Malaysia Fishing Trip: Kong Kong River Boating | FishingAdvNHF

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    The day was Saturday 19th of April 2008, I received a call from my hometown childhood buddy, Sao Hui. He asked if I was available on Sunday which was the next day, they had arranged a boat fishing trip to the Kong Kong river. I remembered the last trip I went with them was years ago, during the last meet up we bragged about fishing and I told them to update me if there is any trip arranged. Without much hesitation I told him that I would be going, as I was not sure where was the place to meet up, Sau Hui said he will get Kok Siang another Pontian boy to guide me there.

    I woke up at around 4am on that day as I needed to reach the meeting point which was at the Taman Perling, Johor Bahru by 5:30am. I was told to look for a Shell Petrol Station there and Kok Siang would be there to bring me to the next meeting point. Everything went smoothly over at the Singapore and Malaysia custom clearance and I managed to reach there before 5:30am. There was no sight of Kok Siang and it was until 6:15am then he appeared, we were late.

   We managed to reach the next rallying point at 6:35am, it was just two streets away from where I was. Sao Hui was already there and without much delay we headed towards our destination to meet up with Xiao Lee, who was also the skipper and the guide. As we were late, Sao Hui rang Xiao Lee and asked him to pack some breakfast for three of us. Brief introduction on Xiao Lee, personally I don't know him, according to Sao Hui, Xiao Lee fished at the Kong Kong river almost twice a week and he knew the place like his back yard.

    Pre-arrangement was made by Xiao Lee with a fifteen footer fiber boat equipped with a Yamaha 30hp outboard motor standing by for us. There are a few boat rental companies here and their boats are always fully booked. Without prior booking, you might ended up at one of the seafood restaurant here wondering what to do next.

The Journey Begin

    We reached our destination at around 7am, the tide was rising and the weather was perfect. We loaded our gears onto the boat and sped off to a floating fish farm on the river to get some live prawns as bait. This place sold live seafood as well, some anglers came here to fill up their cooler box when the catch was bad. As soon as we got our baits we headed straight to the first spot.

Fish Farm on the River

Live Prawn was bought here

Village by the River Bank

    Beautiful scenery along the way as we approaching the river mouth, look at those houses built along the river bank, the vast greenery at the background made the place extremely peaceful. 

Heading out towards the River Mouth

The Incompleted Senai-Desaru Highway Bridge in 2008

    At the far side construction work for the Senai - Desaru Highway was underway, the bridge had help to cut short the traveling time from Johor Bahru to Desaru almost by half. Before it was built we had to travel all the way to Kota Tinggi in order to reach Desaru, now we can just en-route the new Senai - Desaru Highway from Ulu Tiram, which we can cross the Johor River via this bridge.

   We decided to begin our activities at the middle of the Johor River, water level here is quite shallow and it is also a reef zone which is home to the Grouper. As soon as the boat was anchored, we dropped our lively prawn deep down to the bottom. Current was not very strong here so we only needed a size four sinker to do the job. Bite was quite slow but we were not in the hurry as this was the first spot of the day.

The Reef Zone

    Kok Siang sat at the front side of the boat most of the time and yes, he was also our anchorman. He had been silent for the most part of the day and paying most of his attention on fishing. We were joking about he would definitely win the first trophy of the day and indeed he did, he rang the first bell of the day as he landed a Queenfish. It happened as we were chit-chating at the back, we saw Kok Siang suddenly whacked his rod and began to fight against something in the water.

    "Fish on?" The Skipper, Xiao Lee asked

    Kok Siang didn't reply, maybe he was too excited. He chose to pay all his focus on the fighting, it was a fierce fight with the fish dragging the fishing line from left to right.

    "Sam Poh Kong!" shouted Sao Hui as he saw the silver shadow of the fish swam across the surface.

    The Queefish aka Sam Poh Kong aka Talang is famous of giving a aggressive fight when it is hooked, it is a very strong and fast swimmer too.

    "Slowly! Patience!" Xiao Lee told Kok Siang

    For almost ten minutes we watched with excitement as the Queenie demonstrating it's excellent skill in swimming, dashing forward and backward with occasionally cutting through the surface. This desperate attempt to struggle off from the hook gave Kok Siang some hard time. Kok Siang kept his calm and slowly wearing off it's energy, he eventually landed the first trophy of the day, it was weighed around 800 grams.

Still Struggling Aggressively 

    "Here it comes!" Sao Hui suddenly stood up, lifting his rod and whacked it hard, Fish on!

