Peacock Bass Hunting @ Lower Pierce Reservoir

15 January 2016

It had been raining for a few days. Previously on Wabbit Fishing Log, I have wrote about weather forecasting based on the water level in the Lower Pierce Reservoir. As it has been raining for a few days, I decided to put theory into practice. I will check out the water level in the reservoir to prove whether I am right or wrong. And at the same time, do some Peacock Bass Hunting.

When I reached the legal fishing ground of Lower Pierce Reservoir, I am relieved that I am correct. The water level was really very low.

All the rocks along the edge of the reservoir were exposed. Although I am glad that I am correct with the weather forecast, I am sad because this fishing trip will be a disappointment. Due to the low water level, the fishes, especially the Peacock Bass, will be hiding in the deeper water further away from the reservoir edge. This means that there will be hard work casting the lure further. Being a lazy wabbit, I decided to look for pockets of deeper water that is closer to the edge to save me some far casting. 

Luckily, I found these pockets of deep water. I am pleasantly surprised that these pockets hold fishes although they were the smaller ones. Who’s complaining when there were fishes to be caught? 

The setup that I used in this trip consists of the Shimano Catana 5.5ft 8-16lb fast action rod with a Shimano AERNOS XT 1000 reel loaded with a unknown brand 15lbs braid line. 

As small fishes were expected, I decided to do Fly Fishing using Spinning Gear. The effective retrieve technique during this trip was bouncing the fly along the bottom. 

I managed to get 3 Peacock Bass during this one and a half hour session starting at around twelve noon. At least it cured my fishing itch.

Until next time, Tight Line.

Spinning Fly for Temensis @ Lower Pierce Reservoir

13 January 2016

I decided to go Temensis hunting at my favorite fishing spot. This is the legal fishing ground at Singapore’s Lower Peirce Reservoir. Although this fishing ground is heavily fished, the easy accessibility and beautiful scenery makes it my go-to place whenever I wanted some short casting and hunting practice. In this session, the effective luring method is Spinning Fly.

Today's water level was considered high as can be seen in the following picture. 

Based on my past experience, the water level in the reservoir can help in forecasting rain in the next few days. When the water is high, as in the above picture, there will be no rain in the next few days. If the water level is low, then there will be rain in the next few days. This is quite an interesting observation. 

My guess is that the water authority in Singapore used the reservoir as a sort of flood prevention. When rain is expected, the authority will drain the reservoir so that when the rain comes, the water from the upper reach of the reservoir will be stored behind the reservoir’s dam. No excess water will be allowed to flow beyond the reservoir’s dam to the lower reach. This will prevent flooding in the lower reach. When no rain is expected, water will be stored in the reservoir for future used and therefore the water level will be high. I hope that my guess is correct.

The high water level also helps me in my Temensis hunting. When the water is higher, the bigger Temensis can come nearer to the shore to feed. In this case, I do not need to cast very far out to search for them. Also the smaller Temensis like to hide among the rock to ambush any small unsuspecting fishes that swam by. Using this knowledge, I can cast my lure and run them over the rocks to catch them.

I started the session with a bunch of rubber lures. There were no takes by the bigger Temensis but smaller Temensis can be seen chasing after the lures.

Since the bigger Temensis were not there or they were not interested, I decided to downsize my lure to target the smaller Temensis. 

I changed my tactic to Spinning Fly. The flies used in my rig are home-made. The following picture shows one of my homemade flies. 

Black and White Raffia Fly

The fly is tied using commonly available material like sewing thread, raffia strings and glitzzy tinsel strings. A size 8 baitholder hook is used in the fly. For adhesive, I used a clear nail polish. Initially I had concerned on the durability of the nail polish as adhesive. But after using it for a long time, I can safely say that the nail polish can withstand countless whacking by the Peacock Bass. This is one good alternative to the epoxy glue or the super glue.

I targeted the smaller Temensis by running the weighted fly at mid water over the rocks. I initially started with a Black and White fly, followed by a Green and Yellow fly. Those guys do not seem interested. I only got a response when I used a Green and White fly. I managed to get 4 of those guys during the session. One of them is one of smallest fish I ever caught on Spinning Fly. Although they are small, they made up from their lack of size with their fighting spirit. They are loads of fun on light setup. Since they can be caught quite easily using weighted fly, they are a good target for the beginner lure angler. Catching them can give the beginner confidence in the ability of lure to catch fish.

