riding waves in the most unstable manner as well as being majorly unfriendly.
However, halfway through the day, we got a notice from the boatman that all the boats had been recalled due to the chance of bad weather in the form of a storm coming in from Pekan. Still keen to fish, most of the boats instead moved to shallower waters but the fishing was quite bad.
We finally decided to call it a day and headed back to wash up.
While the guys were showering I took these pictures.
That’s a Singaporean cell phone number. Nice to see we have a presence even out here.
One of the most passive aggressive notices I’ve ever read. Also in picture, my charging solution as well as the light switch that controlled next door’s lights.
Ray had suggested that we all band together for dinner but as it was all falling into place, he declared that he wanted to go home due to personal reasons. He took Jason and Yang Pin with him. Owing to even more mistakes in scheduling and that the fact that the bus organiser had disappeared, transport out was a mess. Only one bus had arrived (our bus) and he was very reluctant to ferry us out to makan. After hearing that the others in our bus did not want to eat dinner, I took the opportunity to suggest that we stay behind while 3 guys from the remaining group take our place.
The fact that I was doing most of the talking to the driver and that Dansen, having been abandoned by his co-organisers, was looking overwhelmed made me suggest that. Thankfully, Fabian was feeling this as well.
At first, Dansen was quite adamant that we leave without him. I was quite touched by this but I was equally adamant at helping him out especially since now his name was on the line.
The matter was finally settled when I realised that all our fishes (Dansen’s, Fabian’s and mine) were packed in the same icebox.
3 guys took our place and after determining that the other bus was going to be very late, the rest of us (Victor, Ryan, Leng Chiam, Dansen, Fabian and an unnamed nice guy and his wife, and me) settled down for dinner.
We finally got seated while the guys politely berated Dansen and politely insisted that he make some calls. Not wanting to rat out his friends and fellow co-organisers, he made only a few reluctant calls.
Nevertheless, those of us who remained were very understanding and were aware of the hierarchy of responsibilities and acted accordingly.
We had a nice slow dinner and told fishing stories and complained about the government.
When the bus finally arrived, we had a few problems with the driver (stating that he needed time to rest, refusing to drive us back, and etc) but we finally managed to get home.
The problem with wearing boat sandals!
Dansen got the roe!
They cut and gut the fish for us.
Overall, a messy and unproductive but fun and enlightening trip.
The End.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Singapore.
MOSCOW—Russia’s emergency services rescued 675 fishermen on Sunday from an ice floe that was drifting out to sea in the far east of the country.
None of the rescued ice fishermen required medical treatment, the emergency services on Sakhalin Island said. About half of the 675 fishermen were picked up by helicopters and the others by boat.
The emergency services said it received a report at midday Sunday that an ice floe was drifting into the Sea of Okhotsk with hundreds of fishermen on it. More than six hours later, all had been rescued.
Ice fishermen routinely get stranded on ice floes in Russia, especially in the spring as the temperatures rise. Sunday’s operation was unusual only in the high number that had to be rescued.
One of the rescued fishermen, Vladimir Vasilenko, said they should have known better than to go out on such a day.
“Of course the wind was blowing from the shore. We should have thought that something could happen, but people were going and we went as well,” he said in a televised interview. “We also heard on the radio that it was the last chance for fishermen, and so we went fishing.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1154920–675-russian-fishermen-rescued-from-ice-floe-drifting-out-to-sea
31 March 2012, 1900hrs (Singapore time)
Search and Rescue Operation – Updates
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) has been coordinating search and rescue (SAR) operations for the missing person from pleasure craft SZ11614F since 0950hrs (Singapore time) today. The pleasure craft had departed from Jurong River and was heading towards the Southern Islands before the incident happened off Penjuru Terminal.
There were 10 male Singaporeans onboard. Of the 9 persons that have been accounted for, 6 did not require hospital treatment. 2 were sent to National University Hospital (NUH), where they are warded. They are now in stable condition. 1 was pronounced dead by Singapore Civil Defence Force personnel at Jurong Fishery Port at 1048hrs.