The Marked Snapper

      Another exciting fish fighting scene when Sao Hui hooked up this Marked Snapper aka Ang Chor Kee, it was a powerful swimmer too and it took Sao Hui some struggle to bring the fish up.

    We spent an hour here and caught a numbers of small fishes, I hooked up a baby Sharks and a few small size Groupers. The Captain, Xiao Lee suggested that we moved on to the next spot as the tide was full and the current had slowed down. 

The Malay Eatery by the River Bank

    We came to this Malay Eatery which is built at the river bank here to have our lunch, many other anglers were here too. The place was so relax and having the lunch break here was convenience for us, our boat was docked just right in front of the Eatery. 

  

Towards the Mangrove Zone

    We set off to our second fishing spot after the lunch break, it was the Mangrove Zone that we were going to attack! As we proceeded, Xiao Lee asked if we would like to get some mud crabs at low price from the nearby Indigenous Malay Village on the river. Sau Hui immediately responded and off we went to the village.

The Indigenous Malay Village on the river

The Floating House

     There are six wooden floating house here, using some waste materials and some huge plastic containers as float, these wooden house were built in poor manner and I was amazed by the living condition here. The house was tied on to the strongest mangrove tree to prevent it from washed away by the current. The villagers here were all fishermen and livewell was constructed to keep their catch alive. We didn't manage to see many fishes that day, we were told that the catch was bad due to the rain. 

  

The Mud Crabs

    These big fat juicy mud crabs were sold at Malaysia Ringgit $16 per kilogram! We bought five kilogram of them for our dinner later.

Into the Mangrove Fishing Spot

    The Kong Kong River is around four kilometer in length, it is not a large river and it is not accessible during low tide. The river is surrounded by mangrove forest and it is a fishing paradise that is made famous by the huge Barramundi aka Kim Bak Loh caught here.

The Hunting Ground

Deep into the Mangrove Zone

    We were told by our captain cum fishing guide that loud talking was forbidden here, the Barramundi is very sensitive and they might be scared away if we were too noisy. As the matter of fact, most species do not like noise from the outside world and this is especially true when doing the fishing on a river. That is why some river anglers preferred Electric Trolling Motor, which emitted low noise on moving.  

    Live prawn was hooked and it was tossed near to the mangrove's root, it is the favorite hide out for the Barramundi. Xiao Lee shown off his skill by doing the live prawn spinning style, he removed the sinker and cast the bait to the spot, when the bait touched the surface he quickly reeled back. Twice we saw the Barramundi attacked the live prawn but too bad it missed the hook.

    The stint here was cut short as the Skipper thought that it was a bad omen to miss the fish twice here, he decided to retreat to the river mouth. According to him as the tide was receding there is a spot that we might had a chance to land some biggies, he said that some huge Barramundi might swim out from their nest and ambushed near the river mouth, they were waiting for their food to be flushed out by the out going tide. The water level inside here would be very shallow as well and the boat would get stuck here during the low tide, he added.

The Final Moment

    When we reached the spot the current had somehow weaken, none of us had any action until...

    "Fish on! Fish on!" Sau Hui suddenly shouted and it happened right after I pressed on the shutter and took that photo.

    

Tiger Grouper

    The spot here was shallow and it didn't take long for Sau Hui to complete the task, in less than five minute this meat tasty Tiger Grouper was landed in the cooler box. 

    Our lucky star, Sau Hui learned the live prawn spinning skill from Xiao Lee and he hooked up a table size Barramundi. The Man of the Match trying to show off his skill and took his time to slowly retrieving the fish. 

    "Get the net!" Xiao Lee yelled

    As Kok Siang was the nearest to it he grabbed the net and shifted himself nearer to Sau Hui.

    "Here it come! Net it! Hurry!" Xiao Lee gave command again

    Sau Hui brought his fishing rod high up and slowly guided the Barramundi close to the boat, Kok Siang leaned forward and grabbed the leader line, slowly he lowered the net into the water. As the net was moved closer to the fish Kok Siang let go of the leader, a mistake that was not noticed by our experienced guide Xiao Lee, as he too was focusing on the fishing action. The Barramundi must have felt it when the leader line was loosen, it made a swift turn which caught Kok Siang by surprise and dashed towards the opposite direction from the net. The hook was shrug off from it's mouth and it quickly disappeared in front of our horizon.     

    For the next thirty minutes nothing happened and the superstitious skipper made the call to end this trip, he strongly believed that the escape was a bad sign. As the sky was getting darker we all didn't object the decision he made.