The First of the Fantastic Four.

The Smallest in this session. One of a pack that attack the Fly.

Big Brother of the Fantastic Four. Nice Marking of a Juvenile Cichla Temensis.

The Last. Rocketed out of a Rock Crevice to grab the Fly.

Catching small Peacock Bass or Temensis using Spin Fly is fun and relatively easy. Make it part of your lure fishing learning process. This will help boost your confidence and sharpen your luring skill. Go when the water level is high and you will be rewarded.

Thanks you for Reading and Tight Lines.

Night Fishing Opening Session in 2016

When: 2 January 2016 

Where: A freshwater body somewhere in Singapore.

Weather: Moonless Night, Cloudy with occasional lightning seen.
Water Condition: Water was clear. The water level was high considering that there was rain the past few days.
Rod: SureCatch Romana 602 8-15lbRod
Reel: Shimano Holiday Spin XT 1000 Reel
Line: 10lb Monofilament Line
Leader: 10lb Dupont Monofilament Line
Method: Floating Bread
Strike Zone: Near to the water edge
Victim aka The Fish: The Red Devil Cichlid and The Mayan Cichlid
Comment/Observation: 

Now that the school holiday is over, school will be starting soon. Because of school work and such, there will be less time for the kids to go day fishing. So the available free time is at night. This signals the start of night fishing.

Our favorite night fishing spot is a local freshwater body of water. We found this place by accident. We were walking by this place one evening when we found bread slices discarded by some anglers at the water edge. As the bread was an unsightly sight, we decided to throw some small pieces into the water, hopefully to find out if there were fishes that eat bread. Before long, there were ripples on the water surface. So there were some fishes feeding. As it were dark, we could not make out the species of fishes that were feeding. We then decided to come back in the future to check this place out. To make a long story short, this is a pretty good fishing spot.

Since there is a small window of opportunity tonight, my kid and I decided to visit our night fishing spot. The tactic of choice is free-line floating bread and the target is any fish that eats floating bread. The free-lining method was used because this is a highly fished area during the daytime and the fishes are very suspicious of any fishing tackles in the water.

The fishes here are mostly palm size. Only occasionally a few big fishes will come visiting. The biggest fish that was caught here weighs in at around 4Kg. So we mostly use light setup here. The setup are 8-15lb class rods paired with size 1000 reels loaded with 10lb line. The hooks of choice are the size 8 beak hook with 8lb Dupont monofilament hook length.

I tried to used a thinner line for the hook length because thicker line will normally frighten the bigger fish away. I had seen big fishes rushing towards the bait but at the last minute, turned away. My guess is that they saw the line that is attached to the hook and this arouse their suspicion. So thinner line for better success.

When we reached the fishing spot, we will normally chum the area with some floating bread. This will help us locate any feeding fish. Then we will cast our float bread rig to the feeding spot.

There were no sign of any feeding fish for a good hour before some small nibbles of the floating bread came. Shortly more vicious surface takes were sighted and we immediately cast our rigs to the general feeding area.

Soon a fish took the bread and the first night victim was landed. It was a beautiful good size Red Devil cichlid. The scientific name for this fish is Amphilophus Labiatus. It is native to Central American and it is commonly found in the freshwater bodies in Singapore.

Shortly another fish was landed. This time it was a Mayan cichlid. The scientific name is Ciclasoma Urophthalmus. It is also native to Central American and it is another common fish in the freshwater bodies in Singapore.

Another Red Devil Cichlid was caught before we call it a night.

Introduced fish species are commonly found in Singapore's freshwater bodies. They could be released from the aquarium trade and they are replacing our natives species. Nevertheless we tried to treat our foreign talent fishes with respect. The fishes above are released without harm.

Please practise Catch and Release. This is the best way to sustain fish stock for the future.

Happy Reading and Tight Lines.

Fishing Paradise @ Orto Highlights of fishing trips

Be warned that this is going to be a long post.

It is the end of the year school holiday. It is the time of the year where families will go travelling and it is also the time when we will go for our big ‘game’ fishing, i.e., pay pond fishing. 

This catch report is a compilation of our last 3 trips to Fishing Paradise @ ORTO, a Singapore Freshwater Pay Pond. Freshwater and Saltwater Pay Pond are popular in this region especially near to densely populated area. City dwellers wanted to fish too but do not have the luxury and time to escape to the great outdoors. Singapore, being a very small city state, does not have much great outdoors. So the next best thing for fishing will be these easily accessible pay ponds.

