29th December 2013 - East Coast Park

29th December 2013
Location: East Coast
Time: 11am-3pm
Bait: Grey Prawns and leftover frozen prawns from yesterday

Anglers: Cowboy Fisherman papa, 阿辉 (ahfai) - me

With lots of leftover bait, Cowboy Fisherman papa decided to go fishing again this morning. Planned to leave house at 8am but the both of us overslept hahaha.. 

Reached East Coast around 11am.. cool and cloudy weather, lots of low flying birds, not a good sign for fishermen but we were lucky the rain didn't fall where we fish today.. 

Current was very strong, lots of nibbles on the whole grey prawns.. unable to secure a hook up. Changed smaller hooks.. 

Cowboy Fisherman papa had a take on his surf, Fish On! up came a puffer fish hahaha.. seems like the puffers followed him from Labrador Park to East Coast! At the same time, a Malay uncle fishing beside us caught the catfish!

 Float down!! Strike! Fish On!! Small scat hahaha.. released..

Cowboy Fisherman papa seeing the scat, commented there might be sweetlips too.. quickly set up his shorter spinning set with the float and small hook set up.. Float down, Strike!! Fish On!!! Up came a Sweet Lips!! I always wonder why Cowboy Fisherman papa is able catch whatever fish he says he is going to target..

Float down! Strike!! Fish On!! Nice sized fish, put up a bit of a fight.. up came a bigger Scat for me.. asked if a younger pair of Malay kakis beside us if they wanted the fish, they didn't want the Scat so.. released..

Cowboy Fisherman papa then caught a finger marked bream.. followed by an eel on his surf.. poor eel nearly strangled itself to death, lucky Cowboy Fisherman papa managed to free the poor eel quickly by cutting loose all the lines..

The tide has gone and the water level is really low.. removed my float and caught a small crab.. time to pack up and head home..

28th December 2013 - Labrador Park

28th December 2013
Time: 5pm to 8pm+
Location: Labrador Park
Bait: Frozen prawns from tackle shop
Anglers: Cowboy Fisherman papa, 阿辉 (me)

Cowboy Fisherman papa is really into Labrador Park lately.. high tide ~8pm, I'm not really into night fishing but missing the 6am tide leaves us with no choice..

The passing showers doesn't seem to pass for good this afternoon.. as there was no thunder nor lightning, we continued fishing in the non-passing passing drizzle..

Low tide accompanied with lots of puffer fishes, took quite a number of our hooks away from the line..

As the tide was coming in, Cowboy Fisherman papa had a take on his surf, up came a crab with only 1 pincer.. a weird crab, long blue eyes and purplish brown pincer.. anyone have any idea what this crab is or whether it can be eaten? 

Labrador park seems really romantic at night! Do note that the pavilions have no lighting.. quite dark..

22nd December 2013 - Labrador Park

22nd December 2013
Time: 2pm to 5.00pm
Location: Labrador Park
Bait: Large Grey prawns from Giant
Anglers: Cowboy Fisherman papa, 阿辉 (me), A (阿辉's wife)

Cowboy Fisherman papa had a big take on his surf.. should be a pretty nice sized fish.. a pity the seaweed caught his line and the fish escaped.. as the hooks came up unharmed, chances being a big puffer is minimized.. could be a big Ang Kor Li or red sea bream.. 

I caught a palm sized stonefish, a pretty ugly fish.. haha! released and continued fishing.. 

A caught nothing today.. she didn't want to use small hooks this time, hoping for a good grouper.. 

Tide is getting really low.. there's no hope for our shorter rods now..

Lightning spotted further into the deeper water.. Dark clouds began forming closer to us and the wind was blowing hard.. time to pack and go.. 

Having caught nothing yesterday, I took my revenge and scored big today with a small stonefish hahahah!!