The Catch

    We returned back to the boat rental company and had our shower there before heading back to Johor Bahru. Our dinner was settled at a seafood restaurant here at Pandan, the owner is the friend of Xiao Lee and he too is a passionate angler. He told us about the trip he just made at Sedili and shared with us how he caught the giant Spanish Mackerel on jigging. Oh Ya! The Tiger Grouper was Teo Chew Steamed and Black Peppered mud crabs were served.

Something to show Wife

    A very nice fishing trip here with my hometown buddies, other than witnessing the excitement and disappointment, I get to enjoy the beautiful scenery on the Kong Kong River. My activity on fishing was reduced as I was busy taking photos and admiring the nature. 

    P.S. This is not my first trip here at Kong Kong River, I was introduced to this place by Sao Hui a few years back and I returned a few times including fishing on a wooden jetty beside the river. On one of the trip there me and my fishing buddies from Singapore were stuck inside the river, I forgot to move out when the low tide struck, we were forced to step into the mud and pushed the boat out. The story will be featured in the future post, stay tuned!

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The Pantai Penyabong trip in 1996 | FishingAdvNHF

    Back in 1995 after I picked up the fishing rod again it is an one way ticket for the journey, I fished in most of the freshwater reservoirs here and caught my biggest Snakehead which was 6kg (read the story here)and I went to most of the beaches and jetties for the saltwater assaults, My catches were mostly small fishes and the species were boring. I always dreamed of going abroad to hunt for the monster fish, during that time my dream location is Australia. (Influenced by the fishing magazine)

    I bought my first car in 1996 and it was a humble Daihatsu Charade 1.0L Turbocharged Engine, this tiny little machine gave me a lot of joys and sorrows. I got this car through Ken and again he made a killing on my purchased which I ended up paying 20% more and he never stopped doing so, although I didn't manage to prove that if I had paid more by repairing my car at the workshop he recommended.

    Few months after I got the car Ken asked if I was interested to explore beaches in Malaysia, he read on a magazine about this place called Penyabong which is located at the states of Johor. I was a bit reluctant to do so as I wasn't sure if my car could handle the distance of the journey, it is around 160km from Johor Bahru. Ken managed to convince me with the promise of splitting the cost of repair if it was needed, so off we went with my Daihatsu Charade on our rest day to the Penyabong.

    After some 5 hours of driving with many wrong turns we arrived at the place, the Pantai Penyabong (Penyabong Beach). It was around 3pm and the weather was perfect, I drove my car on to this stoned porch which I guessed it was a makeshift car park, back then there was only a Malay food eating house and three wooden houses right beside it, a few children were staring at us from their door step wondering what on earth were we doing here. Straight after I got off my car a gust of warm tropical wind blew towards me, the salty scent of the sea coupled with the rotten stench of some sea creature carcasses on the beach instantly reminded me of my home town, Pontian which is also a fishing village at the west coast of West Malaysia.

The Pulau Penanduk

  This place was quite deserted and it was so peaceful, we walked straight on to the warm beach which the soft and fine sea sand would bury your feet immediately, the gentle wave rhythmically splashed on to the beach and it was getting louder as we approaching the clear greenish-blue sea, you could see your feet clearly when you step into it, the cool and clean South China Sea makes me felt like jumping into it. Just a stone throw away there is a small island named Pulau Pelandok (Pelandok Island), it is covered with lot's of greenery plants making it looks like a broccoli flower on the sea, sitting there alone for god know how many millenniums already it give the place a very unique and relaxing view.

    There were two units of four wheel drive jeep parked on the beach, according to the villagers they were foreigners who worked in the city and they always came here with their diving gears, there are some ship wrecks around this area and as the place was unpolluted yet corals and beautiful tropical fishes lured the divers back weeks after weeks.

    When we left Singapore to here we brought our fishing rods as well, after some break at the Malay food stall we went on to have some surf casting there. We had some frozen prawns with us to use as bait and Kent had brought some lures to try here. We stopped the fishing at around 6pm without catching any fish, it took us another 4 hours to return home. Although no monster fish was caught I wasn't disappointed as this beautiful and peaceful Pantai Penyabong has worth every efforts we spent to get here.

