Day 2 came hot off the heels of a tiring work week but luckily my work finished early on Friday. Still didn’t get enough sleep though.
The briefing was much shorter this day. Everyone save for one was on time so we didn’t wait for him. Sadly though, he was supposed to buy the prawns for his team mate so when time came for the launch, I passed a handful of prawns to his team mate who was looking quite frustrated and disappointed.
On this day, we wasted no time and headed straight to Nigel’s Kaci spot. Well, almost. I did try out my grouper spot first but had no luck.
Nigel kept up his unusual tempo of catching many fish, of which many were too small. The cheeky bugger didn’t even tell me about it till he sent me the photos, and by that I mean I only realised this fact when I saw the photos.
Nigel’s grouper, 4cm of the minimum length of 30cm.
Lol. Seriously? Nigel’s.
Nigel’s Catfish (Ah Seng / Duri), just under 10 cm short of the minimum length.
Many cuttlefish (I call them all sotong to make it easy; though if I understand it correctly, sotong = squid, sotong katak = cuttlefish) in Pasir Ris waters. If I recall correctly, this was Nigel’s first cuttlefish on a kayak.
Another grouper by Nigel. Way too small but very pretty.
Yet another grouper by Nigel. Only just shy of the 30cm mark; minimum length for submission was 30cm. If I recall correctly, it was 27 or 28cm.
Eventually though, he managed to hook up another Kaci.
Nigel’s Kaci and first submissible fish.
In the mean time, I managed to land this guy. Though small, he was longer than the minimum length allowed and as we needed the points, I kept it, though only for a little while. He eventually snagged himself in a crevice in the shallows I was fishing, while on my stringer.
Hopefully, it’s still alive as I would have eventually released him even before the weighing, due to the low points (it had the lowest points out of all the submissible fish we caught) and our being over quota. We would eventually catch a total of 6 submissible fish, out of which we could only submit 4. The rules only a maximum of 4 submissible fish per day and any shortfall does not carry over to the event day the next week.
My smaller flathead. It was past the minimum length of 20cm. It eventually snagged itself in a crevice.
Shortly after catching this guy, I caught his dad. Unfortunately, no photos of the fish were taken while on the kayak. While I had not decided whether or not to release his dad (for the bonus points vs my wanting to try eating a flathead), it eventually died just before I reached the shore.
Then the skies threatened us with rain again.
Rain? Again?
Just before the skies seemed they were about to open, oddly (for the location he was at), Nigel caught a Chermin (Diamond Trevally).
Nigel’s second submissible fish. Though small, the points awarded to this Chermin (Diamond Trevally) were greatly increased due to the category this fish was in.
Though the wind was crazy, it didn’t rain that day.
Nigel kept it coming with his 4th grouper. Though submissible, we eventually released it as it was the second lowest scoring fish of our 6 fish and we could only submit 4.
Nigel’s grouper. Though submissible, we eventually released this guy back into the water because out of the 6 submissible fish we caught, this was the second lowest scoring fish, a were over our quota of 4.
During a lull in the fishing, we ate. As one does. I don’t usually eat while on the water. I would say that 9.8 times out of 10, I don’t eat while kayaking. I don’t get hungry after all (sometimes even after smelling food from nearby kayaks). However, sometimes…. Hey! This is a competition! There’s no need to take risks!
I don’t always eat while kayaking. In fact I try not to, and I’m almost always successful. I don’t actually get hungry while on the water but sometimes, a Sausage McGriddles with Egg calls out to me. Then it invites its friends, Mr Milkshake, and if its free, Mr French Fries (unless he’s all dressed up to go out, then, Mr Shaker Fries). He wasn’t free this day. 🙁
An unusual manifestation of ‘hat hair’.
I eventually moved off from here and headed back to my grouper spot, the spot I had found last week. Then I saw white out on my fish finder.
I had experienced something like this before. On that trip, there was white out on the fish finder and I managed to land 7 fish (lost an additional 1 because I forgot to close the clip on my stringer) in barely half a day of kayak fishing, all decent sized and of decent quality, and I wasn’t the only one either. Don, from SGYakAttack landed well over 20 fish that day (and he went back before me). I don’t believe anyone went home that day without catching at least 1 fish.
I immediately dropped my line and like last week, within 30 seconds of my line hitting the water, I landed a small Snapper. Unfortunately, no pictures of the fish were taken while on my kayak either. I managed to follow the white out for about 2 minutes before I lost it. Unfortunately, I could not get the Snapper on the stringer in time so when I was finally ready, the fish had gone. Also, by the time I got back to shore, the fish had died, which was unfortunate both for me (the points) and the fish.
By that time, we had only about 45 minutes left to get back to shore and so we headed back for the weigh in.
My catches of the day (2.082 points). One small Flathead escaped before the weigh in. Both fish were submitted for the points and unfortunately, both fish died before I could get them weighed.
Nigel’s catches of the day (1.494 points). Many other fish were released before weigh in. Nigel wanted to eat the Flathead and unfortunately, the Chermin (Diamond Trevally) died shortly after being caught. Unfortunately, this is normal and we communicated this fact to the organisers.
Most of the other teams were having a fairly good day as well. In particular, team Emerge, who was absent last week, suddenly shot up to 4th with a bumper haul of quality fish. After that jump, they were only slightly behind us on the points and gave us a good fright.
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Team Emerge
Gabriel from team Emerge with 1 of his 2 KBLs (Barramundi).
Snapper from Matthew, from team Emerge.
Matthew from team Emerge. Absent from the first day of the competition, they climbed very suddenly and dramatically to 4th place, only just behind us, which gave us a massive fright.
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Team Orca
Hermann (wife Siti in background) from team Orca with his catfish (sembilang). Despite gaining a massive points boost, they dropped to 7th due to being overtaken by team Emerge.
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Team Sea Assasins
Nordin’s flat head. Despite gaining a large increase in points since last week, they remained in 5th after being overtaken by team Emerge.
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SGYakAttack
Mathew from SGYakAttack with his 2 KBLs (Barramundi). He was the only member to launch today. They remained in 2nd place and had increased their points advantage over us.
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Team Z Fighters
Alton from team Z Fighters with his KBL (Barramundi).
David from team Z Fighter and his Snapper.
David from team Z Fighter and his OTHER Snapper.
David’s Gao Tun (large Grouper). For all the fish they caught today, they remained the undisputed leaders. The team in 2nd place (SGYakAttack) had just under half of their points.
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The points:
| Z Fighters | 13.156 |
| SGYakAttack | 7.847 |
| Lucky Strike | 6.795 |
| Emerge | 5.293 |
| Sea Assassins | 3.174 |
| East Side Anglers | 2.255 |
| Orca | 0.797 |
| FenOmMan | 0.020 |
| Team Liquid Moly | 0.016 |
| The A Team | 0.011 |
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Check out SGYakAttack’s video of this day here or view it below:
End of Day 2