CR: Nick's Chermin and StingRay Alley

Note: Ripped from FK.com

No Long story or creatively edited pix here(well, at least not so much).
Tired la. haha

Me n Propunk were supposed to be fishing at ECP. Shortly after confirming, Nick called me and said if wanna go his spot, dubbed "Nick's Chermin & StingRay Alley". He had caught a 1kg+ Leopard Ray. So with that we decided to go there instead. My bro ended up joining me, his fourth fishing trip. (All previous trips he got first catch).

When we reached there, some other guys had caught a est 1kg Chermin.

At about 12, Nick caught a nice sized flathead.

Malau joined us at about 1o'clock. And that's when the stingray's started biting. Nick and I had double hookups with... 200gram stingrays... haha. About a while later I got another one.

At about 5.30pm, my bro was reeling in with his rod when he felt like it was sangkut, so he put it down and came to see what I was doing. When i saw that his line was slack I told him maybe got fish liao. But then he said it was because he had reeled it in halfway cuz it was sangkut. So I told him to go try again. He said still cannot move so I took the rod and gave it a hard tug. About a half a metre of line suddenly came out.

And I was like, "KNN Got Fish!!!!". So I passed the rod back to him. But he was reeling in the bugger the wrong way but when i tried to tell him, my words came out in incoherent bursts! haha.. I was stunned. That's when ProPunk took over and he asked me, are your rigs reliable?

I said yes although I was worried about the hooks.

The ray was landed in about 5 minutes. (Nearby oni)

My bro was friggin happy man.. haha...

The bugger had swollowed the circle hook until it was very deep.

Hook: Mustad Light Gauge Circle Hook from Gotham event... hehe...


Nick's catch:


My bro's Stingray:


My bro and his Stingray:


Mustad Light Gauge Circle Hook:

SpotX

Our 2 members that make us who we are went fishing the other day at one of their friend's secret spot.

Vin -> Our CO...
Malau -> Our man who makes us the lorry gang and not any other gang.

Forgot to post picture... :p

Nick and his GT

CR: LG Training Camp

Lorry Gang Secret Training Camp

Attendees:
BlueStream
Icebomb
Gary Lim
Malau
Nick
Oldman
Vin Tan

Location:
See heading

Time:
07:00hrs Day 1 -> 12:00hrs Day 2

For me, the day started the night before as I couldn't sleep properly. Days spent tying rigs during classes, had left me a great deal of choice in the rigs that i wanted to bring.

And so the day began...

I woke up at about 4am on DDay, reeling from the lack of sleep, yet happy to get up.

I proceeded to the designated pick up point with my FBO plus 10 extra size 2 and 3 sinkers each under the assumption that we would be hitting a lot of snags. Not to mention 20 size 2 and 3 sinkers that Ice had asked me to buy.

Our spirits were high as we made our way to the spot.

When we arrived, we saw that we had the whole place to ourselves.

Everybody quickly unpacked and soon most of our rods were standing proud and tall. No pun intended. :D:P

It was about noon on the first day when I heard my 12ft rod begin to release out line. Then it began to bend till it almost bent 90° but the line wasn't coming out fast enough to ease the strain on the rod and it was already at the lowest possible drag. So, not knowing what it was, I struck figuring if it was some kind of sea creature, I could foul hook it. And if there wasn't any, it was time to change the bait anyway and I always strike before changing baits. :D

Wham! It was like striking against a brick wall. With max drag on, line would occasionally peel off the reel. But there was no feeling. None of that brilliant twitching that you get with a fish on. And relatively speaking, the line was coming in rather easily. So it was unlikely that it was a fish.

And indeed it wasn't. It was the biggest clump of seaweed I'd ever seen, stuck all over the legs of my home-made anti-sangkut grip sinker.

Then my other 9ft rod began to do the same thing. Annoyed that I was probably going to be occupied with removing seaweed for the rest of the day, I rebaited up my 12ft rod, ignored the 9ft rod, and took my remaining two rods, both 6ft, to another location.

Gary had also by now had 2 sangkuts at almost the same spot as me.

Almost everyone else, save for Vin, had by now shifted to another spot. Nick also had cast out his medium light action rod already while he netcasted for baitfish.