Two MPA and one Police Coast Guard craft have been deployed for the SAR operations. MPA and the Police Coast Guard have expanded the surface search areas of the SAR operations and will continue through the night. Commercial divers have also been deployed to conduct an underwater search in the vicinity of the incident. MPA has also sent a broadcast to all passing vessels and waterfront properties’ operators to keep a look out for the missing person.
Investigations by MPA and the Singapore Police Force are on-going.
For media queries relating to the search and rescue operation, please call MPA’s media hotline at 6375 1643.
For media queries on the deceased person, please call Singapore Police Force media hotline at 9777 5640.
The first time I went fishing with Abang in August 2011 was with the Lorry Gang namely Malau, Oldman, Nick, Nigel and me.
The catch rate was surprisingly good relative to our track record in Singapore waters. While we were busy netting fresh sotong, I accidentally stood on some of them when I tried to go pee. I caught no fish that day and the running joke was that stepping on sotong was bad luck.
The second time I went fishing with Abang (September 2011) was also with the Lorry Gang sans Malau. Nigel’s friend, Clarence, who was the one who introduced Nigel to the boatman, took Malau’s place.
Again, the catch was relatively good.
Catching fresh sotong.
Attacked when reeling this guy in
Nigel and his fish
Clarence and his Gao He
Nick and his Ang Cho
Clarence and his fish
Total catch
The third time I went fishing with Abang (October 2011) was when after some “feeling” (iirc), Icebomb decided to abandon the trip and left me to take over. Sans one person, I asked a colleague/friend to join us for the trip. But he pulled out 2 days prior to the trip (after flopping about with excuses for days). A replacement was needed so I turned to FK and a random stranger came along. The trip now consisted of Oldman, Malau, Malau’s Friend, the random stranger and me.
After no bites for quite some time, it started to rain heavily at about 3am and we dashed back to the docks, with some of us chilled to the bone.
Care needs to be taken when inviting random strangers to your fishing trips. While I thought that this guy was okay and only one of my friend did not like him from the start, this guy later appeared to be quite rude. Requesting information and never saying thank you or even responding and things like that. It could be a misunderstanding but it has happened too many times so you should always apply due diligence when meeting random people in any case.
The fourth time I went fishing with Abang (December 2011) was with Clarence, Jamie, Tom and me. I had fished with Jamie at Desaru only a week earlier and he managed to land a Cobia on fresh sotong before it even hit bottom using my Angler’s Pal 8/0 hook (there are many types – this beak hook model appears to no longer be in stock) that I snelled with 100lb American Steel Fishing Wire.
I reused the hook and managed to land most of the fish shown in the pictures below.
The night started with rain and I was a bit late to arrive. The boatman was even later.
After a long period of silence, I let the line drift estimated 300 yds away from us, a style I use when the fish seem to not be biting.
Suddenly the rod started bending and the ratchet started screaming. Gave one hell of a fight. One way ticket style of fighting due to the strong current. Had to use a gimble to not damage my jewels.
My biggest stingray caught.
Based on Jamie’s boga, and if memory serves me well, the fish weighed in at about 52lbs (after adding 2 lbs for estimated “weight loss” from the stingray partially resting on its tail when weighing)
Because I wrote this post so long after the fact, because I received the photos quite late, I cannot recall who’s fish is whose. I seem to remember catching all the fish that day (including one small shark that was released). Yet I do not recall catching the small stingray and the small gao he nor the smallest “parrot fish” (?). This was my biggest bottom fishing haul to date with the stingray and the Ang Cho and the “Ang Kuey” (?) being the biggest I’ve caught!
Half of one wing was given to Jamie and I took the other half. The boatman took the other wing.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Singapore.
Gary’s Tackle has moved from the market to the row of shops with the existing tackle shops.
Click here to find out more.