21st December 2013 - Labrador Park

21st December 2013
Time: 11am to 4.00pm
Location: Labrador Park
Bait: Live prawns 200g, Grey prawns & Bread
Anglers: Cowboy Fisherman papa, 阿辉 (me), A (阿辉's wife)


It's the first weekend after me and A came back from Macau. Cowboy Fisherman papa's previous weekend fishing was terrorized by puffer fishes and caught a huge flower crab with really sweet meat.. so we decided to go back to Labrador Park again this week.. especially for the sweet and tender Ang Kor Li (red sea bream).

I woke up early, went downstairs to buy some grey prawns and breakfast. 2 packets of chicken rice and 2 big pau.. Yummilicious!! 

A decided to bring our pet Maltese, BB girl, along as Labrador Park is quite clean and good for walking the dog. (A regrettable decision when a family with kids ate cup cakes near our fishing area and dirtied the place.. red ants soon terrorized the ground but we didn't know. Poor BB girl was jumping around and yelping.. her poor paws were covered in red.. red ants were attacking her!! very poor thing, I quickly threw her into a pail of water to drown the ants and ease a little pain before rushing her to the toilet nearby to begin extracting all the ants from her little body. To me and A's horror.. the amount of ants attached to BB girl's paws was disgusting!! Probably a hundred.. took us a really long time to finish removing the ants.)

Cowboy Fisherman papa's first cast with his surf caught him a nice Ang Kor Li.

A managed to catch 2 small wrasse that were released back. A little thrill catching the small fishes for her because catching Tamban is her favourite fishing activity hahaha..

Cowboy Fisherman papa then caught another bigger Ang Kor Li... really awesome!!
No luck with the live prawns, squids were attacking and killing them.. Cowboy Fisherman papa managed to pull one squid close to the shore but it escaped while being lifted out of the water.. kind of expected but still sad.. I have never caught nor eaten a freshly caught squid before.. wonder how it tastes like..

  
I managed to catch a puffer fish on my surf but.. it came up half eaten.. really gross.. a  pity I forgot to take a picture.. and really sad that the only fish I caught is a dead and half eaten one..

After finishing our baits.. we went back home.. gave BB girl a good shower and spot checked for any remaining ants.. poor girl.. T.T

Rod Bag Stands a big hit among Hong Kong fishermen!!

Rod Bag Stands a big hit among Hong Kong fishermen!!

Picture taken from a Hong Kong fishing magazine.

The above picture shows a fishing competition where most fishermen owns a fishing rod bag stand of their own. Having a fishing rod bag stand protects your gears, minimize contact with dirty ground and convenient to carry around. The rod bag stand Fishing Empire currently sells come with 2 shoulder straps, making it really easy to carry around like a backpack.

8th December 2013 - East Coast Park & Labrador Park

8th December 2013
Time: 11am to 5.00pm
Location: East Coast and Labrador Park
Bait: Grey prawns & Bread
Anglers: Cowboy Fisherman papa, 阿辉 (me)

Woke up later than before for the weekend fishing this time because high tide is in the afternoon.
Cowboy Fisherman papa has already eaten his breakfast and bought the drinks and bait for our fishing trip. Took a quick bath and a quick bite, and off we go!

Cowboy Fisherman papa wants to catch some red sea bream which he hasn't had any luck on for quite some time. I'm going for some whitings instead.

Reached East Coast, weather is nice, not very sunny but seems likely to rain in a few hours.. water is looking great.

There were more anglers and fishing rods than usual, some going for whitings as well. One uncle fisherman has a really long telescopic rod going for the whitings. Another younger uncle is using a short rod about 1.5m or shorter going for whitings as well.

Set up my 2.1m rod and cast out towards the open sea but it is sangkot haven if you can't cast far enough.. decided to just concentrate on my LoveFisher 185 to catch some whitings instead..

 Tied an apollo with 4 small hooks..

 Nice grey prawns cut into small small pieces..

 Find a good spot near the water and get ready to fish!

After a long while, many small nibbles, re-baiting, re-casting over and over.. finally a stronger pull.. up came a baby trigger.. really cute! 

