Kota Kinabalu June 23-27 2009

7 of us started off the trip with great expectation but the result is disappointing. The sea was mirror calm on the first day but really choppy for the remaining days with waves of 2 to 3 meters. All but me was sea-sick at some point in the trip. The only saving grace for me was a 10 over kg amberjack which happened to be the largest fish of the trip. Well I finally caught my amberjack!

Trolling on way produced no result

Mirror calm on the first day:

At last an amberjack

The total catch:

My Reels are Packed & I'm Ready to Go

I am ready for Kota Kinabalu on 23-27 June 2009. In addition to the above reels I borrowed Steven's Commander H5 electric reel. What is needed now is fine weather and plenty of fishes, particularly the mutated giant gold fish.

Changi by Night

Friday 5th June 2009. I invited Francis to the trip and he was skeptical since Changi is not known to produce any good catch at night, maybe with the exception of catfish. I told him we needed to get ready for the impending Sabah trip and that somehow persuaded him

Setting off under the golden light of the sun:




The night was indeed slow - only a few snappers and quite a number of catfishes (some in the region of 3-4 kgs). Probably unbelievable but Francis somehow broke his rod pulling up a catfish.

Caught napping:


The morning was much better. Francis caught the biggest fish of the trip - a 6.5 kg queen fish:



This is me with his fish, showing him how to hold the fish to make it look bigger:



For me it was 4 diamond trevally (chermin) in a row.



The total catch (catfishes not shown) - not too bad for Singapore water:

Photos by Francis & edited by me.

Something to Lust For

Just when you think fishing is simple and relaxing, new great looking reels like these are launched. It is no longer just about the fish; it is now also about the reel. When the fishes are not biting we now have something beautiful to look at.

Introducing a new range of Daiwa Saltist lever drag reels:

and some limited edition Accurates:

May 16, 2009

Place: Changi Area
Boatman: Ah Soon
Anglers: Daryl, Tony, Francis, Alex & I

Overall it is a rather average catch compared to the previous trip with the same boatman. I had only 3 fishes - a chocolate hind (not in pic), a table size snapper and a grunter (maybe the biggest catch of the day). Francis and Tony had the best catch rate.

Making A Small Return

I have decided to make a small come back to the fishing fraternity. The lure (pun not intended) is still irresistible. Do come back for some catch reports ...

New Hobby

DSC02712, originally uploaded by HenryKoh.

I am now photographing butterflies. I rarely fish these days.

Sabah, KK June 18 - 21

The boat that we were supposed to be on broke down the day before the trip and so had to change to a bigger, more comfortable boat but with a relatively new and inexperience captain. The weather was kind of choppy initially but in the last 2 days was almost mirror calm.

The catch is not fantastic at all. The photo may show alot of fishes but believe me the catch rate was poor; 3 of the 6 anglers caught very few fishes. The biggest scale fish (not inclusive of tenggiris) was a 6 over kg red emperor by me. I also caught 4 of the 7 tenggiris landed.

Lengthy

Found this picture at a webby. I am not the jigging type and so this jig is just mind-blowing.

Changi 19th May

Five of us, Frank, Daryl, Preston, Robert and I went on Ah Chong's boat. We had a lot of laughters with a hosts of original and creative humor and fun making but the catch is one of the poorest I ever have on Boat 681.

Catch:
1 snapper of about 800 gm
1 small grouper
3 other not to mention kind of tiny whinny fishes

Sabah June 18

I just managed to confirm a Sabah trip after much searching for anglers and boatman. I sure hope that all the effort will pay off. I am not asking much, just 10 fishes above 10 kg and a 'one drop one bite' experience for all and off course mirror calm sea. A repeat of my first trip experience would suffice. But as they say first love is irreplaceable. Now what is left is to pray and wait for the magic moments to come. I love Sabah .... if the fishes are biting that is ....

A Long Local Offshore Trip

I had an interesting trip with Adrian, Mark and Alvin. We were on board Osman boat and fishing around the Southern Island area. It was the longest local offshore trip I had - we started at 6.30 pm on Saturday and came back to shore on Sunday at about 3 pm. It was also a heavy sinker trip, I was fishing 2 size 18 sinkers at one stage and 1 size 18 sinker for a good part of the trip. The catch was not good for the amount of time we spent but I must say that I had the best catch rate .....I guess I am pretty blessed when it comes to fishing. Good baits were apparently important, we had very few squids, the jew fish was caught on a life mullet and the queen fish on a dead but fresh 'kelong chi'. The fishes:

1. 3 golden snappers about a kg plus - 2 were by me
2. 2 grunters - 1 by me
3. 1 jew fish of about 4-5 kg by Adrian
4. 1 queen fish of about 4-5 kg by me
5. 1 ray of about 1kg
6. 1 huge malong eel
7. 3 sweetlips of about a kg each (1 by me)

Photo by Mark.

No Sea Pond Will Do

I was at Kranji Pond last saturday again ..... There were five guys and at the end of the 3 hours I caught 5 fishes and the rest zero. Francis was so fed-up that he left after 2 hours.

Kranji Pond Again

Nothing to shout about. Only 9 fishes in 3 hours and broke my previous record of 8.

Pond Again

I went early in the morning to the Kranji Pond. I was the only one and had the pond all to myself. For the first 45 minutes or so there was not a single bite, then I caught a GT (Sagai) of about 2 kg, it put up an impressive fight and took me a while to subdue it. I decided to let it go as it is not a nice eating fish. Then up came a 4 over kg barramundi and followed by 3 snappers and a grouper. It is a good morning indeed but I still long for the sea.