Learning to Fish in Singapore and Japan

Moved to Japan

2015-11-07T10:15:00.001+09:00

I have moved to Japan, so I won't be fishing in Singapore for a while. The blog's name has been updated to include Japan as well, though I don't think I will be fishing here for a while... but if I do, and catch anything, it will show up here!

A long break...

2012-06-16T20:47:00.002+09:00

After a long break, I went fishing again! But didn't catch much... just 4 tambans and 2 kekeks. It was low tide, in the afternoon, not the best time to jig for tambans. I had wanted to use the tambans as bait if I managed to catch more, but with such a small catch, we just brought them all home. Next time, I will aim to go in the morning at high tide.

But today's main aim was not to catch fish, but to bring my son fishing. He didn't catch anything, but it gave him a chance to stay in the sun, walk around Bedok Jetty and spend some energy.

No joy again!

2007-11-10T14:17:00.000+09:00

This is getting out of hand.

Spent 3 hours at the jetty today, and still ended up with only two tambans. Maybe it is time to move somewhere else, at least I could catch catfish at the seawall outside the yacht club...

Moon and tide

2007-11-08T16:30:00.000+09:00

Moonrise and moonset are important times to know, since when the moon is at its zenith (the highest point in the sky), it is also the best feeding time. This usually coincides with a tide (about an hour before high tide). So I have added the local moonrise/moonset and tide info to my list of links.

No joy

2007-11-08T16:20:00.000+09:00

Went to BJT today, and tried to use live tambans... but no hits. Only had a boy who managed to cross his line with mine and ended up spending some time trying to resolve the entangled mess. And it was a slow tamban day for me as well... But Uncle Jepun, the old man who is a regular at the jetty and sells tamban hooks, catches tambans so effortlessly. As they say, "If you have no skill, you blame the rig."

After braving the early morning rain and spending three hours, I caught only four tambans, of which two were used as baits which never landed anything, not even an attempted bite.

Catch report 16 Jun 07

2007-06-16T13:14:00.000+09:00

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.

Time too fish? Not!

2007-06-06T01:10:00.000+09:00

If anyone thought moving house was tedious... wait till your boxes are all in. Getting the boxes from one place to another is the easy part. Finding places to store all those things inside those boxes, however, is another challenge altogether. And because of this challenge, I have not been able to find any opportunity at all to go down for a short half-day fishing session. How I miss fishing... maybe in another two more weeks, things would have settled down enough for me to go wet my lines... I wonder is by then, the fishes would still be around... hmm...

Fishing season at BJT

2007-05-25T01:19:00.001+09:00

Someone recently caught a HUGE queenfish at BJT. Looks like it is fishing season there. I think June to September may be a good time to fish there. But this same period is a busy time for me at work... almost drowning in work already, much less say try to find time to go fish, and I am busy moving house too. Guess I won't be catching anything for some time... sigh...

No time to fish

2007-05-14T00:41:00.000+09:00

I have been busy lately with work. More importantly, I am moving house soon, so there is a lot of work to be done in preparing the new home. So that means no time to fish... hopefully I get to wet my lines soon...

Fishing today 21 April 2007

2007-04-22T01:17:00.000+09:00

Nothing.

I didn't catch anything at Bedok Jetty today. I didn't stay long, less than 3 hours. Didn't have many prawns left for bait, so I left once they were all used up. But the thing is, even though the fishes were biting at my bait, they didn't take the hook. So while I felt the bites, I didn't manage to hook anything.

I guess it may have to do with hook size and bait size. Does anyone have any advice on how to hook up prawn meat? I used to cut it about the size of the hook, and hook it up, flesh and shell together, but I guess the shell should be removed, right? Problem is, most of the time, small fishes nibble away at the peeled prawn meat... sigh. The small fishes are too small to take the hook, so no catch. How big (or small) must the prawn meat be cut, how to hook it to the hook so that fishes, when eating the meat, bite the hook too?

Fishing today 31 March 2007

2007-03-31T23:17:00.000+09:00

After some time of absence from Bedok Jetty, I went down again today with my wife in the afternoon. High tide was over, the tide was ebbing, but luckily the tambans were biting. By that seems to be the only thing that was biting... my wife managed to get quite some tambans within a short time jigging for them. But using the tamban for bait, I was not able to catch anything. And to top it off, there was a sudden shower that made everyone run for shelter, disrupting the fishing along the jetty for a short while. The wind was strong today, making it hard to float out my floats. Even casting was a challenge. In the end, we packed up and left, giving away the tambans that we caught.