A Jetty was built and it destroyed the view

    Human being are great destroyers of nature and it proved again when I returned to Pantai Penyabong after almost 12 years in 2008, it was given a complete make-over to the worst. The once clear sea is so milky now that I will never consider dipping my feet into it and the soft and fine sea sand was no where to be found, probably buried deep underneath the rough sand that was brought in from elsewhere, reclamation works were done here as I could see major landscape changed. I really don't understand why the reclamation is needed in Malaysia, it is a big country with vast land to spare, besides wasting the money it destroyed the natural habitation in the area. A long and huge fishing boat jetty extending towards the Pulau Pelandok was built and it spoiled the unique view of the lone island sitting in front of the beach, engine oil from boats floating on the sea surface and smell of gasoline is so strong that the natural scene of the tropical beach had vanished. Cars and motorcycles almost filled up the whole car park (It's now a tared surface car park) I lost the luxury of parking my car freely as I did in 1996. Countless of houses were inserted here and jammed the whole area, the population of the once tiny deserted fishing village grew so much and I regretted I took so long to revisit the place as I will never get the chance to see the paradise again.

P.S. I didn't take any photos in 1996 and it was another set back, photos show here were taken in 2008

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The Loomis & Franklin 10 Footer Surf Casting Fishing Rod | FishingAdvNHF

    After almost 20 years this Loomis & Franklin Ten footer surf casting rod still keeping me company whenever I go fishing, it help me caught numerous of fishes and the picture showed was the trip I made in 2012 at Air Papan beach, Mersing, Johor, West Malaysia. During that trip I managed to pull back the Spanish Mackerel (check out the story here) which's weight around 600 gram and it was a great fun with my longest fishing buddy and old pal, the Loomis & Franklin of cause.

    Back in 1996 when I was still a young punk and a new comer in this exciting activity, I wasn't really had much affection with saltwater fishing as my fishing buddies back then were all into freshwater fishing. (find out my freshwater fishing here) It was until I met Lawrence and Ann then I was introduced back to saltwater fishing and during our fishing trip to the famous Pasir Ris Fishing Pond (full story here) I was amazed by the distance that Lawrence could achieve using the Shimano 13 footer surf casting fishing rod and after some thoughts I decided to get one for myself. Hence the Loomis & Franklin was bought (details of me buying thye rod here) and I went down to the Pasir Ris Fishing Pond few days later eager to find out how good the rod is.

    I reached the place at around 6:30pm and the rest of the gang were not there yet, I went up to our usual spot and started setting up the brand new Loomis & Franklin fishing rod. I was taught to cast with Side Swing Casting when I started in freshwater fishing, Lawrence show me how to do the Overhead Casting and I was convinced that the Overhead Casting was a better way after seeing the distance he achieved. I walked up to the edge of the pond with the new fishing rod and took a deep breath, lifting the rod butt high on my head while the rod tip was dipping down to the ground, at the end of the fishing lines a float was attached to it, when I was ready I pulled the rod butt as hard as I could and whipping the rod tip towards the sky....

     "Splash!"

     I felt some water splashed on to my face and I could taste the saltiness of the sea water as it dripped pass my lips. It was a bad and failed cast as the float landed just five meter in front of me, it could be I was not used to the extra length of the new fishing rod and I misjudge the timing on releasing the line, I figured that I should patiently waited for the rest and their guidance.

    It was around 8pm and Lawrence finally came and he was alone, his wife Ann was unwell.

    "Wah! New fishing rod ah?" Lawrence was attracted by the shining new lacquer on the Loomis & Franklin.

     "Haha! Ya, just bought it few days ago." I told him.

     "Don't want to test out the rod?" he asked while preparing him fishing rod.

     "Almost done, I wait for you lor, Let's cast together." I pretended.
 
     "Wanna compete with me is it? On lah, wait let my Shimano kill your... What's the brand?" Lawrence was very confident with his fishing rod

    "It's a Loomis & Franklin 10 footer, no lah, how to compete with you? I am still learning from you." I can't even cast more than 10 meter just now, how to compete?

     Lawrence hooked a live prawn on to the hook after the set up of his Shimano fishing rod was done, he walked towards the edge of the pond and with a smooth motion the float which had a light stick attached on it, flew towards the sky and you could see the light stick painted a green light arc in the dark and dropped into the far corner of the pond. Wow! that's was more than 100 meter!

    I monitored his motion and practiced it a few times in my mind and then it's my turn to walked up to the edge, I took a deep breath again and "Bang" I cast the float out. I didn't really looked at where it had landed and I was expecting more saltwater to splash on to my face.

    "Good cast!" I heard Lawrence's voice from behind, I looked up to the pond and found out that my float was landed near to his float. My gosh! I was so excited and my hands were trembling as I couldn't imagine that I would be so close to the 100 meter mark!

