Shawn's Wasted Permit

Finished my video project yesterday morning.

Today, Shawn had luckily got himself a permit to go fishing from his wifey and he wanted to go Spot Mars.

I obliged even though I was busy finishing up the video project that I never had any sleep at all.

Brought along heavier tackle this time.

Don't want to break my new replacement rod again.

Never underestimate the power of these Giant Snakeheads.

You'll never know when a violent one decides to go for your lure and cunningly exploit the thick vegetation laced along the banks.



Anyway, I caught only a small one this morning:

Shawn had a huge take but unfortunately, his leader gave way.

Over the other side, Jason and his friend had zero results as well...

Bad morning...

Project V5

Finally completed Project V5!

Took me a couple of weeks of preparation and solo fishing sessions.

Met with some major issues, bugs and limitations from my movie maker software but it all got ironed out eventually.

Went without sleep last night just to finish it up.

Can't seem to be able to publish the video in high definition resolution.

Well, it got sorted out in the end as well.



Hunting Giant Snakeheads (Singapore)

Post by Ken Tan.

Posted on Youtube and my personal Facebook.

Like I said before, this is going to be a blast...







Enjoy!

Minus One & Half

Spot Mars...

It's becoming a routine.   lol

Went at first light this morning and came out about 30 minutes later with 1 catch and a foot half shorter.

Read on to find out why.

Enjoy the photos:

This brute was landed after some drama.

Not just cunning, it possess brute strength as well.

Peeled off line like nobody's business while changing direction at astonishing speed.

Went into the vegetation once but I managed to yank it out.


High-stick and broke my rod in the process:

Broke it at about one and a half foot down from the rod tip.

With such high drag setting for heavy cover toman fishing, the 14lb rated X7 was unable to withstand the brutal toman...

Not being able to fish anymore, I left Mars after landing the brute...

Went to Andrew's and got a replacement rod as mine was still covered by warranty.

Under Megabass's terms and conditions for it's warranty claim, 50% of the rod's purchase price has to be paid in the event of a claim.

For my case, I do admit that my high-sticking contributed to the rod's breakage.

I have no qualms paying 50% to claim a new rod.

But I can't help thinking what if it had happened to someone who is unlucky enough to have purchased a lemon?

If the rod really breaks after purchase purely due to manufacturing defect, that poor bloke will have to pay 50% as well.

This is something that I feel needs to be addressed by Megabass...

############################################

Project V5 is in it's final stages...

Freed? Or Murder(ed)?

Was in the vicinity while doing some work and decided to pop by an old fishing spot that I used to frequent in the past.

Saw 3 people unloading bags of fishes from the boot of their car:

They then say their prayers to whomever it is up there.

It's obvious what they were going to do next...

Lining up the bags neatly by the side of the water:

They next proceed to release the fishes in the bags one by one and left as hurriedly as they came...

In those bags were juvenile haruans and catfishes...

Every religion and individuals have their own takes and views towards their own faith.

In this case, these folks probably thought they are doing a kind deed by buying and releasing these juvenile fishes into our reservoir which in turn, contribute to their positive karma.

Little did they know that most (if not all) of those catfishes will be food for those vicious tomans lurking in the water.
In fact, catfishes are known to be tomans favorite snack besides frogs.

Even if they are not in feeding mood, they will attack and kill every catfish in sight.
It's their natural instinct and behaviour towards catfishes.

This is the reason why live catfishes are the top bait of choice by baiters targeting tomans.





Positive or negative karma, I don't know.

But I'm certain that there's going to be a bloodbath at Mandai Lake once the sun goes down tonight...

Strangely, I feel happy for the tomans...

It's not often that they have a buffet spread of delicious catfishes...

Back To Mars

Got tired of catching Temensis lately...

Was contemplating whether to go Spot Sadako or Mars last night.
Both are Giant Snakehead spots.

Eventually, I chose the latter as it has a close relation with my Project V5 which is currently in the works.

Made my way there this morning and the drizzle turned into a full-fledged thunderstorm with blinding bolts of lightning and deafening thunders.

I remained inside Joe until the merciless rain died down after a short while.

Thankfully, the thunderstorm had left as soon as it came.

To be frank, I would have donned a raincoat and went in even if the hurricane continued.

