My last offshore fishing trip of 2012 (18-19 July)

Yes, for the same reason that travelling via plane will not be something that I will be doing for the next few months, I have just hung up my fishing gear for the rest of the year. It is very hard to put aside something that one loves so much (and I've just acquired an ice box from Carrefour the last weekend!) but time and circumstances dictate otherwise. I'm going to miss the sparkling blue of the sea, the wait with the rod in hand, the lapping of the waves....

And of course, the thrill of a great hook-up Anyway I wanted to blog about this trip not only because it is the last fishing trip for me this year but also because of a very unusual hook-up I had this trip.

Now you might be thinking - a greasy grouper! What's the big deal? But let me tell ya, I caught this table-sized grouper on sabiki size 8 hooks! Here's the evidence below, you can see the sabiki rig and my friend's Size 12 sandal next to the grouper (to give an indication of its size). The grouper was chasing the smaller fishes that usually takes the sabiki bait and in biting its prey, it got hooked too! From the two other hooks stuck in its body, it might have tried to escape but well, with 3 sabiki hooks in it, its day of reckoning has come.

Now, this trip was a far cry from the previous trip on this boatman's boat where we had a massive haul. I guess I should have known when he said that it was sotong season but I didn't expect that the bottom fishing would be so bad with the abundance of sotong eating the prawns. The school of tenggiri which we had hunted 2 months back had dispersed according to the boatman and so back to bottom fishing we went.

Now, I have to confess that although a squid has absolutely no fight when it is caught, I still enjoy that tug on the my jig when I am casting and retrieving, casting and retrieving. The pull by the sotong on the jig never fails to take me my surprise as I am retrieving line and then it's come to Mama time as I reel in the sorry greedy squid.

We caught a sackload of squids this trip - I think I caught about 11 pieces altogether on the first day and another 10 pieces on the second day. It would have been great if I ate sotong but that's the one seafood that I absolutely detest!

Thankfully, the other anglers on board managed to catch other fishes such as a large chermin. We saw lots of leather jackets at the surface nibbling away at our baits on the sabiki but no matter which size sabiki hooks we used, we failed to hook up the leather jackets. It was frustrating to watch them take the bait and even follow it all the way up close to the surface. The boatman said it was because their mouths were too hard for us to set hook.

We had dinner at a different restaurant this fishing trip instead of our usual Restaurant Rompin Bahru. The reason is of course the proximity of this new restaurant to the jetty and our chalet. The boatman and 1 other angler caught a red grouper which we cooked with the chermin. And of course lots of deep fried squid.

This was our haul to be split from the two days of fishing after us having eaten most of the good fishes over 2 dinners. The very red fish on the right was what I had caught on sabiki too. It's in my freezer now waiting to be cooked by yours truly! And yeah, we pretty much wiped out the ang kor li clan (left of picture).

I am proud to say I caught the most of the ang kor li on board the boat - not so much by luck but by pure diligence. When we hit the ang kor li spot, I changed to a sabiki rig (large size hooks) and put prawn heads/tails on the hooks before lowering the same to the bottom and just waiting. Always the pull, the ugly bend of the rod, and then me reeling it to bring up at least 2 ang kor li at a time. Then the reaching for the pliers to shake off the fishes into a pail, and then setting my rig again before lowering it to catch more.

My friend used some of my ang kor li to go after Tenggiri/Sail Fish or I would have more to show for the trip. The other angler holding the chermin also went after bigger game but someone has got to go after the smaller fishes and ang kor li makes for great eating! My mum fried some of the ang kor lis with tumeric powder and it was all just delicious!

Fishing Season 2012

Ever since I've been with my CEB, I have not gone prawn fishing. The only fishing I've done was offshore fishing organized by his friend.

With my old fishing kakis jio-ing me to go pond fishing at Punggol and for upcoming fishing trips, I need to go send my reels for servicing and set aside some time to practice tying knots so I don't make a right fool of myself.

My fingers are itchy. It has been far too long. Going to cut back on personal and work trips to free up the weekends.

I MUST go fishing. The huntress in me is crying to be let out.