   For the whole night I couldn't sit still and was checking on the bait every ten minutes, reason behind was I felt like casting again and again and that morning I went home without hooking up any fish. In the afternoon when I was holding my cup of coffee at the office I could feel my hands were still trembling and my arms and back muscle were crying in pain.

    And that's how and when I started to fall in love with Surf Casting and I just couldn't resist the thrill of it, every time when I tossed my float or weight towards the sea, the adrenaline rush that was created from the cast sucked me deeper and deeper into this activity. I began to study on various casting techniques such as Ground Cast, Full Side Swing Cast, Overhead Side Swing cast and finally I was hooked to the ultimate Pendulum Cast. I upgraded from the Spinning reel to the Multiplier reel and it was the Abu Garcia 6600 C4 that was bought, the Abu Garcia was upgraded into Open Cage and Mono Mag, Rocket bearings had replaced the stock bearing and the Rocket Bearing Lubricant was bought specially for the bearing, eventually a Brass Sport Shim had replaced the bearing for maximum performance and I was achieving 160 meter at my peak!

    I had a 13 footer Surf Casting fishing rod added to my arsenal, it was not a Shimano though. It was given a full makeover with more guides were putted on,(realized that it was a mistake in later part) enhanced rod body and it was converted from a Spinning reel rod, it was built without any reel seat and I bought two reel coaster to secure the Abu Garcia at the Low Rider position. The pair landed my first ever Stingray weight around 12kg while I surf casting at Batu Layar beach. (click here for the story)

    My fishing journey continued in between freshwater and saltwater and almost all were in Singapore, it was until 2006 when I encounter this place... Next post will jump ahead a few years which I will introduce the Air Papan beach in Malaysia, stay tuned.

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My First Surf Casting Fishing Rod | FishingAdvNHF

   

    I started fishing again after a long interval of 5 years and I was brought back to the game by my colleague, Ken who later became my best fishing buddy. Too bad it didn't last long and I stopped our friendship after I found out what he did to me and my friends repeatably.

    At that time I was so much into freshwater fishing (check out the story here) thanks to Ah Long and Ken, my biggest Snakehead aka Toman caught remained at 6kg. After I joined another company and became good friend as well as fishing buddy with Lawrence and Ann, I was introduced to the Saltwater fishing again. (click here for my first Saltwater encounter)

    Lawrence and Ann loved to fish at the Pasir Ris Fishing Pond as it is bright and clean, women hates mosquitoes so is Ann and that's why she insisted of coming here. (find out the story here) Remembered I said I was very curious with the Shimano 13 footer telescopic fishing rod? Lawrence always used it at the Pasir Ris Fishing Pond and I was so amazed by the distance he could reach with that rod. As my rod was the Silstar 6 footer and this was not a rod that you could whack hard on it, even if you did the most you could reach was like around 70 meter.

    I went to a fishing tackle shop at beach road thinking of getting myself a longer Surf Casting fishing rod, this is the tackle shop that Ken brought me here to buy the Silstar and the Shimano. I went there by myself as I didn't want to trouble Ken so much, and the move revealed something that shouldn't occur to me especially from someone you trusted.

    It was a Thursday afternoon and the fishing tackle shop was not packed with anglers, I went in and headed straight towards the fishing rod section. This old lady came to me and asked if I needed any help.

    "Er... it's ok, Auntie. I'm fine just let me browse first, thank you." I politely rejected her offer as inside my mind I was thinking that what could she know about fishing, she would just show me anything that might not suits my need. But in the end it proved how wrong was I to have that kind of judgement.

    "Are you into boating? what kind of tackle you use? a spinning reel or a multiplier reel?" The old lady asked

    Hang on! What? Spinning or... What is Multiplier Reel? I could feel my ears getting warm due to blood had shot up as I blushed. And my ego was brought down all the way to the ground as I was the one that knew nuts about fishing, I should have asked Ken to come along he definitely could handle this old lady well.

   "Ahem..." I pretended to cough to shield my embarrassment and I looked at the rows of fishing rods in front of me trying to get some inspiration to reply her. Hmm... I saw some fine print on one of the fishing rod written Multiplier and I immediately assumed that Multiplier was the strength of the rod multiply by something. So I turned back to the old lady and said,

    "Actually both also can, but I need something that is long, maybe in the range of 13 to 10 feet, can cast very far one, you know?" I felt amazed by my own answer and question, hahaha... I managed to snub this old lady and it's time for her to call for help from a guy who would be more expert in fishing.