It wasn't long before Gary caught a flathead on dead prawns.

While wading through the relatively shallow waters at this new spot, I spotted a half eaten fish, rotting in the water. It looked a bit like an Ang Chor Kee est at around 500 grams. Before it was eaten of course.

Intrigued that I might find more of them, I waded around a litlle more. And indeed I did find some interesting stuff. There were a number of crab claws that littered the sea bed that were big enough to eat. But, I passed. :P

I also found another half eaten Ang-Chor-like fish est at around 400 grams.

While I stood there wondering what happened here and more importantly, if any of their parents or relatives were still around, I noticed a baby stingray right next to my feet. It had a dark cobalt skin and it wasn't moving so I figured it was dead.

So I tried to scare it away with my foot but it didn't move. It really was dead. It didn't actually "look" like it though..

Nick had just finished his run in getting some bait and was about to do some distance casting with his 6ft rod. As he so well put it, he walks the distance to cast. He walked out about 30-40 metres as it was still relatively shallow(at this point we also realised just how shallow the waters that we cast at were).

As he was walking back after his distancecasting, releasing line as he went along, before he could even put the rod into the rod holder or adjust the drag, he felt a heavy take. Since he was using circle hooks, he didn't need to strike.

As Nick experienced it:

So I just followed where the unidentified object was taking me. It took me for a ride alright, all this while I was releasing the drag bit by bit. There was never a let up in it's pulling power. I thought to myself, "Siao liao. I finally met my match... I used to muscle my fish up but now it's payback time....." My first thought was that a big tree trunk could have taken my rig coz if it was a fish there should have been some let up in the run....but with current on its side, I was at a disadvantage....my reel was still screeching....rod bending....simply kinda impossible to reel back this missle....funny thing is that it never changed gear....it just raced all the way.... I had to navigate the water n also over the rest of the kakis lines that were still in the water. It was like a water obstacle course...when I walked to the point of the water breaker, I knew tua kee oredi coz once it goes beyond that i can kiss good bye to the runaway train. bcoz the current is horrendous it makes a sharp turn to the right parallel of the breaker. Then it happened my line was snagged just before the breaker while .the missle itself had gone beyond it. Vin was standing just on the breaker n I knew I couldn't go any further myself for fear of being swept away n bro Gary also warned me of a drop off that he had spotted. So I handed the rod to Bro Vin to carry on the fight....I physically removed the snag... By then, the missle has gone down with the current.... Then the unthinkable happened... another snag... this time it was on the outside of the breaker, where the really strong current was.... Vin tried getting it out but was afraid that my 15lb line and my 9.80 surecatch rod and my boisterous reel would not be able to take the punishment. So he stuck the rod in a hole in the breaker and wasted. Everyone else had by now also come to see the action. I was still on the (safe side) of the breaker when i saw the "live-net" stuck on the sand, left behind by the fast receding waters after only 10 minutes. It was quite a distance away and not wanting to miss any action, I raced to put it back in the water. Then I heard someone yelling. Not loudly at first. Then more voices chimed in. Then there were cheers. "Nick! Nick! Come and see!! It's a Golden Trevally!!" At first I thought they were pulling my leg.. But then, as I got closer to the breaker, to my surprise, I was like, "OMG. That's a nice big fish". I just wanna say, "Thanks to all for the support n help in the process of bringing the fish up".

A boga was brought in to weigh the bugger and it weighed in at about 3KG. It was a surprising catch.

By now I was rushing frantically to find any rig that I had premade that was similar to Nick's but alas there was none that felt close enough. I always have this problem. Whatever rig I tie, I can never find one that feels right. Even if it's one I've used before.

I made a new rig and tried my luck with the exact same bait as Nick's, a 5cm fish that looked like a wah bik. But luck was not with me.

Nick at this point in time was walking his fish. Literally. He had stuck a clip through the bugger and was walking in the sea, looking for a place to park his dog, er, fish. haha...

There were some brilliant takes and as usual, Gary's rod had one super take which gave the sweet sound of a blisteringly fast turning spool. Unfortunately, I was fast asleep in my chair since Ice had sneakily took over my hammock after I went for my pee break.