Fishing - Mersing Tragedy and Nenasi Fishing on 14 Aug 2010

I've stopped fishing offshore since the middle of August last year - we couldn't make it for the last offshore trip for the year which was scheduled on my CEB's birthday in October because we were in Phuket holidaying. And then there were no further offshore fishing trips arranged because most of the weekend slots in Nov had been booked by others targeting sailfish and it was also the monsoon season (late Nov to Feb).

I have had fishing trips cancelled because the boatman refused to go out to sea due to the choppy weather, and that wasn't even during the monsoon season. So it was with great sadness that I read about the deaths of 4 Singaporeans who drowned when the boat they were in capsized off Mersing where they had gone for a fishing trip this month. To compound matters, there were insufficient life jackets on board and the boat was loaded past capacity. Talk about sheer irresponsibility on the part of the boatman. May their souls rest in peace. The sea is an unforgiving master, and seeks to exact its toll on those who take from it.

And that is what I intend to do in a couple of days time. Like the past 2 years where I welcome the new year abroad, this year I will not be in Singapore again. Well, at least not on the island. We are going fishing (Singapore waters) and will be on a boat to catch the fireworks before heading for the wreck to get some monster groupers ("gaos"). More fun, chicken wings and beer than serious fishing, according to my fishing kaki who was the organiser of my last offshore fishing trip of 2010 in Nenasi. Yup, the picture below shows my first catch on that fishing trip. A bright chermin. Caught it on the bradmis which has brought me incredible luck this year and a wide variety of fishes. The fight was thrilling but too short - I wasn't targetting chermins this size but GTs so this fish was no match at all for my 40lbs leader.

I caught a couple of greasy groupers but they were only 2kg+ each which meant no one scrambled to take any photos at all. And I left my trusty Sony Ericsson behind which was a huge mistake because to get photos from pp generally is a tough process. The rest of the fishing trip was rather quiet for those who were doing bottom fishing so I switched to jigging for squids. It was sotong season besides. With the triangle technique I'd learnt from my fishing shifu, I landed about 7 sotongs in all - the first one fell off the barbed end of the cheap jig while waiting for my CEB to go get the camera. So i changed jig and after 3 casts, I landed this decent sized sotong which ended up as bait for those bottom fishing.

So although I don't eat sotongs and one doesn't really pay good money to go squidding on an offshore trip, I spent about 2 hours jigging for squids - cast retrieve in triangle fashion until one feels a tug, then the dead weight at the end of the line which means either a catch or....a lost jig (sungkot)...nothing beats the thrill of fishing and wondering what the hell is on the other end.

Well anyway, after realising that most of my sotongs had been butchered by the anglers on board to be used as bait (their prawns weren't working), I decided to go after my dream catch. Yeah, it's nothing much - a parrot fish. It helps that the meat of a parrot fish is even more tender/delicious than a normal greasy grouper of course, but no, I chase the parrot fish not for its meat but because I've never had the luck to land one.

See this beauty I'm holding? It isn't mine. There I was using the same bait (prawns) as the guy on the other side of the boat who was using a handline and this 4kg+ parrot fish took his bait and not mine. He let me pose with a picture of his fish (which he packed back to HKG) - only the borga used to grip its mouth, and the bradmis behind in the picture belong to me. And that is the thing about fishing - it reminds me that as in life, there are many things beyond our control and sheer will (or force of will) is insufficient - there are many times when we have to surrender to a higher power/forces greater than us. May the good Lord deem it fit to bless me with a parrot fish and many other fishes in the coming 2011!

Lure Fishing at Boon Mar and Bait Fishing at BSR (again)

When I went to Bangkok (BKK) last year with my mum, we enjoyed ourselves so much that we decided to repeat the experience again this year. So off we went on a Wed night till late Sun night end Oct for a "Mother-Daughter fishing, eating, shopping cum beauty" trip. Boosted my experience lure fishing in Langkawi (which I will be flying off to tomorrow!), I decided to go to Boon Mar pond which stocks exclusively, barramundis (Barras), also known as Sea Bass or Kim Bak Lor (Kims). Boon Mar is located 80km east of Bangkok in the Bangpakong district of the Chachoengsao province and we took about 40mins to get there from a hotel near the airport area. The air there is amazingly fresh given the country side location of the pond but the amenities provided at Boon Mar are horrifyingly basic. It might therefore not be a good idea to bring non anglers or ladies to Boon Mar - the toilet is located in a shack which is a good 10 mins walk (on a dirt path) from the fishing pond and the only shade/shelter at the ponds is a couple of umbrellas on rickety stands. Fortunately it didn't rain (or shine too brightly) and neither mum nor I had to use the toilet at all. I started out with a yellow bright surface minnow lure. After two or three casts, I got my first hook up at Boon Mar, a 2+kg Kim 

