Disaster...my rod broke

I am depressed....

My rod broke while luring on Saturday afternoon.

My lure got caught on a towel! (WTH is a towel doing in a lake??? Inconsiderate litter bugs!)

I tried reeling my line in and when the lure was within reach, *snap!* my rod broke into two.

The break looks like a clean one, at the joint between the handle and the rod itself as shown below. I wonder if it can be repaired...

If it can't, I guess I have to look for another better rod...

My first Peacock Bass caught on a lure

I've been reading up a lot on lure fishing and I find it more exciting than bait fishing.



Of course bait fishing has its uses and not that I'm staying away from baiting.



But for now, I'm going into luring.



So I got myself a few lures, some cheap ones from Surecatch. Rubber fishies about an inch and a half long. I bought a Rapala Skitter Pop and a Mini Fat Rap.



My first try on luring was on Wednesday morning at the nearby Jurong lake jetty. Tried all lures but no bite. Must have been because it was a thunderstorm the night before and the morning water was murky and dirty as hell.



I headed up to a nearby canal where it was rumored to be filled with snakeheads. Lured there with various lures. Unfortunately, it was here that I lost the Fat Rap. Yep! It got snagged and I had to cut away the line. Ouch! that cost me....



After about 3 hours in the morning with no bites, I headed home for brunch and some rest.



I continued on later at about 2pm back at Jurong lake. The water was less dirty and I could see more fish activity, even saw some peacock bass disturbing the surface and showing off their tail and bellies. I was determined to land at least 1 peacock bass.



After another 2 hours of casting and losing another lure to a tree...(I wonder how i casted until it snagged the top of a tree!), I finally landed my first peacock bass!



It was about 5 inches long, a juvenile. I didn't even realise I hooked up this young fella. I was just casting about, near the shore and retrieving. Suddenly I hear splashing as I pulled my lure up. Lo and behold this peacock bass babe was flip flapping infront of me. I think it bit on my lure and then let go when I pulled it out of the water.







Well to cut the story short, I just snapped a quick shot and let it back into the lake.

Ah my first luring success and a peacock bass at that...

Fishing trip – Labrador park 27 Sept 2008

Three of us from the office went down to Labrador Park to have a go at some offshore casting at the Labrador Park jetty. I got there earlier at about 830 while the other two reached somewhere around 11.

When I reached the jetty area, there were already quite a number of people fishing, ten if I remember correctly. The jetty area was surprisingly very clean and there’s even a tap provided. One thing lacking though was shelter. I got sunburned pretty badly at the end of the day. Should have remembered to rub on some sunblock!

Anyway the day went pretty uneventful for me, no bites. Even the others fishing had very little luck. From what I saw, one or two hooked up palm sized leatherjackets and some small herring

The only “exciting” thing about this trip was because one of my colleagues almost lost his reel to the sea. When he arrived, he was super hyped up and excited. He rushed through setting up his rod and line, and casted. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t screw on his reel to the rod properly and his whole setup literally flew out his hands. When I saw it happening, my thoughts were, “ouch! There goes his reel! Wonder how much that cost!” My friend was stunned and was just holding his rod, staring at his reel sinking. I quickly told him to get hold of the line that was still lined to his rod. Holding the line, we could still feel the line unwind from the reel and the reel sinking deeper n deeper. We started retrieving the line as much as we could and managed to pull up the reel. That was only half the problem though.

In our haste to retrieve the line, we forgot to coil the long line with a bottle, so the line was left in a big mess on the jetty. To make things worse, a kid rode a trike over the lines and a wheel snagged the lines, resulting in a big mess of knotted lines. My friend was on the verge of throwing the whole line away, but it was an expensive type of line. It was a braided fishing line, FireLine to be exact and it costs over $20 for a box of 125 yards. If it was just plain old monofilament nylon lines, I’ll agree with just junking the whole thing cos that costs only a few bucks, but not this expensive stuff.




The reel was surprisingly in good condition after being soaked in sea water and mud. Thank goodness for the tap nearby! We could spool up the line while untangling. So for the next 40 minutes, we were slowly but surely untangling the lines. Now I’m sure you’ll understand why I put the “exciting” in inverted commas!

We were there for another 2 hours plus with no catch. We had some bites though and lost a few bait. We used dead prawns cased with salt overnight in the freezer as bait. Better luck next time I guess.