Catch report 16 Jun 07

After a long break, I finally went down to Bedok Jetty today. At first, it looked set to be a hot sunny day, but then the clouds started to build up, and it was a rainy one instead. The catch was slow too... at where I was, about halfway up the jetty, people were landing tambans at the rate of less than five in an hour.

As I didn't buy any prawns for use as bait, I got down to jigging for tambans, and was quite bored with the slow catch rate. I did manage to catch a whiting on tamban hooks, which I used as bait and floated it out. But I didn't catch anything with that.

While jigging for tambans (caught a total of five), I managed to catch a wolf herring (about 25cm long) and a small little trevally. Someone else caught a baby queenfish on tamban hooks too. Otherwise, no one seemed to have caught anything big in the morning. There was a sea bass floating in the water, it seemed half dead and no one really bothered to try to catch it.

1 Jan 2007 - Eeltail Catfish

New Year Day was spent at the little jetty near Amber Beacon at East Coast Park. I had some prawns and squid leftover from previous fishing trips, and I really wanted to use them up as it was a waste to throw them away. I caught this little eeltail catfish on handline. It was similar in size to a previous catch. The sea bottom around this area is not really good... the last time I went, I had to cut away my lines twice because they got caught on something at the bottom. Similarly, I had to cut my line again today. It is such a waste of line, hooks, weights and swivels.

24 Dec 2006 - Catfish

Caught this little marine catfish while fishing in the rain. Yes, it is the monsoon season, it rains almost daily, but my fishing itch got the better of me. So I went out to the sea wall beside SAF Yacht Club (just outside Changi Naval Base), hooked up an apollo rig with squid meat, and cast. The fight was short but still better than nothing. I didn't stay long, though. It was raining and I didn't want to risk a cold. Also, there were other people around fishing, and my poor casting skills meant I keep crossing lines with other people. So I decided to call it a day after less than two hours. By the way, the catfish was released back to the sea.

25 Nov 2006 - Catfish

Caught this catfish during my night fishing trip at Bedok Jetty. It was caught using prawn meat on a paternoster rig. It was a slow night at the jetty, nothing significant caught, though there was a BIG fish swimming under the jetty. The fish was around 1m long, looked like a sea bass from up where I was at the jetty. It was swimming around attacking the schools of small fishes swimming under the jetty. Another man and I were trying our best to get it to bite onto our baits, but it seems that the fish was too clever for us.

10 Oct 2006 - Kochi

This fish, known as kochi in Japanese, is similar to a flathead. It was caught during my trip to Etajima, but we did not bring it home. The fish was caught and released. It was caught on the rig used to catch gizami.

10 Oct 2006 - Etajima Catches

These fishes were caught at Etajima, which is an island in Hiroshima Prefecture of Japan. I went to visit my ex-landlord and landlady with my wife, and we went fishing with my ex-landlord. The three of us caught these fishes using a surf rig provided by my landlord. The fishes are mostly kyusen (locally known as gizami, a kind of rainbowfish), though there were also two kisu (a kind of whiting/sillago) caught. The rig used was a rig specifically designed to catch gizami, and I was told by my landlord that you can buy this rig at Japanese fishing shops. The bait used was a type of beach worm called isome. The ones with strips are the male fishes, the ones with greenish-blue spots are the female ones. Apparently, they are a delicacy in the western part of Japan.

21 Oct 2006 - Garfish

This garfish was caught at Bedok Jetty (BJT). It is a common type of fish found in the waters around BJT, and the local name is "todak". They can usually be seen from the jetty patrolling the waters around the jetty, staying near the surface. This garfish was caught using prawn meat, with a hook tied to a float (and therefore the bait was floating near the surface).

29 July 2006 - Flathead

This is a flathead caught at Bedok Jetty, using handline, tied to a hook with a running sinker. The bait used was tamban meat. The flathead actually swallowed the hook quite deeply, going as far as swallowing the running sinker too! Talk about a greedy fish...

8 July 2006 - Queenfish

My first significant catch ever. This is a queenfish that I caught at Bedok Jetty. Nothing really big, but it was my first catch other than baitfish. The rig used was a paternoster rig, the bait used was cut up tamban meat.

22 July 2006 - Golden Trevally

This small, palm-sized golden trevally was caught at Bedok Jetty (BJT) using whiting rig too. The bait used was tamban meat. Tamban is a type of baitfish very easily jigged for at BJT. Most anglers at BJT would jig for tamban for use as baits to land bigger fishes there.

29 July 2006 - Small Puffer

This puffer was caught at Bedok Jetty (BJT in short) using tamban (a type of baitfish) meat and whiting rig (basically, a paternoster rig with three hooks instead of the usual two.)