The next 4-5 cast netted nothing and the wind was blowing rather strongly which meant that the lure did not land where I had aimed. So I changed to a heavier lure, also a surface one with the all too familiar red and white body. Cast, retrieve, cast retrieve, and then TUG! Next fish on put up a bit more fight but given its size, it was no match against The Slog or rather, a 3olb leader hehe. Pic below of the second Kim. Because I knew that the pond was full of nothing but Barras (Kims), the only one variable which I could play with (without changing line poundage or reel) was the type of lure I used. So I decided to change lure every two barras. After the third barra on the red and white surface action lure, I changed to a green diving action lure with slow motion retrieve. I didn't have much faith in this lure at first but green is my favourite (and lucky) color so I figured why not. And it turned out that I never changed any more lures after using this one. I landed the second biggest Kim of this trip on the first cast. And then it was Kim and more Kim. It got to the point where I didn't mind failing to land two kims becaused they had tossed the hook. Kims put up a pretty good fight when snagged...that is what makes barras good fighting fishes. Unlike Pacus which jerk and try to break the line, groupers which dart down to make for its holes, and stupid catfishes which make long runs (for structures etc), Kims actually surface from the water shaking their entire body to dislodge the hook from their mouths. However, even if one failed to set the hook properly (which I have never forgotten to do since I lost that fishing competition in KK last year), a greedy Kim which takes the entire lure like this one below, is a goner. Talk about deep throat.

Anyway, between 9am to 11.30am, I landed 12 Kims, lost about 4 and got pretty bored/tired of fishing Kims. Variety is really the spice of life. Pic below shows the final and largest Kim I caught at Boon Mar estimated to be about 4-5Kg. Oh yes, one more important thing about going to Boon Mar - wear covered sandals. See my sandals above? Those are NOT good for going to Boon Mar with. I got at least 4 huge insect bites, 2 of which caused my right big toe to swell up and make walking difficult. After I sprayed insect repellant, I still got 3 huge mosquito bites. I don't know how true it is that certain blood types are more prone to mosquito bites but it seems that I get more bites that my CEB every time, and this time, more than my mum too!

Well, as I said, it got really boring hooking up Kim after Kim and I decided to go to Bungsamran (BSR) in the afternoon after lunch to relive last year's thrill of reeling in large mekong catfishes. Sadly and unfortunately, after having landed a 35kg catfish last year, nothing I caught this trip compared or gave me the same buzz. There is no way one can use light tackle at BSR because some of the catfishes there are over 100kg and you never know which fish may take your line (the minimum/standard reel is 6000 unless you are prepared to run the risk of your expensive/treasured reel breaking if you catch a large one). On hindsight, maybe I should have just gone for even lighter tackle at Boon Mar to up the thrill of catching Kims but oh well. Pic below shows No 6 of the 6 catfishes I caught at BSR in the space of almost 3 hours. And I think it is time to hit the gym again - didn't have the stamina I had last year...meh.

After fishing, mum and I went for dinner at the Thai restaurant on the second floor of Ploenchit Shopping Center. The food there is pretty steep for BKK standards but the crispy fish and prawn ball appetisers are superb. However, although I wouldn't say this is a Must-Eat-At restaurant in BKK, it sure beats the other alternatives at the basement of the shopping center.

And oh yes, even if BKK is no longer good for pond fishing (at least for me), there is always good food and one should try out the immensely popular local Jap restaurant. Zen is higher end than Fuji but Fuji is so reasonably priced with a huge variety of Jap food that it is worth a visit at least once when one is in Thailand. We had Fuji twice when we were in Phuket, my CEB and me, and this time in BKK, I had Fuji twice too. Below is a pic of just some of the many food items on Fuji's menu.

