Off we went luring.. within my 10th cast, I had a proper take at the extreme right of the pond, just slightly off the spinning wheels.. I held on tight, a little thumbing here and there, I managed to steer it away from the water pump.. As the fish, gulpped for air, and flip it’s body back, I saw a red tail!! I thought finally, the time has come for my first big red! Unfortunately, a sudden burst of speed into the pump it went. I thumbed the spool to stop it and PIAK!!! My main line broke!! >.<" Lesson learnt, when buying a 2nd hand reel from someone, even if it comes with braid line, just change to a new one….

Just as I went back to re-tie, my brother hooked up and landed a small chao praya with ease on his new rod but he forgot to take a photo. Nonetheless, the night cont. to give us quite a few good fishes + fight. My brother managed to land another 2 more fishes.

Mark's 2nd fish caught for the night.

Mark into the 3rd fish.

Mark with his 3rd fish.

Shortly after, all hell broke loose on my end, when I hooked up a monster.. This was when I realised, my rod i built was alright. However, I would definately need my Abu2500c for the pond instead of the blackmax. The fight went to and fro for a good 15mins…

Here’s my rod flexing,

Here’s me Monkeying around and getting abused.

However, maybe I was doing the same mistake again by thumbing the reel.. PIAK went the line.. The monster of the deep disappeared in front of me. A glimpse earlier by my brother and myself concluded the fish was a huge Chao Praya, at least a good 30kgs worth.. >.<..

Oh well till the next time again. However in the end, at least my brother was happy with the rod I built it up for him.. With ample lifting power to tame the beast

Till then.. Tightlines.

Here are the specs,
AJIKING Blank rated at 8-20lb / Baitcaster
6ft
8+1 guides (Normal guides for now as I’m just starting out)

Here’s some pics of the rod.
Managed to sand down the EVA and insert a winding check.

Rod guides in place.

Threading on the guides.

Product testing was done that night itself when completed. Pics in the next post.

Sharon was lucky enough to have the 3rd of CNY off as it was a company break. So we decided to head into Malaysia to have some KFC LOL!.. However as well to recee a fishing pond called Damai fishing pond located within Damai fishing village.

We managed to find it and found that it was quite cheap to fish..
here’s the entrance to the pond. Which you head in you will see a counter on the left.

Here’s the pricing for the place.
45ringgit for 5hrs. Not too bad. Worked out to be 4bucks an hr.

The pond looked decent enough to fish. Seems like they are stocked up with Barras, Mangrove Jacks, Snappers, Golden Promfet. I came back the next day to fish it with a friend, however, we both blanked!! Unfortunately, they didn’t have huge prawns for sale at that time.

A little tip is to bring live milkfish. It seems from the locals, that the snappers are a sucker for them.

Well in the end, Sharon and myself still managed to get what we wanted for that short trip to malaysia We managed our KFC

First Come First Serve All collection to be at Yew Tee after 7pm.

Brand New AJN CarbonX 5ft6″, 8-15lb, Single Piece/Spinning – S$55
**BOTH RODS RESERVED TO HP OWNER **** 2915 **
Condition 10/10

Brand New AJN CarbonX 5ft, 4-10lb, Single Piece/Spinning – S$45
Condition 10/10

Both comes with rodsacks

Alternately get both for $90 as a pair.

Rapala SportsMenClassic HM30, 6ft, 15-25lb, Single piece/Baitcaster – S$25.
**Reserved by Kaki Hp ending with ****9651**
2nd in line – **** 5283
Condition 9/10

Daiwa SensorForce 6ft6′, 8-14lb, 2piece/Spinning – S$25
**Reserved by Kaki Hp ending with ****9651**
Condition 9.7/10

Alternatively, take the whole lot for S$130.

Tightlines!
Mathew Tan

This trip, my brother managed to land one red tail cat Which yet again I’ve yet to land one of that size!!! And then, missed another 2 more and we were both on grubs

As for myself, I had a take that was so strong, it kinda almost pulled my setup out of my hand. The current set up I used was a custom made rod, rated 10-15lb + Abu Black max loaded with 14lb braided power pro… I managed to luckily, grip my rod in time and gave it a strike and the fight was on. This was the moment I was waiting for.. a real test on the self made rod. Camoblue V2 BC series

Here’s one nice angle of the flex on the rod

Along came my brother’s son, Gavin to give me support as the little deckie.. Here’s his few moments of glorious spotlight on the internet

Gavin, giving me moral and eye power support!

