How I was Hooked to Fishing - Part 4

Soft Plastic Lures are soft and flexible artificial baits that mimic the swimming action of small fish, worms, frogs, lizards or other living food of fish. There are varieties of lures in different shapes and sizes and their soft bodies when dragged through water swim in a manner similar to living organisms which fool the target fish to think that it is a real bait. 

Advances in science enabled lures to be made with real-life swimming action, vibration through water, color and even smell. Hybrid lures having a hard multi-sectioned body that can move like the vertebra of a fish and soft plastic tails that flip water and create vibrations that other fish can detect are the epitome of achievement in this field.

During my previous visit to Beach Road, I had purchased a soft plastic bait named Berkley Gulp! Alive Minnows (Salt Water). The pack contained rubber-like objects shaped in the form of small fish with forked tail and were dipped in a smelly liquid which can attract big predatory salt water fish. Anxious to try out these baits, I visited Bedok Jetty armed with my new rod as primary rod and my old cheap rod for jigging Tambans.

I baited the hooks with the Gulp Alive Minnows and cast the line. The new rod was enabled me to take longer and accurate casts to the specific areas in the sea as I desired. Meanwhile, I jigged for Tambans using my old rod and in a short time had a decent collection of Tambans.

 Ocassionaly checking the minnow baits I observed that there were bite marks all over the soft body of the lure and once my lure was cleanly bitten off in half by a fish with sharp teeth with bite marks clearly visible. However, I wasn't lucky enough to catch a fish. I replaced the artificial bait with Tambans several times, but even the Tambans came out eaten or dead. It was quite late in the evening by now, so I packed all the stuff and went back home with the remaining Tambans, which were cleaned, fried and eaten along with dinner that night.

 Some weeks later, I wanted to try out if the soft plastic lures work in fresh water. So, I went to Jurong Lake one fine morning. Jurong Lake is my favourite fishing destination due to the amazing landscaped scenery, peace and tranquility of the surroundings and the beautiful tall Pagodas of Chinese Garden which can be seen from the fishing grounds. Similar to all the lakes and reservoirs maintained by Public Utilities Board, use of only artificial baits and lures are allowed in Jurong Lake and here my collection of hard and soft plastic lures comes in handy. 

After setting up my fishing equipments, I hooked a Gulp! Alive Minnow to a jighead (kind of a weighted lead sinker with a hook attached) and cast it in the lake. After several casts, while retrieving one I felt a pull and as per the basic instinct of an angler, I tugged the line to set the hook. The line pulled back at me which could only mean one thing; Fish On!!!

As I reeled back the fish slowly n steadily, suddenly the line got slack. I felt that somehow the fish had escaped away. Disappointed, I reeled back the slack line only to see a curious incident; a fish was flapping and thrashing madly on the water surface and it was moving from one side of the fishing ground to the other. This weird fish dance had diverted my attention for some time, but on feeling that line on my rod tighten a bit I realised the fish was still on the hook. It must have swam towards me and hence the line was slack and when I reeled back it tried to de-hook itself by flipping around. I came back to my senses and quickly reeled the fish back on the shore. The first thought on seeing that fish was, "WOW". It was bright & colorful, had the reputation of being a fierce game fish and referred as "freshwater bullies" (due to their ferocious nature to other fish) from the Amazon River of South America.

This fierce warrior is called Peacock Bass. It is neither a Peacock nor a Bass; it is a Cichlid. The name of this fish is due to the colorful body and the spot on it tail which looks like an eye on a Peacock's tail feather.

This was my first catch on a soft plastic bait and surprisingly using a salt water bait for fishing in fresh water lake. However, it was my last catch too.

Due to the heat of the day or the commotion caused by the fish, I could not catch any other fish that day and went home with my catch.

The Peacock Bass was cooked by my wife and the fish tasted wonderful. A fresh fish tastes delicious and very different. That is one of the reasons I love fishing, the main reason being passionate obsession for fishing...

As a great fishing enthusiast once said, "Fishing is unquestionably a form of madness, but happily, for once bitten, there is no cure."

...concluded...

How I was Hooked to Fishing - Part 3

Singapore is bustling with fishing enthusiasts and since the number of places for fishing legally is limited, places like Bedok Jetty which have designated places for fishing and are free for public are often full with anglers. Due to this and other environmental issues, only a few people get to catch a fish with many going back home empty handed.

So, to cure this itch, there are few fishing ponds in Singapore in which fishing enthusiasts can fish and even take home the fish caught - for a price of course. From half day to full day and even night fishing (as per your convenience and the weight of your wallet), anglers can try out their skills at these fishing ponds; from individuals to whole families; from novice anglers fishing in general pond to professionals fishing in pro ponds with high level of difficulties and rules. People can even rent fishing equipments, if they don't actually own the setup and relax at the pool side with friends & family. On-site food courts & bait shops keep the anglers charged up to feed themselves or the fish.