Fishing at Nenasi in early June on King Chong's boat

Being really sick this month (June) didn't stop me from doing what I love most. I'd a fever of 38 for two days before the trip, lost my voice, was coughing madly and choking on phelgm but there was absolutely no way I was going to miss this fishing trip which I had been looking foward to. No way - no one (and there were many) and nothing (threats, exhortions, well-meaning advice) would stop me from going on this trip.

Not sure if other anglers feel the same but I feel akin to a soldier when I take up my rod and reel - my weapons against the fishes of the deep. The pic below is a shot of the "weapons" (each person brought or 1/2 sets) that the 8 of us used on the trip. Mr Brad and Ms G-Loomis set is amongst them but not my penn reel and shakespeare rod set which I'd kept after the first day.

On the first day, I landed about 3 groupers, 1 of which is the largest grouper I've caught to date. I caught the fellow somewhere late morning when I was just sitting there holding on to my rod to make sure it didn't get tangled with the other anglers' lines. I felt a jerk on the end of my line and I sprang up like a jack-in-the-box from my sitting position while jerking upwards on the rod to set the hook. The greasy grouper didn't stand a chance against the Bradmis whichI worked slowly and steadily - the grouper did give several hard jerks along the way up to make for its hideout but the hook had been set firm and pretty soon, it was lying on the floor of the boat. I am bringing my camera for the next trip and checking the shots after it's taken - the photographer this time had a Canon SLR and I can't say I am pleased at all with the picture below showing only half my fish!



The rest of the afternoon was quiet and I was too sick to go sabiking or jigging with my second rod and reel (the penn set) even though it was all set up. I tried for a while though but the rod tip of the shakespeare rod was too soft (this is the first time I've taken the 10 year old made in usa thing out to nenasi) and could not impart my actions effectively to the jig or sabiki. My friend on the other hand caught an ebek when jigging, filling me with hapless envy. The next trip in August, I'm determined to land me an ebek through jigging too. About 4pm, the boatman decided to take us to a tripletail spot as it was the triple tail season but unlike my previous trip to Rompin, this boatman didn't bring us to any secret spots and the deckie this time was most lazy and unhelpful. If you asked me, even though I paid about SGD100 more for the last trip, it was worth it because it was non stop tripletail action for an hour. Here, it was, "not enough bait fish", "catch your own bait fish" "wait for an hour without action". If I hadn't a prior experience that I could use for comparison I might have thought that this was normal fishing. Anyway, I did manage to catch 1 big fat bastard of a triple tail - that's me with Ms G-Loomis bent right over.

And the size of the tripletail on the other end? Only this. These fishes may not be too large in length but they are pure muscle as I've said before in my previous catch report (click here), and must not be underestimated. I was considered lucky to catch this tripletail because there were those who had a bait on without a bite at all fishing at the same spot as I was. However, it isn't about luck alone - it's about what I learnt from the past experience at Rompin from the very experienced boatman and deckie - tripletails go for bloody meat. Not just bait fish, but baitfish sliced and as bloody as possible. So try to slice up your bait fish instead of leaving them alive.



The next day, the boatman brought us for tripletail in the morning which I thought was strange because from my experience at Rompin, tripletails feed the most about 4-5pm. However, I wasn't going to be the smarty pants around since I still can't connect my leader to braided line with an FG knot (I'm hopeless at it!) so I joined the group near the unjung, used my hook to tear at the meat of my live bait till there was blood and lowered the bait into the water. Thanks to my fantastic ZeroRh+ sunglasses, I could see some distance into the water and as I was reeling back my bait to check on it, a fish came swimming out of nowhere heading for my bait. I stopped reeling and to my delight, the fish took my bait. I counted to five and jerked hard upwards to set the hook (oh, believe me I've learnt never to not set hook after that cost me the first prize in the fishing competition in Sabah). My friend's wife next to me said that the fish didn't look like a tripletail and from the action below, I could tell she was right. Despite the size of the cobia, it didn't have half the strength and fight of a tripletail. Anyway, this was a really small cobia, even compared to the one I'd caught before (click here) and it didn't go for any runs or put up much of a fight. Still, I was happy to have caught the cobia because cobia porridge is great! :)