I brought two of my medium setup to the pond. The first setup consists of the Shimano Curado 201I baitcaster reel loaded with 20lb monofilament line and the Xpuyu Elite Cast XEC631 8-15lb single piece rod. The second setup consists of the Shimano Aernos 2500FA fixed spool reel loaded with Power Pro 20lb Braided Line and the Lemax Euromax  EM 66MH2 12-25lb rod.

The rig used was a floating rig with floating bread as bait. The hook used was a size 1 beak hook. The hook length was the 15lb Dupont Monofilament line.

Our first trip occurred on the afternoon of 9 Nov 2015. During this trip, the bait of choice is bread as our main target is the Patins. We landed two Patins during this trip.

 

The first 6.5kg Patin

The second 6.5Kg Patin

The excitement of the trip was the take by a monster fish. Unfortunately, the monster was too shy to grace us of its presence. My youngest son was holding the rod when the monster fish took the bait. Once the fish felt the hook, it immediately swam towards the other side of the pond at full speed. The poor boy was holding onto the rod with all his might. The line from the Aernos 2500 FA peels out quickly. He could not stop the run. When it finally stops, he gave up and I took over. I started to pump the fish in. But within a few pumps, it went out again. This goes on for a good 10 min before the fish managed to dislodge the hook. There were a few sad faces staring at the loose line.

Our second trip was on 20 Nov 2015. This time we decided to go for a morning session. It was a cloudy day and there were surface actions.  The session started well. A few big fishes were seen surfacing to feed.

The first fish was sort of a surprise. My youngest boy saw the line from the rod slowly moving out. When the line was taut, he gave a strike but there was no run. This is very unlike a Patin. When he was pulling the fish in, he commented that it felt like a giant plastic bag. Only when the fish came nearer to the side of the pond did the fish make an attempt to swim out. Finally, we managed to see that it is a very big 6kg African Walking catfish. It was a surprise because who would imaging a bottom feeder to eat a floating bread. 

The 6Kg African Walking Catfish

The next fish is the usual victim, a Patin weighing 6Kg. 

The 6 Kg Fat Patin

At this session, we also missed another monster fish. The monster took the bait and run. The short but fast run end with a loose line. The hook was dislodged. What a waste!!!!!

Initially there is a fear that when the sun rose higher, the bite rate would decreased. It seems that this morning fishing was not bad. So we planned that the next trip will be a morning trip.

The following trip was on 3 Dec 2016. This morning there was very little cloud in the sky. There was a nagging doubt about today’s fishing. My best guess was that it would be very sunny and the fish would not feel like biting. Sigh. The trip turned out as expected. The sun rose quickly and the bite rate was really bad. Looking around the pond, only 3 fishes were landed including ours during our morning session. So our hunch was correct. When the sun rose high high, the surface take turned low low. On the hind sight, maybe we should do bottom fishing. The fishes may go into the deeper and cooler water as the sun rises higher into the sky.

Or maybe there is another reason. On past fishing trips to Fishing Paradise, whenever we caught a Rohu, we would not catch another fish. We called this the Rohu jinx. So we always have this fear of catching a Rohu. On this trip, the first and only fish caught was a Rohu! Sad faces appear when the Rohu graced us with its presence. Here is the picture of the Rohu.

The Rohu

By the way, the scientific name for the Rohu is Labeo Rohita. The Rohu is a member of the carp family. It is found in the rivers of South Asia. It is a plant eater and it is an important fish in aquaculture. It is known to put up a long hard fight when hooked. From past experience in catching this fish, it will refuse to surface even when it is near the pond’s edge. It will put up a tight close quarter fight until the last minute. Loads of fun on light tackle.

Because of time and money constrain, i.e. to get the maximum bang for the money and time spend, we decided to go back to the 4pm-6pm fishing session at Fishing Paradise. Maybe one day, we will try to find the solution to better catch rate in the morning. Maybe like trying to wake up at 6am in the morning and start fishing at day break.

Overall we were quite satisfied with the sessions. The bite rate was fine except that in certain period of time. Sometimes the fishes stole the bait. I would attribute this to smaller fishes taking the bait. Maybe on our next trip, we would use a smaller hook to catch these smaller fishes and prayed that the hook will hold when a big fish hits.

Thanks for Reading and Tight Lines.