    "I see, so you are into Surf Fishing lah. You wanna cast out from the beach using long surf casting fishing rod, right?" She said and continued

    "Well there are two kind of surf casting fishing rods to choose from and do you need a fishing reel? Which kind you like to use? Spinning or Multiplier?"

    Alamak! this old lady mentioned it again! Multiplier? what was that?

    "Show me the multiplier, I need a strong one." I replied as if I knew about it although I still not very sure if my assumption was correct.

    She led me over to the other row of fishing rods and told me to check them out while she went to get some pairing multiplier reels to show me.

    This shop is kind of like those traditional Chinese Medicine shop which they didn't like to put a price tag on the items displayed, this put me at a very awkward spot as I was on a tight budget. I saw Daiwa, Penn, Shimano and Abu Garcia ranging from 13 feet to 8 feet, I locked myself on that yellow color Shimano 13 feet as it is the same brand that Lawrence had. Not for long the old lady came back with there boxes on her hand, I could read Daiwa and Abu Garcia from the boxes.

   "So which one you like? all this are very strong and powerful fishing rods that can cast very far." She said

    "And these are the Multiplier reels that can go along with it, this very famous Abu Garcia...." The old lady opened up the box and took out a Multiplier reel and showed it to me.

    Wait! This is Multiplier reel? Shit! This is a Baitcaster which I read in the magazine and why she called it multiplier? I needed to make this right and I stopped her from continuing and said,

    "Auntie, I don't want Baitcaster leh, I want to cast very far, I think you get me Spinning reel instead, thank you." I was a bit annoyed as from what I read from magazine the kind of small drum baitcaster are mostly used in the lure fishing and it didn't cast far. Again this showed how ignorance I was back then, in the later day I found out about the Abu Garcia CT Rocket and was so fascinated with it, too bad I couldn't afford it at that time.

    This time the old lady didn't walk away and she smiled at me and some words came out from her mouth which made me so embarrassing that I felt like running out of the shop and never returned again. She said, "You just started fishing?"

    Old man said you can be smart, but don't try to be a Smart Alec. Now I was really in a very awkward situation and I didn't know how to reply her. I had to admit that this old lady is a very kind and nice woman, even though I was giving the "I know it" and "You know nothing" face from the beginning of the conversation she remained patient and calm.

    "Boy, how much you want to spend on the tackle?" She asked

    "Auntie, I got around $100 to spare." My voice was so soft and I wondered if she could hear me.

    "The rods here are mostly out of your budget and furthermore you need a reel, Multiplier reels are more expensive, maybe you can consider getting a Spinning reel to start with?" The old lady suggested.

    I told her that I picked up this fishing hobby few months back and I had a Shimano Spinning reel and a Silstar 6 footer, I was looking to upgrade my tackle to Surf Fishing set and I might wanted to fish at the beach. By now I was convinced that the old lady is very knowledgeable at least in the fishing tackle, I needed to be humbled and told her everything so that she could help me to find something that's suitable for me and within my budget.

    When she found out that I was using the Shimano Aero Symetre 4000 she told me I could use it to pair with a longer fishing rod, as this Shimano Aero is a very good Spinning reel for Surf Fishing too. She said I was cheated by the shop when I told her how much I had paid for the combo set, she could offer the same package at $50 lesser and when I told her I bought them here but not from her, she promised me she would find out which sales stuff did it but she couldn't refund the over-charged to me. By the way she is the lady boss and that's how I found out that my best buddy was probably enjoying a nice meal on my hard earned $50 now!

Loomis & Franklin

It is a two section Ten Footer Surf Casting Rod

    You see, back then I was a naive and simple minded young man, I was so touched by her reaction (I will definitely be skeptical today) and bought a Ten footer Surf Fishing rod from her, It is the Loomis & Franklin that I am still using it after almost 20 years! It costed $88.50 and I was left with $11.50 for my dinner and cigarette. Oh! by the way that yellow Shimano fishing rod I looked at earlier costed a whopping $460!

    I was so eager to test out the rod and I rang my fishing kakis as soon as I reached home, few days later I was at the Pasir Ris Fishing Pond to find out if I could reach a new level with the Loomis & Franklin 10 footer Surf Casting Fishing Rod....  Next post will feature my first test on the rod and if you wanna know if I managed to catch any fish on the new rod, Stay tuned!

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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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Always Tight Line, Hardcore is the Spirit!

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