These were all the fishes that our weapons had conquered - out of the pile, I caught more than half of the fishes. Haha. Okay, there's my cobia, my tripletail, my 3 groupers....and also, 1/2 of all the Huang Xiao Jies (the yellow tailed/finned bait fishes on the right which taste great deep fried - not sure what the eng name of the fish is). After catching the cobia, the rest of the afternoon was so quiet despite the boatman changing spots that I changed the rig to sabiki on the Bradmis and enjoyed massacring the Huang Xia Jie clans in the sea. Sabiki-ing when it's quiet can be very fun but one must learn how to remove the fish from hooks oneself or one would be an annoyance when one reels up 3 to 6 squirming small fishes on sabiki. 1 of the other anglers who had a lousy day the day before and today (1 fish each day) said that he wouldn't mind the huang xiao jies so while everyone ate lunch I sabiki-ed and he stood by unhooking the fishes. It was fun - not serious angling but still...fun :)

Anyway, how we divided the fish was by lucky draw with 8 piles for 8 anglers so that no one would go home empty-handed. However, as a concession, each of us were allowed to pick one fish we had caught to be put in our pile and of course, I picked the largest grouper I had caught to date and here it is after a 3 hours journey back in an icebox from Nenasi to my kitchen sink.

Here are the rest of the fishes that I got in the pile - not too many like the last few times but quite enough till the next fishing trip! :D

I can't wait till the next fishing trip! :D

Eating everything I've caught at a go - Ebek, Sotong and Prawns

If anyone wondered what happened to the large GT that I caught (click here for the catch report), it has become the bane of my fishing existence. I'm not kidding. My mum has found a way to punish me for the loads of fish I bring home and stack in her freezer past midnight - like a Santa Claus with a sack of wet smelly fishes. No matter how late it is, I clean up as best as I can, quite fearful of my mother's wrath. But there is no escaping - she has been complaining that she is sick and tired of eating fish. At first, I could not understand, my mind failed entirely to comprehend how any human being could possibly be tired of this wonderous gift that God had given to mankind - fish! And then, my mother started to feed me fish every single day and on the weekends, fish for both lunch and dinner until, thick as my skull may be, I am enlightened as to why my fellow anglers give away their catches quite willingly!

The first fish that my mother cooked was the GT/Ebek in curry. This is a close up pic of one quarter of the fish (head portion) chopped up and cooked with coconut curry. After having cooked the cobia, tripletail and parrotfish to date, my mum likes the Ebek best. And it is indeed delicious - and guess what - it isn't for sale in Singapore or even JB markets - oh well, even if it was, my freezer is quite stuffed with Ebek meat still.

My mum also took it upon herself to cook the sotongs which I'd caught earlier (click here for the catch report) but since I absolutely detest the taste of squid, I didn't have any of it. It's strange why I like catching sotong even though I don't eat the same - sotongs never put up much of a fight either - it's just a dead weight at the end of the jig. And the mess they make! I just bought a squid jig for RM 44 and it's going to be my deadliest weapon in the squid killer arsenal when I go eging again with my fishing shifu - the weapon of last resort. The last fishing trip at Rompin, I had no problems landing 2 sotongs on a SGD 4 orange (that's the color to use at Rompin) jig but because the set up was different (a very heavy weight was used), jigging got too tiring for me and I went back to just bottom fishing.

But I digress - my mother, in addition to both the fish and squid, also cooked the rest of the prawns which I'd caught in my earlier prawning/prawn fishing forrays. Gosh, it has been some time since I've felt the urge to go prawn fishing but even if I get struck by the urge, my mother's method of making me eat all my catches is quite a deterrent indeed. Bah.

And here is a pic of my mum's cooking for dinner - all the different categories of catches (fish, prawns and squids) at a go including a pork meat dish and a veg dish.

I love my mother and her cooking but I do say - anyone wants any fishes? I'll keep you in mind the next time I go fishing!

Tripletail - Dirty fighter!

There is no doubt about it - what I am holding in my hand is one of the dirtiest fighters I've come across. And the what happens to be the largest TripleTail of this fishing trip which took my bait - we didn't have a boga with us so we could not get the exact weight of this fish but our experienced boatman and deckie estimated this fish to weigh at least 3kg. 3kg of pure muscle.