Vin also caught 8 groupers. They weren't big enough to warrant “damaging” this spot though so although it was big enough to eat, he released 'em.

Then there was the event where Malau's line went slack. But when he tried to tighten up, there was this humongous take that made his reel scream. He was stumped. By the time he regained his composure, the fish had hit a snag. We spent a long time with both playing the waiting game and using brute force but alas the fish never close enough to the surface for us to have a look and the line unfortunately snapped on one of our brute force attempts.

Early in the morning of day 2, irritated that my one and only bubu had not caught anything, I walked out to the same spot where nick had caught his GT and began looking for crabs. I found a flower crab and whacked the bugger with my bubu.

Score 1 for the bubu.

Apart from those earlier groupers, Vin had also caught and released about 4 parrot fish that he had caught while I was BuBuWhacking... :p

Later on, we had a nice BBQ with the rest of the catches (comparitively negligible - after Nick's catch) including some crabs that Nick had caught in his bubu(really caught, unlike mine).

Gary's flathead was tasty too. As was the coconut juice that we squeezed from some coconuts that we had found.

While we were relaxing and some of us were playing Dai Dee, we saw "The Others" coming. No fish were caught by them as at when we left. heehee. :D

The completion of yet another fun trip. :D

Vin's Secret Spot

Attendees:
Dewycath (also was camerawoman)
Weiyee
Leatham
Vin's Brother
Vin's Son

from lorry gang:
Vin Tan
Gary Lim
BlueStream

Location:
Secret spot.

Time:
Whole Day.

Date:
5 Nov 2005

Caution: Events depicted are from Author's POV... Do add on ur own experience if i missed out anything..

EXtracted FROM FishingKaki.COM

We reached Vin's spot at around 8.30 in the morning.

As always, Vin and I were the first to set up our rods and we both casted out in the same direction with our medium heavy tackle. Right in the middle. straught out to sea. Then I went to set up my next rod. My BC set with my new Cardiff 300.

Pretty soon, everyone had their rods(and handlines) set up, except Gary who was teaching dewycath how to ties rigs. I had three rods out, facing right, left and center....

Then we saw Vin's Brother walking to us, Ah Seng in hand(or on line).

Then Vin came forward with two keep nets. One for the "Good fish", and the other for the "Ugly/Bad/Hated/Unwanted/Ugly/Irritating/Ugly" fish. I don need to tell you where that sucker went.. [picture not included cuz it would be unfair to the tons of other ah seng that we also caught. favouritism is bad.]


While we were all talking about this "omen", another "omen" decided to show itself. Blasted rain.. We saw it about a few clicks away from us. Dark clouds.. Real dark clouds.. That's when Vin saw some Kim Kor near to where we were. He took his spool of light line and put a split shot on the line and tied it off with a super duper tiny hook and planted some bread(Gardenia if you must know), and let it fly.

Vin's son and Weiyee also decided to get it on the "action".

Then we heard it.. The sweet, beautiful sound of a ringing bell(Vin's bro didn't use a bell).

We all looked up and eagerly around trying to find out whose bell it was(which reminds me of my idea for diff pitched bells ).

Ding-ding... a bell rang again.. This time we caught sight of whose it was.

Leatham quickly got up and dashed to his rod's "aid".

He tightened the line and aimed his rod downwards and waited.

Wait for it. Wait for it.. STRIKE!!! We had a fish on!!

Then we saw this reddish object in the water. When it was near, we saw that it was a Red Snapper.

Pictures were taken and smiles were apparent on our faces. The earlier "omen" of that oh so Ugly/Bad/Hated/Unwanted/Ugly/Irritating/Ugly Ah Seng, and the rain (which never fully came, was drizzling oni) was now nullified.

Then, Vin's bro suddenly got up and went to check his rod, and held it at strike position.

Strike!!!

"Fish on bo?" we asked..

A quick head nod brought us to our feet, eager to see if yet another "omen" would appear as if to nullify Leatham's catch. We again saw a reddish object in the water... Another Red Snapper..

Our casts now had renewed vigour.. I don mind telling you, I had one "bee hoon" incident because of that vigor..