Ling will be furious if she knew...

lol

Jason came with a friend and after we were done with our matters, he kindly invited me to his spot which I rejected.

Not that I have any issues with him or his friend but it was planned to be a solo session and I would like to keep it that way.
There are some things I would like to get done without any company.

He with his friend, me alone.

Arranged to rendezvous back at our parking spot at 10am, we parted ways and he seemed worried that I'm going in all by myself, to a remote place where even he does not know about.
lol

There are indeed some dangers in going solo.
Poisonous snakes, injuries, crocodiles, ghosts, vampires, etc.

But nothing beats the tranquility and freedom in fishing alone...

After much trekking and bashing, I finally arrived at the fishing hole and spotted some surface commotion.

Casted my minnows and got these hungry juveniles:

No sign of any parent guarding them though...
When they reached this stage of growth, the parents would most likely have left them to fend for themselves.

Went to the other end and repeated cast after cast, switching lures every now and then.

Suddenly, I noticed a familiar sight.

A toman had surfaced to take in ambient air (which they do every once in a while) betraying it's position.

Casted to about a metre behind it when I saw it made a diving U-turn after gulping air.

Twitched hard and wide to make my minnow dive deeper and seconds later, the freshwater apex predator initiated an attack on my lure pulling my rod violently.

Ahhhh...
It's been so long since I last had a tug-of-war with a Giant Snakehead...

I fought the fish for awhile on my 14lb setup while it endured and eventually subdued the toman's wild struggle and mad dashes for freedom.

Released it and the castings continued.

Enticed one to take a bite shortly after but it threw off my hook mere moments into the fight...

Managed to hookup one more but lost it in the process of lip-gripping...
It was also a good sized specimen.

No land, no count...

Contained my spilt milk sobbing and made my way along the shoreline, casting blindly towards the edge of the opposite bank as I walked along...

Some time later, a group of fries emerged from the vegetation across the bank.
They were spooked by my disturbance and had decided to swim out to relocate.

I grabbed the chance and casted repeatedly at the ball of crimson fries with lightning fast pace, hoping that the parent would be pissed enough to 'kill' my minnow.

Eventually, the parent fell for it and made a hard bite on my plastic bait.
lol

This toman was not only stronger than the one before, it was also way smarter.

It peeled line easily from my IS79UC reel which although rated at 4kg of maximum drag, I had only set it to approximately 2-3kg.

When the toman wore itself out from all the impressive dashes, I regained line and the moment when it was mere metres away from me, it suddenly made another final forceful dash to the vegetation below where I was standing.

My rod got bent into almost an 'U' and for a split second, I was convinced that it was going to snap in half...

My worries were unfounded as shown by the photos below:

Decided that I had enough fun for today and left the place.

Overshot the rendezvous time with Jason and his friend...
Sorry, guys.    lol

A little souvenir for me?

Teeth marks from the one that got away...

Project V5 - Commencement

After much thought, I decided to embark on a project.

Details will stay as a secret for now until it's final completion which will probably be weeks later.

When done, it's gonna be a blast...


Stay tune.

Short Time Solo

Went for a quickie session at Roxy at first light this morning.

Was drizzling on and off throughout.

Nothing spectacular but enough to cure the itch.

Left after the very short session.

Tried a new lure and was surprised by what it can do.
Too bad it's not suitable for Roxy.


Snap this primate on my way out:

Joe's remote got spoilt and I have to disconnect the external speaker under the bonnet to silence the alarm.

Drove back with blinking hazard lights, attracting many weird looks from other motorists.

lol

I think I have enough Temensis action for now.

Been fishing too much of these buggers lately.

That's the charm about Roxy.

Always trying to crack the code...

Time to go play with Giant Snakeheads.

I've been neglecting them...

Uncured Itch

No catches today at Roxy.
None.
Not me, nor Shun.

Zilch...

Shawn made the correct choice by holidaying at Desaru with his family.
Jason was right to have overslept.

A sight I often met but didn't have a chance to snap until this morning.

My hook had caught onto a huge fallen branch in the water and line was eventually snapped.

Lost about 10 metres of main line...

To compensate the loss of spool inertia resulting in shorter casting distance, I backed down the brakes from #1 to #0.5, eventually to zero.