 Continued fishing after releasing the trigger fish, very dark clouds forming ahead of us..

 Small droplets started to hit us, another uncle kept repeating himself, time to go definitely going to rain.. time to go definitely going to rain..

 Another nice pull, up came a whiting! My first and probably last whiting for the day.. as the rain starts to get heavier.. Cowboy Fisherman papa signaled to pack up. Cowboy Fisherman papa caught 1 pufferfish and an eel, no pictures taken as I didn't want to walk away from my rod.

Whiting placed in bag to bring home to fry.. tastes really awesome when fried with a little salt.. can eat it whole but I don't dare to bite into the head so Cowboy Fisherman papa usually gets to do that hahaha!

 Rain got really heavy, we were drenched when we reach the car.. quite a long walk from the beach..
Cowboy Fisherman papa doesn't wish to go home just like that.. it was only 1pm+, not even high tide yet! I took out my phone and looked at the weather app, North, Central and East with heavy rain, West is raining, left South is cloudy, yet to rain...

Cowboy Fisherman papa decides to head over to Labrador Park where there are sheltered pavilions by the sea, so even if it rains heavily we can hide in under the shelter.

Labrador park is pretty big, clean and have proper toilets if you decide to come for a picnic with your wife and children. Bring some recreational activities along though!

 It is drizzling but still alright to fish so we quickly set up our gears after a toilet break..

Cowboy Fisherman papa launched 2 surf rods out into the open sea, I am not prepared for that so I only used my LoveFisher with a floating rig to try my luck at some groupers..

Just after a short while, Cowboy Fisherman papa's surf rod is shaking, the bell is ringing, ringgg ringgg ringggg, rinng ringg rringggg! A light strike! Fish on! Up came a nice red sea bream! Cowboy Fisherman papa is really delighted! His target fish with really sweet and tender flesh. You will really love this fish once you've tasted one that is this fresh!!

 A really beautiful fish!!

 After a while, another smaller one was caught, really beautiful fishes..

 There were lots of seaweed a few meters out from shore..

 Still no fish for me.. Weird.. my float is showing some pretty fierce bites and my whole grey prawn is gone really fast! Remembered seeing some old fishermen with pole rods some distance away... hmm.. maybe there are lots of rabbit fishes around! I remember seeing some bread in the bait box! Quickly changed hooks to a small one and took some bread..

Cowboy Fisherman papa then caught a puffer fish!

The rain is getting really heavy, but I didn't cared much.. there were tall trees aboth us, didn't feel as worried as fishing out in the open..

Patience paid off!! Float went down, gave it a light strike! FISH ON!!!! really fun to play with, love getting rabbit fishes.. the LoveFisher is pretty light but not light enough to fully enjoy the fight with a rabbit fish! Will come back with ultra light gears next time! Already placed an order for a size 500 reel and ultralight rods. Really nice reels, will be here in January, post pics and pre-orders when it arrives..

Took a picture quite far away from the fish, really scared of its spines if I were to go too near.. I'm really timid and afraid of pain, do not dare to touch fishes.. an embarassment for someone who has been fishing for some time.. 

 Thereafter, Cowboy Fisherman papa had a bigger take, fish got near I saw some red on the water surface.. most likely a really bigger red sea bream.. a pity the fish managed to free itself when it is about a meter from shore.. really sad..

 Star Cruise Virgo spotted coming out into the open sea.. really nice view! Virgo is HUGE!! Many people were taking pictures.. so I took a few as well! hahaha..

 No other catches that day.. Brought home the sea bream, whiting and rabbit fish.. Fried them with a pinch of salt.. tastes super awesome!!

Tackle bag, Rod bag, pretty much everything was drenched... first time fishing under such a heavy downpour.. drenched all the way through even the underwear was soaked!! hahahaha..

These are what I have in my tackle bag.. after washing the reels, placed them on the table to dry..

Hope you enjoyed reading this week's journal.. next week I will be overseas so no fishing for me.. T.T