The Saltwater Fishing Encounter | FishingAdvNHF

    Since the day I picked up the fishing rod again I had many fishing kakis (buddies) who comes and goes, it is either due to work or due to other commitments and sometimes the human factors, good relationship turned sour as a results of lies and betrayals and when you found out that the buddy you trusted all the while was taking advantage of you in many ways especially in monetary, for me that's the time to say goodbye. Ken, the guy who brought me back to fishing (Check the story out here) is one of them.

    In late 1995 I quit the Holiday company I worked for 6 months together with Ken, we were given a better offer by this rival company and were promised for a managerial position. Who would reject a double salary increment and a higher authorities position? Me and Ken reported to the new company although our ex-boss trying his best to keep us. On the first day I met Lawrence and Ann, a couple that worked in the same ex-company. Lawrence is a Baba or Chinese Peranakan to be precious, he was a former SIA chief steward and he don't speak much mandarin. Ann was a former accountant in a law firm and she seems to know many super wealthy men, she is pure Chinese though.

    When I was at the previous company I rarely had conversation with them, as I spoke broken English back then and they are like Caucasian to me. The new company had only twelve staffs in the sales team, me included. You must be curious how a guy who spoke broken English can manage to do sales in Singapore? Well, I am fluent in Mandarin and I write in Chinese too and I scored A1 in my GCE O' Level, that made me highly sought after as not many in the sales team could do as good as me especially on handling the old Chinese customers, Tell you what, those customers love me so much that I was invited to their house in many occasions. So Lawrence came to me when he encountered difficulties in serving Chinese customers, Ann who was the accountant also came to me when she couldn't explain certain clauses in Chinese over the phone. And that was how it began and we became friends and started to hangout together after work.

    Ah Long, the Master in freshwater fishing rang Ken and asked us to join him for fishing, he found a new spot where he almost broke his record. Me and Ken were so excited and looking forward to join Ah Long later in the night. While we were puffing Lawrence came to us and asked us to join he and Ann for a drinks at his friend's newly opened Pub at Circular Road, as we had promised Ah Long to join him on the Toman hunt and we were more keen with the Toman rather than the ice cold beers and some hot chicks, we politely turned down Lawrence's invitation and promised him would drop by another day. When Lawrence found out that we were off for fishing he got excited too and asked if he could join us for fishing next time. It's quite funny that I was surrounded with anglers all the time and the best part was I didn't aware about it, we chatted on the topic and set a date for future outing, not on drinking but fishing.

    Our first date with Lawrence was still on the freshwater fishing as he requested. Lawrence told us he never tried it before and would love to find out more. We brought him to Lower Peirce Reservoir to let him tested out the water. Lawrence brought a 13 feet Telescopic rod which made Ken and my jaw dropped, in the end Ken lent him a shorter piece of fishing rod. We got some small live Koi fish for bait as this is not a spot for Mama Toman, the common species here are, Peacock Bass aka Emperor Fish, Featherbacks aka Knife Fish, Marbled Goby aka Soon Hock and of cause the Snakehead aka Toman. That night our scores were four Peacock Bass, one Featherbacks and one Snakehead. By the way, after the Neo Tiew trip Ken brought me to his favorite tackle shop at beach road and I bought the Shimano Aero Symetre 4000 and a Silstar 6 feet fishing rod, I couldn't remember the model of the rod as it was used for six months only and it was broken when it flew off from my Honda NSR while I was travelling at 130 kmh. In the later date I found out that the combo set I bought was marked-up $50 for Ken's commission.

    I was very curious on Lawrence's 13 footer telescopic fishing rod, why you needed such a long piece of rod with so much inconveniences, if you were fishing at a tight space i.e. with trees or thick bushes behind your back chances were your might be busy untangled the hook line rather than fishing. The Lower Peirce Reservoir that we fished that night which's illegal to fish and sometimes a short sprint was needed to take cover if the Rangers were spotted, I couldn't imagine running with that 13 feet and how to hide it was another issue, although it's a telescopic that could be shrunk to a shorter length, but to do it while running? By the way that 13 footer is from Shimano.

    At that time I knew nuts about Surf Casting and I haven't really went near to a beach although Singapore is surrounded by sea. My first love was freshwater Toman, the Snakehead and if you get to see me during that time you probably will see a Toman face. Ah Long the Master seems like hated the sea so much that he never suggested any saltwater fishing.

    After a few trips on the freshwater Lawrence suggested a fishing trip at the Pasir Ris Fishing Pond, he told us that his wife, Ann was not very pleased that she couldn't join us for fishing and she wanted to be there on the next fishing trip. In fact it's not that Lawrence didn't want to bring her on the freshwater fishing trip, Ann was the one that disliked the idea as she didn't want to be a blood donor for the mosquitoes and that's where the clean, bright with toilet facility Pasir Ris Fishing Pond could offer.

    And so I was here at the Pasir Ris Fishing Pond for the so called saltwater fishing, back then the pond had limited species, majority were Barramundi aka Kim Bak Loh and Mangrove Jack aka Qia Chor, sometimes there's Red Snapper and Grouper but those were the rare species. We paid $30 per fishing rod for a 12 hours session and Lawrence was so generous to pay for me and Ken, he said he was the one who invited us and Ann said we shouldn't pay for it as they earned much more than the two of us combined.

    Nothing much to brag about on this trip as me and Ken were bombarded with questions on the work, this place became our meeting ground on works in the future date. At the end of the session Lawrence had a Barramundi and Ann caught a Mangrove Jack.

    When I reached home I had some reading on the fishing magazine before sleep, I was searching for Surf Fishing topics as I was somehow amazed by the fight from the Barramundi and the Mangrove Jack and it triggered the long hidden memories of my Kukup trip in 1990.

    Woke up the next morning with the magazine on my chest, while laying on my bed I made the decision to visit the fishing tackle shop later, I wanted to get another rod for Surf Fishing. That afternoon at beach road.... Stay tuned for my visit at the Fishing tackle shop as I bought my first ever Surf Casting Fishing Rod. 

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