About ten minutes on, Vin landed a Kim Kor..[this picture included]

Half an hour had passed since Vin landed that Kim Kor.. Vin, his son, and Weiyee were still dolling around with their light lines and the Kim Kor when we saw dewycath holding her rod, a brand new virgin Cherrywood that she had won at the "FK Fun Fishing Day", in strike position. Strike!!!

After a short "struggle", a nice sized Gao Bu was landed. Congratulations to dewycath cause that was her first catch. Unfortunately, in all the excitement, we forgot to photo the photographer herself...

All I can say is sorry, but don worry cause there will be more catches.. My first catch ever was a Belukang.. lol..

Pretty soon after that, we heard another bell. This time it was my BC with the still virgin Cardiff.

Being the kiasu nut that i am, i "walked briskly" over to my rod and got ready to strike. When I felt the bite, I whacked the bugger upside down. Then just to be on the safe side, i striked again..

Boy was i disappointed that i went through all that trouble just to land, a catfish.. A species that i had caught before but knew nothing about, including it's name. Well I consoled myself that at least it wasn't a tiny one.

Some time had past now, Weiyee and Vin's Son had both by now landed a Kim Kor each.

My other light spinning rod(at the other end) began to get taps. I walked over and did my stuff and striked. Another Red Snapper..

Shortly after i had kept-netted the bugger and recasted out my tackle, i had some bites on my other, BC rod again...
Landed an Ah Seng..

Almost instantly after throwing the bugger in to the "Ugly/Bad/Hated/Unwanted/Ugly/Irritating/Ugly" keep net, my light rod began to "nod" again...

Yet another Ah Seng...

Anywayz, to cut the story short, well, shorter... We landed lotsa lotsa Sengs..

Remaining part of the CR:
All of us contributed to so many Ah Sengs that we probably could've fed a small family for like a week. Assuming they even liked eating it of course.
I landed another Red Snapper as did Leatham.
Vin's son landed a fish that apparently we all forgot what was called.
I landed ONE gurama.. That's right ONE...
Vin landed another Red Snapper... along with a bucket...
I caught a stingray, and regardles of how tiny it was, it "washed" my rod and reel of the catfish filth that would've otherwise cursed me and that rod for ever.. lol
Vin's bro got a orange spotted grouper.

Gary's medium-heavy duty rod a very nice take.
As did my rod with the medium heavy tackle.

Neither produced any fish... It was a hit and run as we explained it...


Some ppl who were at the spot with us also had some nice action. This guy's huge Surecatch reel suddenly took off.. BZZBZZBZZBZZ.. and his rod was bending back and forth like siao. Unfortunately, by the time he got to his rod, the fish had "left the building".

Also, I'd like to say that it was a little disturbing putting so many vader faces on the pix... I hereby vow to use another face next time..

We all had an interesting and fun time that day.

Thanks Vin.

Cheers.

And here's to all those ppl who give up on spots because they only catch Ah Sengs. Among Ah Sengs may rest, erm, other better fish...

Pontoon Spot

Not much details to this trip. Just that this spot turned out to be very near to my "literal" playground. A place that i had been playing in and found about 2-3 years back. I know, I'm childish!! haha... I don't regret it one bit though. Those were fun times.. :D

Met the guys in the morning. Had breakfast and then went to SM Tackle to get me a new rod after my last one had broke(on that damn boat trip). All on my own dime.. Which is why I'm broke... :p

Long story short, we reached the spot at around 2. Met malau who it seems was already there.

Within half an hour, we all had bites. Gary caught a 150 gram Ang Cho Kee while i caught a 220 gram Ang Cho Kee on my virgin rod that i had just bought.. :D

Talk about luck man.. :D

Nothing much to say except that Ice wasn't there because we didn't tell him so as not to distract him from his studies(He's taking his O's this year).

Malau and I also had some very very strong bites on his 7 month old virgin rod and on my 68ft rod with a Penn 310 GTI multiplier. My rod was like bending like the number 7. But by the time i had got there, it was gone.

Later on, Malau caught a nice sized flathead and a small ray.

Bites on Vin's and Malau's new super bait were registered at zero.

Oldman also returned from his luring with no fish but with some new and interesting information on that place..