Now, I would not have managed to land this triple tail at all if not for the man in the picture below - the deckie whom we addressed as "Abang" (brother, in Malay). He is without doubt, the most hardworking and experienced deckie that I have come across. There was a mild feeding frenzy going on at the rear of the boat when I felt the tap tap on the end of the line at the bait and after counting silently to 8, I struck hard to set the hook. Immediately, the reel starting singing as the line peeled off and despite tightening the drag on Mr Brad, I kept losing line to whatever it was at the end of the line. I was tempted to set full drag but at the rate the line kept peeling off, to do so might be folly as the creature on the other end appeared to have enough strength to snap off the line. And while I was debating whether to set full drag or not, the singing stopped abruptly and when I tried to retrieve the line...only to find out that it was STUCK. As if sungkot (stuck between rocks/corals or caught on the ropes in the water). I was all of like, damn damn, and even the deckie agreed that this was a lost cause. Because of the expensive leader and complicated knot used to join both leader and line, I asked him not to cut line but to retrieve for me as much of the line as he could. So using a towel, he slowly retrieved the line for me by pulling the line towards the boat by hand while I cranked Mr Brad. Guess what, my set up ( 50lb leader and 40lbs braid and 2 knots (main to leader and leader to knot) was amazingly strong enough to withstand the pressure to pull the entire boat towards the spot where it appeared that my hook was sungkot. When we peered at the area where it appeared that my hook was, we realised that the triple tail was actually among the unjung (ropes in the water) and it had lodged itself firmly amongst the ropes and leaves in the water. Everyone hushed as the boatman used the landing net to scoop up the complacent tripletail which was snug in the unjung. Hah! We beat the fish!

Dirty fighter indeed, much like groupers which head straight for the holes in the corals once hooked! However, combined with the fight and strength of a seabass (kim) (unlike groupers which mostly give up once you get them out of the hole and do not go for runs), the tripletails are great fighting fishes if not dirty fighters towards the end. Do not estimate the strength of a triple tail ever - it has more fight in it than a cobia! The most important thing when fishing for tripletails is having a boatman experienced enough to have his own private spots (where he plants unjungs) and who knows what kind of bait triple tails take. I read on the net that tripletails take shrimps but not the tripletails at these spots. I used shrimp to test out the theory and got no hits at all but the moment I used bloody fish meat from certain bait fishes (tripletails can be fussy eaters), the takes by the fishes came almost non-stop. There is the tap tap one would feel on the bait, then one should count to 8 and strike hard to set the hook. We caught almost 3 bags full of triple tails (see pic above) - talk about fantastic fishing!

We? Yes, the 4 of us on Mike's boat - my colleagues and one honarary member (nephew of 1 of my colleagues) who is holding the large triple tail I caught and who has therefore reduced me to holding one of the smaller triple tails pulled from the 3 sackfuls. Talk about great fishing indeed at Rompin! :) When it came to fish distribution time, I specifically requested for the largest triple tail I caught so I could bring it home to show my mother. And here it is at about 2am in the night. The fish was so big that it could not fit into the sink properly and had to be laid diagonally across. The nokia phone in the picture was placed there to give an idea of the size of the fish. And below are some of the other triple tails I brought back too after the fishes were distributed amongst the 8 of us anglers. If you have been wondering why the fish is called a triple tail, just look at the position of the fins on this fish - doesn't it look like a 3 leaf clover ie triple tail? I'm hoping to get more of these fellows on the next fishing trip which is next week but it's off to Bali first until 1st June 2010!

Driving to Rompin and Restoran / restaurant Rompin Bahru

The last fishing trip, I took 3 and a half hours to drive from Singapore Customs to Mersing (7 to 10.30pm) and another one hour to get to the fishing chalet at Rompin. The reason was because of the heavy traffic jam in JB going in the direction of Tebrau City and also the number of cars on the road heading to and fro Mersing. However, when I drove back on a weekday night (not Fri), the traffic was much better and I took only 2 hours and 15mins in my vios to drive from Kuala Rompin to JB Customs despite the winding road, 3 pax and 2 large ice boxes in my cars and never having seen the road before in the day.