No joy with mealworms

2007-03-03T23:35:00.000+09:00

After a long time, about two months, of not fishing, I managed to drag myself down to Bedok Jetty today, to try if mealworms (the kind you get in aquarium shops for feeding to fishes) can work as baits. So I bought a box of mealworms (if it doesn't work, I was going to feed them to my goldfishes and koi back home), got to Bedok Jetty, and hooked up the mealworms and cast.

After 3 hours, in which fishes nibbled at the mealworms but there were no strikes, I came to the conclusion that mealworms don't work good as baits. They died the moment they touch water, so they don't move around in the water to attract attention. And since they don't look like they smell (not like prawns), there is basically nothing that is going to attract fishes unless fishes just happen to be right beside.

And goldfishes don't seem to like them too... I tried feeding them to my goldfish, nope, not very popular with them. I will try with my koi tomorrow, probably with better results.

1 Jan 2007 - Eeltail Catfish

2007-01-01T15:16:00.000+09:00

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

2006-12-25T23:35:00.000+09:00

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.

Rain, rain, go away...

2006-12-17T11:36:00.000+09:00

Haven't been fishing recently. I guess it is the rain... monsoon season now in Singapore, and it is raining almost everyday. And it can be quite unpredictable, so you really can't tell in advance whether it is going to rain in the morning, afternoon, evening or night... or whether the rain is going to last an hour, or the whole day. Since I don't really enjoy fishing in the rain, I guess I may be giving it is pass for a while.

Meanwhile, you can still check out Fishing Kaki Forum for catch reports from others who fish in Singapore, and the surrounding countries.

Jetties in Singapore

2006-12-13T18:39:00.000+09:00

Here are some of the jetties in Singapore where anglers frequent.

Bedok Jetty
Located at East Coast Park near Bedok Lighthouse (which is actually a lighthouse located at the top of a HDB flat), this is a very popular spot for fishing. The area 30m around the jetty is out-of-bounds to all boats so that anglers can fish in peace. I heard that there used to be very good catches here, with people landing BIG stingrays and even sharks! During the weekends, you can see a lot of people jigging for tambans (a kind of baitfish) here. Other common fishes caught here would be garfish (aka todak), queenfish, mackeral, grouper, pufferfish, trevally and catfish.

Labrador Park
There is a jetty here, currently with restricted access due to works going on around the jetty area. Seems like the authorities are shifting some corals around in the sea off the jetty. This is another place for tamban jigging, and I have heard of people catching queenfish and other catches here. Last time I went there, I saw a couple catching squids. A very nice place with a scenic view of Sentosa and the waterways off southwestern Singapore.

Sembawang Park
There is a jetty here too, though it is really small. I just went there to take a look last Sunday, and people were catching crabs. I saw someone with a trevally too. While the catches were quite significant in size, it can be a bit crowded here. And the jetty is not really that long, so if you can cast far, you may just want to cast from the beach at Sembawang Park instead of squeezing here with the rest of the crowd.

Punggol Jetty
Located at the very end of Punggol, where the seafood restaurants used to be. Now, only the jetty is left, with a small police post. Seems like a good place to catch squids. While there is no carpark, the jetty is just right beside (okay, about 20m) the road, so you can just park on the road and walk over to the jetty. It is about the same size as the jetty at Sembawang Park, so it can get a bit crowded.

25 Nov 2006 - Catfish

2006-11-27T23:24:00.000+09:00

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

2006-11-22T00:00:00.000+09:00

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

2006-11-21T23:57:00.000+09:00

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

2006-11-21T00:53:00.000+09:00

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

2006-11-21T00:51:00.000+09:00

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

2006-11-21T00:48:00.000+09:00

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

2006-11-21T00:45:00.000+09:00

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

2006-11-21T00:43:00.000+09:00

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.)

Hajimemashite

2006-11-21T00:32:00.000+09:00

Hi, I am moving my fishing-related entries from my personal blog (Teck's Treehouse) here, so that my blogs can be more focused. I will be posting my catches as well as some things that I learn about fishing, including rigs that I use and the fishes that they land.