{"id":689,"date":"2012-01-28T11:47:43","date_gmt":"2012-01-28T03:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.singaporefishing.org\/blog\/?p=689"},"modified":"2012-03-19T18:24:37","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T10:24:37","slug":"28th-january-2012-ops-sangraal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.singaporefishing.org\/blog\/28th-january-2012-ops-sangraal\/","title":{"rendered":"28th January 2012 – Ops Sangraal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This updates comes in the wake of working nearly everyday since the beginning of february so there’s not going to be much narrative as I can’t remember the details anymore.<\/p>\n

We met at Nigel’s place at 11.30, stocked up at 7 11 and headed out.<\/p>\n

When we finally reached the spot, we wasted little time and quickly went through the motions of fishing for a bit then moving up. What we were really looking forward to was the log spot.<\/p>\n

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When we reached the spot I let him walk in first so that that I would get the best sitting position available. Lol. He definitely had a wider range of angles to cast at but I definitely had more comfort. Having secured my arse to the chopped logs, I made my motives very clear to which he replied with an unemotive groan of acknowledgement.<\/p>\n

The fishing was slow going and was exacerbated by new obstacles in and over the water which made our usual lure retrieval paths difficult.<\/p>\n

On his third cast, we both saw a whitish shape move up from near the ‘water-tree’, grab his lure, then turn sharply so that its body was like an upside down U. I immediately pulled out my video camera to document the action for posterity.<\/p>\n

Nigel striked but the fish pulled back violently and his rod made a sudden bend.\u00a0 Afraid of losing the fish, Nigel striked twice more in an attempt to set the hook. Angered, the fish, now evidently a small (~1.5ft) white arowana, flew out of the water in an attempt to throw the hook but it was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

All this was happening within 2 metres of our position!<\/p>\n

The fish made a few more dashes before Nigel started to reel it in. At the last metre, the fish made one last final dash and Nigel’s line went slack. He stood silent for a moment then quietly screamed in anguish.<\/p>\n

Keen on landing the rarely caught fish, he casted out again…. and again.. and again.<\/p>\n

After about 20 minutes, we called it quits and moved on.<\/p>\n

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We walked all the way to the ‘second estuary’ without stopping for fishing although we did see 2 other bujuks on our way to the spot. They were spotted in a wide but mostly very shallow stream just to the right of the log spot. Nigel also spotted a frog swimming in the exact same manner that we reel in our fake frog lures.<\/p>\n

Nigel “ignorantly lost” a small temensis at the spot.<\/p>\n

Not hitting anything, I changed to a really small sinking lure from Rapala. This was the same model that had “caught me my first fish”. It was in Pulau Ubin and I was trying to “lure” the tiny baitfishes that were swarming the jetty. Somehow, I managed to foul hook one of the tiny bait fishes cleanly through it’s mouth (just like a proper hook up).<\/p>\n

After casting just in front of an overhanging tree only about 4 metres to my left, the lure caught me my longest and one of the biggest toman landed to date. I have definitely hooked up much bigger Toman before but I’ve always failed to land them. Once, the fish swam into a discarded fish trap at the shore and unhooked itself! Another time, at the log spot, my $5 surecatch lure (which also caught me my biggest Temenses despite using a broken rod and despite it raining heavily) had a massive hit. My rod bent sharply then snapped back. We then saw a massive trail of bubbles about a metre wide and moving somewhere between a slow human run and medium human run speed moving out from the estuary. The next day, we went fishing there again and found my lure floating by the shore. Definitely a massive Toman.<\/p>\n

Anyway, back to today’s fish. The front treble had dislodged itself and the split ring had disappeared but luckily, the rear treble was still there and I managed to land this guy.<\/p>\n

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Nigel landed this awesome specimen which we first thought was at least 1-2kg due to the fight it was putting up.<\/p>\n

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Chow Yun Fat (sic)?<\/p>\n

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Then I caught another one. Like Nigel’s Temensis, I too thought that this fish was big due to the fight it put up but it turned out to be a smallie.<\/p>\n

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On the way back out, a path that we had walked a million times, Nigel moronically (for him) and funnily (for me) put his hand on the following tree for “support”.<\/p>\n

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The tree gave him its support and offered him a souvenir.<\/p>\n

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Don’t be fooled by the images of the thorns in his hand. The thorns really are as big as the first photo shows. It’s just that Nigel was “lucky” enough to grab hold of the area where the thorns were still underdeveloped. There is a similar tree at the MBS hotel lobby smoking area if you’d like to see what it really looks like.<\/p>\n

When we went back home, despite Nigel’s arowana fight being about a few minutes long, for some reason, the camera only captured the last few seconds just after Nigel lost the fish.<\/p>\n