Gavin, giving me more levelrage and making sure that I won’t fail into the pond
Felt like a scene as though, I’m fighting a huge tuna, standing up with a gimbal and the deckie holding me back lol

Unfortunately, the first sign of it was been foulhooked, was when I managed to bring it up half way through the fight. Instead of the head coming out first, it was the tail. Man.. and to think I cranked really slowly along the bottom.. Anyways, having saw that, I wasted no time and really just pumpped the fish back to end the fight fast so that it would not be so distress.

The fight ended in about 5mins or less.. I was impress of the way, the rod managed to maintain it’s loading power on such a fish… No photos, were taken of the fish out of the water as I did not want to distress it any longer. Thanks to the deckie on hand to release the fish fast and it swam away good.

Tail pic of the fish. I reckon an estimate from it’s size.. a good 10-15kg Patin…

Till next week

Regards,
Mathew

Here’s some snap shot of the new rod that I’ve build.

Rod Drying on a Friday Morning

Anyway, today I headed out for a short session with my brother once again. We decided to head out to the north side.
When we arrived at our launch site. We met up with another kayak’er whom unfortunately could not launch his yak due to a leak that he has just found out. He had generously gave us some of his prawns. While we were chatting his friend just happen to catch a chermin from shore!! Well done!!

So we loaded up and off we went for our trip.
Here’s my brother in his new Tequlia!

First into the action was yours truely with a small snapper which broke the ‘virginity’ of ‘BlueCamo’..
It didn’t really test much of it’s backbone but nonetheless, the rod caught me a fish

A memorable moment.

The action then died down totally with no fish for the next 2 hrs.. We ventured into the mangroves abit and admired what mother nature has given to us..

We then decided to go out for another 1 hour or so.. The wind was picking up and thanks to our anchor.. we mentioned to anchor down to our spot to have more time over the drop and structure. A couple of snappers came and go.. Mark caught 2 decent size snapper as well..

As for me.. I was still dry from the first fish. Desperate for a bigger fish. For the first time.. I’ve hooked up 2 live prawns onto my hook. Down the bait went… within 1min.. there was a take.. Strike!!!! This fish was not fighting like a usual snapper. It had some weight and led me to think that it was a decent size grouper! From the deep then it appeared a shark-like figure.. I honestly thought I hooked up a small blacktip at the north.. But I was mistaken.. a decent sized catfish that managed to push the light rod to the limit. I’m thankful to the fish for testing out the bend on the rod

Here’s a short clip on it.

After awhile more.. we decided to head back shore. Paddling against the wind
It was fun as well meeting up with 2 kayakers on hobies in the sea

Nonetheless it was a good day out on my fishing machine.
Feeling free on the water!

Tightlines.
Regards,
Mathew

Anyway, Don and myself, launch one weekend.. despite that the area we have been fishing lately has been ‘dry’ due to the crazy weather. As usual we arm’ed ourselves with 400grams of prawns in total.

Almost 30mins past and no bite.. as I was paddling a drop.. I lowered my bait and began to bounced it along the drop slowly.. and soon a small tap rang through the blank.. a couple more of hits and I struck into it.. up came the first fish to break the duck on my first custom made rod

Happy days!!! So happy that I end up fishless throughout the rest of the trip LOL!! Nonetheless.. I was resting at one spot in this particular position.

Took some Glam shot of the ‘Ninja’ Fishing under the hot sun.

Not to be outdone just before we headed back..
Don managed to land a small herring that gave him a good fight on his light rod

Soon after.. we decided to head back as the wind was picking up quite strongly.

Tightlines.
Mathew

Here’s an ang cho taken off a madai jig. Greedy fish took both of the hooks at the same time!

A another small baby grouper fell to the madai jig.

Here’s Don with a AngCho at one of our favourite spots to fish

One advantage of fishing from a kayak is because… you get to try out this kind of spots
Mangrove01

Mangrove02

Nonetheless, I did manage a few catches of which I will consolidate them and post them up in abit.

Hopefully 2012 will bring bountiful catches for all the kayak anglers and shore anglers alike!

Tightlines!

Mathew

Download and support the local fishing community!
SG ANGLERS on the App Store!

It’s still abit raw but I believe within 2 months when information is collated and updated properly it would be a useful app!!

Tight lines!!
Mathew