I have been bringing my 2 new groups of fishing kakis to restoran lei huat at Mersing which I was introduced to on the Pekan light jigging trip. Not because the food is very good but because by the time one gets to Mersing, there aren't very many choices left. The restaurant stops serving food about 10.45pm though and the ambiance of the place (no air con) and toilets remind one of a coffeeshop in Singapore in the 1960s. The hor fun at RM4 is pretty edible and filling I must say and is the ideal choice for a quick dinner before going on to Rompin or Pekan.

One knows one is at Kuala Rompin when one sees this giant marlin statue. Be warned though that after Mersing en route to Kuala Rompin, there is a bridge which one has to go across where there are lots of people fishing along the sides of the bridge, and right after the bridge, there is a traffic police roadblock (both times about 11pm on a Fri night) and the police may ask to see one's driving license.

Anyway, I saw this signboard of Restoran Rompin Bahru outside 7-11 and took a pic of it, never realising that this would be the restaurant I would be eating at all the time for breakfast and dinner when at Rompin or Nenasi.

Here is a pic of the restaurant in the day. It opens pretty early apparently about 7+am and they serve toasted bread, kampong eggs, wanton mee, porridge or meat buns for breakfast. The lady boss speaks English, Chinese and Malay fluently and is very helpful and pleasant (pleasant on the eye too!)

On my first visit to the restaurant (for dinner), she recommended the lotus soup. The Slog Reviews: 9/10. Everyone at the table raved about how good the soup was - it came with lotus roots, peanuts and chicken meat (and chicken feet).

We also ordered the fried chicken, sotong dish, and the restaurant cooked the two of the many fishes that we had caught during the day - one grouper and one parrot fish. The sotong dish apparently is a huge draw and all the times I've eaten there with different groups of friends, all of them have polished each and every morsel of this dish. The kangkong is average though and the chicken dish slightly below average.

Here is a close up of the parrot fish dish. Apparently, it is not possible to buy this fish at all in Singapore markets and this was the first time that I had parrot fish. The Slog Reviews: 10/10. Sweet succuluent tender white fish meat. It can't compare with cod or salmon of course but if you think that grouper meat is delicious, we had both grouper and the parrot fish at the same seating and the parrot fish meat tastes 10 times better than the grouper's. This restaurant does a fantastic job of cooking both the grouper and the parrot fish (steamed in the same source) by the way.

So where previously I'd always been most delighted to catch a nice greasy grouper, I'm beginning to hope for parrot fishes each fishing trip. Not that I'm dissing a greasy grouper which is amongst the most expensive fishes but I would sure like the Bradmis to land me one big fat parrot fish the next fishing trip. My freezer currently has about 4 groupers, one of which is this one below which I landed on the Bradmis - time to stock the freezer with parrot fishes instead!

Fishes that I have caught since 2009 (This entry will be constantly updated)

Saltwater

Offshore

Cobia
- on the Bradmis (click here)
Gar Fish
- in Langkawi on Rapala lure (click here)
Giant Trevalley / Ebek
- on the Bradmis (click here)
Grouper
- on the Bradmis (click here)
- in Langkawi on Rapala lure (click here)
Snapper
- on the Bradmis (click here)
Todak (click here)
- on the US Penn Reel "sabiki-ing" (click here)
Triple Tail
- on the Bradmis (click here)
Tuna
- in Phuket trolling (click here)

Freshwater

Pond

Giant Mekong Catfish
- at Bungsaram in Bangkok (click here)
Giant Siamese Carp
- in Phuket (click here)
- in Krabi (click here)
Grass Carp
- in Shenzhen (click here)
Pacu
- in Shenzhen (click here)
- in Bangkok (click here)
Patin
- in Phuket (click here)
- in Kota Kinabalu (click here)
Peacock Bass
- in Singapore (click here)
Red-tailed Catfish
- in Phuket (click here)

Cobia porridge and my first taste of tripletails

After all the fishing, especially last week's, my house's freezer is full of fishes, my car smells slightly fishy and I can't get the smell of blood and fish out of my nose. I've also eaten so much fish that I've got fish coming out of my ears. And all this is after me and my mum having given some of the fish away.