One such paid fishing pond is at the Pasir Ris Town Park, very near from the Pasir Ris MRT station. It has a large salt-water main pond for general public, various professional ponds for experienced and pro anglers with high difficulty levels and a prawning pond for the whole family to enjoy. The pond is open for 24 hours and also features food court, tackle shops & bait shops.

The price for fishing there is quite high ranging from SGD 38 to 45 depending upon day/night fishing and weekdays/weekends.



There's no guarantee that you may catch a fish, although, you can take back the fish you caught from the general pond.

Since these paid fishing ponds were somewhat beyond my economic capacity and my Indian brain ("Why to pay when you can get it for free?") was fighting against my desire for fishing, I was surprised one day to hear about a "One Day Fishing Carnival" organized by my office. I was glad to hear that the fishing trip was arranged at Pasir Ris Fishing Pond for a nominal fee of SGD 28 (my Indian brain jumped with joy after seeing the low price). And what was better that the price included a rental fishing rod, prawns as bait and packed lunch for us. Since I used my own rod, I got a further discount of SGD 10 on that.

I had a cheap fishing rod and the time was ripe to buy a new rod which was capable of handling bigger fish. My wife graciously asked me to choose any fishing rod setup as a gift from her. After extensive research on various rods and their specifications, I wanted a decent rod with the highest possible configuration that can be obtained for a decent price. So, I headed to Beach Road; a place packed with countless tackle shops and a heaven for fishing enthusiasts where they can find any type of fishing equipment; small or large, cheap or expensive, local or imported. You name it; they have it (or rather most of the stuff).

After skimming through various rods and reels for 2 hours, finally I decided upon the following configuration:

Highland Seahawk Graphite HLD902HS rod:
Length: 9 feet
Action: Heavy
Line Wt: 18-35 LB

Haibao C6 Reel 40F:
Ball Bearings: 6
Built-in LEDs that illuminates when you start cranking.

Seahawk Pro-Line 25 lb Mono Line 0.32 mm diameter

I also bought a soft lure that I was looking for; Berkley Gulp Alive Minnow (Salt Water). The pack contained some soft plastic minnows dipped in a specially formulated liquid with a strong smell which is attractive for the fish.

Finally, the day had come to try out my new Rod that Saturday at the One Day Fishing Carnival. So packed with my fishing equipment I reached Pasir Ris Main Pond. It was quite a big pond with anglers packed on all sides and a small area built on one side where kids were indulging themselves with prawn fishing. There was a nice food court for anglers and a bait shop selling live minnows for fish. I settled at a corner with my colleagues and setup my rod with frozen peeled prawns as bait which was provided by the organizer.

The honor of catching the first fish went to a kid of a colleague, although the fish was very small. Some colleagues had also brought live prawns with them and one of them lucky to catch the first big fish of the day. Those fishing with the dead prawns including me had hard luck till noon, maybe because the prawns were frozen. We were waiting for the right time...

The right time to fish in a Pay Pond is the time when the pond authorities release fish in the pond. Until then, the pond contains some left over fish of previous day which were smart enough to evade the hundreds of baits cast by the anglers and the new fish are kept in a floating cube shaped net in the middle of the pond. A pond employee comes on a motor boat and releases the gates of the net to release the fish at a specific time each day. At that time the group of anglers near to that net cast their lines around the net hoping that the newly introduced hungry fish bite their line. This ensues chaos everywhere with many lines getting entangled due to all the frenzy. Most fish get caught while some escape to the dark corners of the pond in this pandemonium.

We all were waiting for the fish release time after noon. Meanwhile, one wise guy cast his line straight in the fish nets (skillfully or luckily) and caught a fish.

Soon, the air was filled with the sound of a motor boat and a person came cruising in that boat and released the gates of the nets. As soon as he left the area, all hell broke loose!!! Amidst a barrage of swooshing sounds made by the casting rods, around twenty lines went up in the air and dropped all around the nets. Many lines entangled with others and formed a great Bee-Hoon (noodles soup) in the pond. Unluckily, I was one of them; but luckily my line was entangled with only one other line. Meanwhile, two others had already hooked their fish and were fighting with them. We quickly untangled the entangled lines and I cast my line again. As soon I had cast my line, I felt a pull on the other end. Quickly, I gave a sharp tug at my line setting the hook and retrieved the line slowly. I had used a Paternoster Rig with two hooks and one of them had caught this guy:

This fish is called Mangrove Jack (or Mangrove Red Snapper) and was very agile, flipping and thrashing around the water when I tried to land it. It had a set of big, sharp and pointed teeth which I avoided carefully and tied a rope through it's mouth and gills. I kept it in water alive so that I can bring it to home as fresh as a freshly caught fish.

Lunch time had arrived along with a delicious packed lunch provided by the organizer. The rest of the day passed by without any event except that a colleague had caught a huge fish, which took ten minutes to land. That was the biggest fish (around 2.8 kg) caught within our group and twice as heavy as the second biggest fish caught by another colleague.

I went back home with my prize: a good palatable sized fish. My new rod had scored on its first day of use...


...to be continued...