Record Freshwater Catch!

Went to Spot Banana with ZH at first light this morning.

Upon arrival, saw a scene which disappoints me.

Another fishing buddy lost...

Shall not elaborate further but it made me an even more selfish angler.

Anyway, back to the events.

Caught nothing, not even a single bite.

Spot is almost dead due to some individuals who keep bringing groups of anglers there...

After countless casts, I went in deeper into the banana trees and joined ZH.

No action there as well...

Saw a monitor lizard circling around the area, sliding in the water looking for prey to feed on.

Was casting my dark colored Surface Cruiser when the lizard saw my lure.

It started to give chase and quickly, I retrieved my lure.

The large reptile made a few lazy bites at my lure which didn't connect.

At this point, I developed an evil thought...

Was trying to lure it closer to terrify ZH, who seemed to be rather afraid of it.   lol

Suddenly, it made a quick dash in the water and snapped!

I was stunned at this lightning fast maneuver.

Met countless water monitors when fishing, they have always been slow and seemed to know that our lures are artificial.

At the most, they'll swim close enough and investigate without attacking.

They seem to be smart enough to know that lures are not food.

This is my first encounter with a monitor lizard aggressive enough (or stupid?) to attack my lure.

And a rather huge one that is...

Lure still hanging from it's upper jaw

At the very moment it took my lure, lizard dived and dashed once it felt resistant from my tight line.

The strength from it was unlike any other monster I caught before.

Not much shakes but the pull... I will never forget it...

Could only held on to my NRX, not able to do anything, allowing it to peel line off my reel.

It's initial dash was crazy...

Pulls line off my Ryoga like nobody's business...

At one point, It attempted to crawl onto land on my far right.

I immediately thumbed my spool hard and pulled it back into the water.

This is the moment when I prayed to myself that everything hold.

Knots, terminals, line, rod.

Soon, it wore itself out with all the wild thrashings as I pulled it close.

I passed my rod to ZH and proceeded to lip grip the monster.

ZH was kind enough to let me use his cheapo lip grip fearing that I might lose my expensive boga to this beast.

What to do now??

Of course, the smart thing to do is to cut line and forgo my surface cruiser.

But that lure was one of my favorite (and expensive!), there's no way I'm going to sacrifice it!

Moreover, I don't think leaving it stuck in the lizard's mouth is a good idea.

They are not like fishes which can perform vigorous headshakes to dislodge the hook.

WTF?! Pliers so small!!!

Next thing is to remove the hooks.

Once again, the very kind ZH passed me his pliers.
Very small pliers indeed...

The lizard was hissing menacingly as I was removing the hooks from it's jaw.

Thankfully, the procedure was rather quick and the lizard did not attempt to eat my hand.

More photos:

Tried pulling it up on land but failed as it was too heavy!

I had actually tried to pull it up on land to take better photos (against ZH's protests) but it was simply too heavy.
Also, the standing area that we're on is extremely small.
No way to accommodate 2 grown men and a huge angry lizard.

This beast is well over 20kg!!

Fearing that I might injure it's jaws, I let it went free...

Here's a video showing the later segment of the crazy fight:





We left after a short while later.
No fish... Only 1 big hissing man-eating lizard...

Went to a prata shop at Thomson to have breakfast, then to a hardware shop at Toa Payoh Lorong 1 to buy new water boots.
Current one stinks like hell!

Chatted for awhile and left for home.

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Went to Lower Seletar Reservoir at 3pm to join my other 3 colleagues who were there to catch yabbies.

Yabbies are freshwater mini lobsters.

They recently started a craze over this activity...

One of them had also purchased a baitcasting gear recently and wanted me to guide him casting it.

Once I arrived, I saw yet another water monitor.

This one is much smaller and skinnier.

It's eating a tilapia which it had caught earlier on.

For the first time, I tried my hands on catching those darn yabbies.

It's actually not easy to get hookups.

Out of 20 attempts, only 1 will succeed.

After some time, my stubbornness paid off and I caught the largest of all!

My very first yabby!

The haul

Went home slightly over 7pm.
Dog tired...

Showered and went for my favorite porridge near my home at Tiong Bahru.

Went and fetched Ling who went for her company's outing to USS.




Couldn't forget the lizard...