We went home around evening, feeling confident that we had finally found somewhere to call our own.

FusionStream, out.

James Boat trip - organised by Vin

This little event actually started from the day before.

When Ice and me decided to go to Vin's spot in the afternoon, followed by an overnight stint at Changi Boardwalk, followed by a boat trip the next day. The 48 hour Fishing marathon you may call it.

I'd done it before. Once.. The results was cuts all over my feet done by barnacles.
This time however, the second leg of the trip was going to be on a boat with the Lorry Gang. So i was to be safe from barnacles.

The day before's escapade produced no fish. At least, Vin's spot had some action. Changi boardwalk however, was dead. No surface action. No nothing.

Prawnstar was there. He also turned out to be my schoolmate, Alex.

Malau was also there but he had to leave early because he was working the next day

Chatted a bit with the guys and realised it was the first time i had fished with Nick since we realised we were neighbours about a year back.

All in all, the day was really uneventful except for when Ice decided he liked my biscuits very much. And I'm talking about real edible biscuits here, not.... the other thing... or things... :p

Long story short, Ice and I were spent by the the next morning when we were to have our boat trip. While we waited more than half an hour for the bus that would take us to Bedok Interchange where we would take yet another bus to Sengkang where we were supposed to meet Vin who would tumpang us to Punggol Marina, Ice and I chatted with Nick on our past fishing experiences.

In the end, Ice and I knew we were gonna be so late that we told Vin not to wait for us and we alighted off the bus halfway to Sengkang and took a cab the rest of the way to Punggol marina where the boat we were going to take was berthed.

We ended up reaching the place before Vin and gang.. wahaha...

Total headcount for that boat trip was at 6 with Vin, Gary, Oldman, Ice, and me plus a "replacement" for malau who couldn't make it named, Theone (pronounced Theeee-on).

We left the docks about 10 minutes off schedule. All of us had a good feeling about this trip. The same good feeling that we had for all our other empty trips it would seem. :p

James, the owner of the boat seemed like a nice guy as he welcomes us on to the boat. His boat war rather small for our group. If everyone was sitting down at one area, it would've been ok. But as we all had only just got on, it was a little cramped. The "roof" also was relatively low so all the rods had to be sticking out of the boat more or less for the whole trip.

We set off to a kelong where we would get some prawns for bait while i "kiasu-ly" began to set up my rod while the boat was still bumping away on the waves. By the time we reached the kelong, I was ready. :p

I stuck on a prawn to my rig and proceeded to set up my other rod which was going to have a floater with a dead mullet 1 metre away from the float. Stinky, dead mullet. Gooey, stinky, and dead mullet.

We reached our first spot within an hour. Gary and I casted our our floaters as far as we could. And then the rest of us casted out paternosters and sinkers.

Then we heard it. A distant boom in the sky. As we all faced the direction of the source, we saw these huge, gray and ominous clouds. Si beh cialat we all said. All but 3 of our trips always saw rain. Granted it was the monsoon season, but the sheer "uncannyness" of which days it actually rained and the days we had our trips, it was very very odd.

We had a few small bites here and there but all in all, we didn't catch nuts. The boatman didn't change spots until the rain had stopped though. About 45 minutes later, the rain quietened down and Vin asked James if we could shift to a post near Hyundai. So off we went.

About 5 minutes in, as we were going to the new spot, our speeding boat suddenly stopped, jerking us all forward and nearly making us fall down. Then James cut power to the engine and proceeded to check the propellers. Apparently, we had hit a "leng", or "fishing net".

James gave it an all-Ok and we set off again to the spot near Hyundai.

We reached the spot. Gary and I casted out our floaters which, seriously floated.... way too far.. lol...

Then we realised that this place was damn familiar. Fucking hell!!! It was the spot that we all had talked about recceing during our "haunted" trip. It was a little offshore from the place labeled "Island". Refer here. Nah behz.. I also realised i had been to this spot before, on my very first boat trip, with some pretty good results.

So i casted out but i kept getting sangkut-ed... Nah behz.. I had only just respooled my reel with some Navis 12lb line.. I was afraid the line would eventually snap after all that streching. So i was getting sick of all this tugging and pulling so when i reeled up my rigs to replace the prawns, i let it down to about a foot off the seabed.

