Happy New Year!

This the first day of 2008 and I decided I would somehow find something interesting to contribute on this first day of another exciting year. Well, what an understatement that turned out to be!

Turned out, I was invited to witness some of the hottest fishing I’ve ever seen on the shores of Singapore. The invitation was made on the eve of a New Year’s day party and I was thinking about turning it down, half in expectation of a long and late night out. Was I glad I accepted the invitation!

I met Hock and a few of his buddies at Changi point at 5.45am from where we had a quick breakfast and made our way in his trusty Landrover Defender and Ron’s (of Lure Haven) Nissan X-Trial. My first thought was, “What an overkill!”, until I saw the kind of terrain ahead of us. With the rainy season, puddles of mud and murky water were everywhere. Together with the darkness of dawn, I actually felt very assured in the Landrover, having been accustomed to its capabilities in my army days! If you don’t have a 4 wheel drive vehicle, your chances of making it in and out of the place will be drastically reduced.

The place is a little finger pier, about 1km long, just next to the Changi Expo (see satellite map). When we reached the place at about six, a group of about 10 anglers were already there. Rods were quickly assembled, anticipating fast and furious action on the sunrise. Entrance to the place wasn’t easy. Some of the entrances had barriers over them while some had guards in place. This was where 4 wheel drive vehicle had a major advantage as they could go through any opening in the unpaved ground without so much as a cause for concern.

This little pier was almost ideal, acting as a wind shelter against the strong NE Monsoon winds, which were just starting to pick up. Outside the barrier, white caps caused by the 10knots wind were building while inside the barrier, the water was a beautiful calm, only broken once in a while by a ripple caused by an escaping gust.

Video 1 - Acrobatic Queenfish in action!

After a little warm up, the action started at about 7am with the first hit. This followed almost immediately (within a minute) by another and another and soon, everything was total chaos with shouts and screams everywhere!

Well, instead of spending too much time trying to describe everything in words, I’ll just let my pictures and videos do the talking. Suffice it is to say that I witnessed some of the best surface action and aerial acrobatics display by a lively group of queenfish I’ve seen in a long time. Double and triple hookups were the order of the morning and they happened all over the place. Never had I been so busy with my camera instead of my rods.

Video 2 - Watch how the big one was landed!

Biggest fish of the day was a 6kg “monster” which took the metal jig just about 10 meters from the shore taking angler and “spectators” by surprise. Queenfish are an aggressive lot, prefering surface lure and poppers to conventional lures. While the hook up chances were lower due to faster retrieves and poppers and jigs bouncing off the water, I personally prefer surface fishing as the visual impact of a surface take is always an awesome spectacle to witness! There were countless misses but still, almost every angler ended up with at least one fish each (with the most being 3 per angler).

Well, all good things do ultimately come to an end. The “window of opportunity” was from sunrise (about 6.30am) to about 8am and thereafter, the action slows down to a trickle with the occassional catch every 15-20 mins or so. By 9.30am, the fishing boats started coming in and we decided it was time to call it a day… what an exciting morning on the first day of the New Year!

Video 3 - See Double Hook-up action below!

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