This got me a much further casting distance compared to a full spool on brakes #1.

The difference of just a single click on the IS79UC is amazing!

Not recommended for baitcasting noobs though...

Thumb got worse from all the feathering:

It's getting worse...

With uncured itch, we headed to an old haunt of mine at Mandai and spotted a pair of adult tomans.

Repeated disturbance by Shun and me yielded no results.

Very soon, the wind picked up and water turned choppy.
No way to visually spot those tomans.

Moreover, the longer we stay there, risk of getting caught by PUB gets higher as well.

Toman or not, fishing while having to constantly look over your shoulders is no fun at all...

###############################################

Had a short chat with Shawn and it seems like he's having a fun time over the other side of the causeway.

Sensed that he's desperately in need of some fishing time.   lol


No catch photos today, made a fan poster instead:

Angling reveals a person's character faster than any other activities.

It also has a mystical effect to turn some grown men into bitchy teenage girls.

Some say: Imitation is a form of flattery.

I say: Go get yourself a life.

Biggie Temmy Papa!

Been visiting Roxy for the past couple of weeks.

Supposed to go with Shawn and Rong this morning when Shun wanted to tag along.

Rong pulled out due to his unsolved family issue and Shawn couldn't get his permit approved from his wife.

In the end, went with Shun.

First stupid thing happened when we trekked halfway in.
I forgot to lock the car...

Fast trekked back out and lock it, went back in missing first light...

Shun got the first fish of the day with his improvised rubber:

Chatted as we cast, sharing tips on this spot. 

My action picked up and landed 4 specimens at regular intervals.
2 more were lost right in front of my face when I was trying to lip grip them.

There were many missed strikes as well.

Shun remained optimistic and continued casting repeatedly.

Roxy's fishes are a smart bunch which only respond to a certain technique and lure movement.  

Finally, his effort paid off with a huge take.

For a moment, Shun was stunned as the monster peeled line from his old Shimano Calcutta.

He could only hold onto his rod/reel helplessly while the biggie made it's wild dash.

There was a moment when the line got slack suddenly and Shun thought that he had lost it.

Fortunately, he regained tension split seconds later.

After the first mad run, Shun began to pump his rod, gaining back some line:

Still bewildered by the huge violent take.

Pumping in the biggie.

Shun got more confident as the biggie wore itself out.

I went to Shun and got his lip gripper.

Once the monster got reeled in, I immediately grabbed the leader line and lip grip it.

The fish was massive!

The hook was thrown sometime during the fight and had luckily lodged itself into the monster's upper back.

It was a huge bull temensis:

The classic pose.

We took the fish to terra firma for further photo raping:

Bull was as long as Shun's leg.

75cm / 12lb of pure bull muscle.

Bump on head indicates that it's a breeding male specimen.

Parting shot before the release.

The above video was cropped to avoid flaming as it was shared on facebook in a fishing group.

When the fish was released back into the water, it was still stunned from the fight.

On top of it, we took longer than usual to put it back into the water.

This resulted in air getting into the fish's abdomen causing it to turn belly up in the water, unable to swim away.

I told Shun to retrieve the floating fish and worked my magic on it while Shun held it still.

When I'm done with it, the monster regained it's composure and swam away slowly...

Don't worry.
It'll live.

Death of a tree gave life to many others...

After the excitement worn off, I continued landing fish after fish.

Another 2 more were lost while I'm trying to put the gripper into their mouths.

Shun lost one in the same manner as well. 

3 more were landed by yours truly:

Fireworks in it's mouth.  lol

Shun suffered major backlashes twice and was forced to cut his braided line leaving him with less than half spool filled.

This reduced his casting distance dramatically.

We left shortly after his second backlash.

Me: Quantity

Shun: Quality

Another happy day at fishing for us both!

#################################################

Same day at night, Shawn, Shun, Ling and myself went to Andrew's.

We grabbed some lures and in addition, Shun got himself an IP79L reel.

Chatted for a while and left as happy men and bored woman.

Treasure your fishing spots while you can.

No spot can remain exclusive to one forever.

No bites doesn't mean no fish in the water.

Many bites doesn't mean you're a better angler.

Overzealous competitiveness not only kills the fun in fishing,

It ruins friendship as well.

Just some random nonsensical quotes. 

lol