Anyway, I got to eat some of my catches today for lunch and for dinner. My mother was intrigued by the tripletails which the boatman had advised that we fillet and fry and which I had read on the net should be fried with batter. As such, she cooked not one or two but three of the many tripletails I'd caught (click here to read the catch report) for lunch - 1 medium sized one and 2 smaller ones. She also cooked a whole bowl of the prawns that I'd caught on one of my prawning trips more than a month ago.

I thought the fishes looked really strange (see the close up pic I took below), nothing like what I'd caught and then I realised why - the triple tails - the anal and dorsal fins as well as the fishes' tails were missing. When I asked my mum about this, she told me that there was so much fish in the freezer and the tails take up unnecessary space so she asked the fishmonger to cut all the tails off. I'm not sure if the groupers and snappers are now missing their tails too!

The flesh / meat of a triple tail is said to be white (see pic below) and without smell (ie doesn't taste fishy). My mother fried both these fishes with curry powder which lent the fish some taste because the meat certainly wasn't sweet or succulent but rather ordinary. The kind that really needs to be fried with batter and eaten with chilli or mayo.

As for the larger tripletail, my mum fried it and put it in some gravy she made out of dark sauce, sugar etc. I didnt like the taste of the gravy very much although she did and as I'd said earlier, the tripletail flesh doesnt have any taste so much depends on the sauce it is cooked in and the condiments.

For dinner, my mother cooked some of the cobia I'd caught in a soup with fish maw, veg and mushrooms. And wow, let me just say that I would rather catch another cobia again than a tripletail if I were catching to eat (the fight of the tripletail, as per my catch report here is better). The meat of the cobia is tender and sweet and although my mum didnt cook the meat in thick warm porridge which is the recommended cooking method for cobia meat, we added rice to the soup and it was extremely good! :)

My first ebek - the Ebek / GT that broke Mr Brad's virginity - and first Cobia

Remember me bringing Mr Brad and Ms G-Loomis together and promising some bashing good times ahead? (click here if you don't) While Ms G-Loomis was sadly second-hand, Mr Brad was brand new and in sore need of having his virginity broken so I paired both of them together and a very powerful and lethal combination they made indeed.

The very first fish that I caught with the Bradmis (short for Mr Brad and Ms G-Loomis) was a big ebek (giant trevally) off the coast of Pahang on an offshore trip. 3 of the 4 people at the front of the boat got hit with an ebek each and I was at the middle of the boat with my line running out almost to the bottom when I felt a powerful take at the end and Mr Brad started to shriek in short bursts, just like a woman. Ms G-Loomis was powerful (she should be, given her price tag) and bent only slightly over during the process but there were times when I could do nothing but hold on to Mr Brad as the line spun off him while the ebek fought in the water to get away. However, the Bradmis held true and we landed the ebek.

Here is a close up pic of the ebek caught by the Bradmis with the boga hanging from its mouth.

And yet another picture of me struggling to lift my prize to the position I wanted in the picture above. The weight of the fish and the fight robbed me of almost all my arm strength...almost, not all.
The gym sessions with the weight machine certainly paid off well enough because I managed to hoist the ebek up per the pic below. This is my first ebek and I've dreamt of catching one since the last light jigging trip up in Pekan where I left empty handed. And the Bradmis realised my dream with its very first fish. How about that! It wouldn't do for Mr Brad's virginity to be broken by something so non-dramatic like a 2kg grouper or snapper or sweetlips which are found in the waters here, oh no, that isn't the Bradmis's style. Talk about losing your viriginity in the biggest possible loudest most dramatic way - with an ebek!

And later that afternoon, to prove that the ebek wasn't a one off chance and that the Bradmis was capable of having a go at it, the Bradmis landed me another of the largest fish of the fishing trip when I was using my other rod and reel to get some bait fish with the sabiki. I'd left the Bradmis on the rod stand when Ms G-Loomis bent sharply as if she was seasick and hurling and then Mr Brad started to sing his high pitched song. I dropped the other rod and reel quickly and struggled to extract the Bradmis from the rod holder (the pressure of the fish taking off caused the rod to press against the holder). And then it was a good short fight with the first and only cobia of the fishing trip. The Bradmis held firm and true and the cobia gave up after 10 mins. Here's a pic of me and my first cobia. They say that the meat of the cobia can be used to cook one of the sweetest and best porridge around. Looking forward to that!