Species hunting adventures in Singapore: Day 1.

Last month I flew out to Singapore with two of my mates, Chris and Lee, for a week of sweating profusely in the country's ridiculous, highly humid climate whilst trying to do some fishing. Singapore is home to hundreds of different species, so I was very excited to see how many I could catch. 

After a long flight from Heathrow, where Chris and I almost missed our connection due to a delayed flight from Edinburgh and a ludicrously long wait at the baggage belts in domestic arrivals, which resulted in a mad dash from Terminal 5 to Terminal 2, just making the check in desk with a minute to spare, we arrived at our hotel located in the Geylang area at about 10:00 on Wednesday the 21st. Our taxi driver, on the way there from the airport, insisted that we knew fine well that Geylang was the location of a large red-light district, despite us telling him repeatedly that it was merely the most affordable accommodation we found, and we were there only to fish for a week! 

After checking in, having a badly needed shower and getting changed, we jumped in another taxi, and went fishing at a few spots along the South Marina Promenade. Chris and I fished with Angleworm and Isome on a drop shot rig, whilst Lee tried searching the water column with small metal jigs and soft plastics on jigheads. Of course, before going, I'd done some research into the most likely species we would encounter and sure enough some of the most common ones were the first ones we caught.

The south coast of Singapore on a hot, sticky day. As it turns out, that’s pretty normal weather for Singapore.

My first fish of the trip was this seagrass tuskfish. Tuskfish are a subgroup of the wrasse family. They have quite prominent tusk like teeth, although they're not visible in this photo.

This was soon followed by lots of anchor tuskfish, they would turn out to be the much more commonly caught of the two species.

The third species I caught was this diamond wrasse, another very common species in shallow rocky areas. Also known as the bubblefin wrasse. 

After catching quite a few of the three wrasse species above, Chris caught a couple of small Spanish Flag snapper and I then caught this small dory snapper.

Chris and I were fishing close to the bottom. Lee searched the water column and wasn't catching many fish. Over several trips with Lee I’ve gotten used to this, he knows what he enjoys and through perseverance usually catches some pretty cool fish,..

...like this fringe eyed flathead.

After moving around a few times, we ended up hiding in the shade of some trees. We were all still sweating a lot and were also probably starting to feel a bit of jet lag kicking in. We soldiered on for a while longer though and were rewarded with a few more fish.

These pink ear emperor were pretty common.

I caught a solitary notchfin threadfin bream.

As well as another small snapper, this one is a yellowfin snapper.

I also caught my first grouper species of the trip when this small chocolate hind took my piece of angleworm.

By the early evening, the action had slowed down, and we had run out of bottled water. We had probably lost more water through perspiration than we had drank, so we desperately needed to rehydrate, so we packed up and headed back to the hotel. The air conditioning in our rooms was excellent thankfully and after another refreshing cold shower we headed out in the evening to explore the area, wandering around, eating some tasty food and washing it down with a few ice cold beers. It hadn’t been a bad start to our trip on the species hunting front, although I had managed to get sunburned on my left calf. I must have missed the area when applying my sun cream. Oops!

Tight lines, Scott.

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