Imagine my surprise when i began to get bites. But time after time again, i missed the hookup. Everybody saw how frustrated i was getting so Gary asked if i wanted some of his hooks citing that maybe my hooks were either too big or not sharp enough. Although i had my own hooks, trying his out seemed somehow, better.. lol..

So i tied a 2 hook paternoster with Gary hooks that seemed to be around a size 4. Again, i let it down till about a foot off the sea bed. This time when i got a bite, i managed to hook the sucker up. It was a, as the locals (and me) know it, an Arumugam around the 200 gram mark. Finally satisfied that i was getting something, i rebaited my rig and cast it down again.

I got a strong pull. I struck. Then suddenly line started peeling off my reel. And then it stopped. It was stuck fast. Damn i tot. Some fish must have took my bait then ran into some snag..

I tot the fish was lost. But then i felt some movement from the other end of the line so i tried to strike again. It was stuck fast now. Thinking it was a ray, i slowly waited and pulled and had a tug-of-war with whatever was down there.

It was tiring work. I had battled with whatever was down there for almost 15 minutes now. Oldman didn't think it was a fish. I'd agree with him but he believed it was just a sangkut. Whatever it was, it wasn't a snag i can tell u that. The sucker started taking out line as i was reeling him back at one point.

Then it happened, and i was left dumbfounded, and blur, and even more groggy since i had stayed up all night.

PIAK!!! My rod broke!!! Just above the second joint. For a moment, i stood there dumbfounded and i continued to reel in my line. BIG MISTAKE. Without the tip of the rod to absorb the tension, the line was withstanding some serious pressure. Within about ten seconds, i began to realise what i had done but by then it was too late. I suddenly felt no more tension. The line had snapped. I stood there looking dejected. I had just broke a barely one week old fishing rod that i had bought at around $50 as a replacement for the exact same type of fishing rod that had broke almost a week earlier.




I totally gave up. I went to tie another rig but slowly.. I had totally give up for the rest of the day. After a while and a few more Arumugams from the other guys, James decided to change spots. It was line's up for the rest of them and Gary and me reeled in our floaters. James pulled up the anchor and we were off to the next spot.

About 2 minutes in, we suddenly stopped. Then we started again. But we stopped again. Something was obviously wrong with the boat. After a few starts and stops, James came down and went to check the propeller. Apparently, that hit we took earlier from that "leng" had done some serious damage because he said that we couldn't move anymore. The propeller had been damaged to an extent that no matter how hard it turned, we would only be able to move very slowly and that would also burn a lot of fuel.

So he called the guys at Punggol Marina.

We had to wait like almost an hour for the "rescue boat" to arrive. The boatman though, graciously tried to maneuver us to a spot where we could at least continue to fish while waiting for the "rescue boat".

I did a little trolling here and there, mainly just to get the bait torn off the hook. Cleaning the tackle as we anglers call it.

When the rescue boat finally did arrive, it took them about another 2 hours to tow us back. The speed was painfully slow. Gary did some trolling himself but instead of using bait, he was using a lure.

Vin called malau who was back from his work and asked if he'd like to do some fishing since we wouldn't be fishing on James' boat that day anymore. Malau said ok..

At the end of it all, we ended up going to PPP to fish but nobody actually did that. All of us just went there for a look see. Each of us paid James about $18 instead of the full $60. He actually said that we didn't need to pay but Vin insisted that we wouldn't mind. With hindsight, it was a very generous thing to do. Well, maybe not very.

Oh well.. We live to fight another day....

The "monster" that i hooked up with Gary's magic-hooks(as we now call them as they also caught some fish in other trips when all the others couldn't) was assumed and estimated to be about a 10 kg Stingray or a really big "swimming" stone if u get what i mean. lol

EDIT: On another fishing trip, i saw outside a tackle shop, the exact same type of rod, in the trash, also broken. This rod is the Shakespeare connoisseur. This rod is damn lousy man. Don't ever buy it.

This is the blog for the Lorry Gang.. Soon to be updated....

This blog is supposed to hold the "view" of the members of the Lorry Gang. And not just me.. So this may take some time..

Cheers.