More Species Hunting Adventures in Singapore: Part 5.

The day after visiting the Southern Islands, and having rehydrated ourselves thoroughly, we had a break from fishing and took a Grab taxi north, where we spent the day on the Mandai Nature Reserve. There, we visited Singapore Zoo and River Wonders, and had a very enjoyable day. Singapore Zoo was very impressive, having a very open feeling to it, making close encounters with some of the animals possible.

This red ruffed lemur was chilling out right next to the path!

Even enclosures, like the panda's, were designed so well, you could easily forget you were in a zoo!

In the evening, as the park was about to close, we caught a transfer coach east to Khatib MRT station, and from there we walked south to Lower Seletar Reservoir’s legal fishing zone. There, I spent an hour or so fishing at the water’s edge, using my headtorch to search for fish that were hanging out in the submerged rocks. It was a fun session sneaking around in the dark, and I managed to catch a few fish. 

No chance of sunburn, but it was still quite hot!

I caught a few of these threadfin acara, a new species for me. They were sat motionless and dropping a piece of prawn down in front of them and twitching it around either resulted in a take, or the fish swimming off.  

We were just about to leave when I saw this fish’s head poking out of a gap in the rocks. At first, I thought it was a small snakehead. It eagerly snaffled my bait and was quickly pulled out of its hiding hole. It turned out to be my second new species of the evening, a marble goby. 

The following day, we left the mainland again, this time taking a bumboat over to the island of Pulau Ubin. I know what you're thinking! The name bumboat comes from Dutch word boomschuit, a combination of the words boom (tree) and schuit (boat), just to save you Googling as well! On Pulau Ubin, we spend the day wandering around, and I planned to fish around a couple of bridges that cross over the island’s expansive mangroves. Passing a drainage ditch on our way to the first spot, I quickly set up my tanago rod and winkled out a few small fish from it. 

The ditch didn’t have a lot of water in it, a few centimetres at most, but what shallow pools were present contained a few of these pretty little knight goby. 

Walking along the road through the jungle, admiring the multitude of beautiful butterflies as we went, we stopped several times, struggling to get photographs of them as they would stay still for no more than a few seconds. Giving up, we carried on with our stroll and soon reached the first fishing spot. My focus there, to begin with, was on the exposed banks of the mangrove and not on the water. It was mudskipper time! There are several species of mudskipper found on Pulau Ubin, but after a while I had somehow only managed to catch one of them. 

The barred mudskipper was the only species I managed to catch.

I was really hoping to catch a giant mudskipper at this spot, but sadly, we didn’t see any of them. So instead, I turned my attention to fishing in the water! After fishing in mud for an hour or so, it initially felt a little odd! Small hooks and little chunks of prawn soon produced a few different species.

Stripe-nosed halfbeak were present in large numbers. Darting over and greedily gobbling anything near the surface.

Their mouths are so weird!

I caught my first tropical sand goby, also known as the green-shouldered goby. It took a bit of prawn, slowly twitched along the bottom.

As did this silver sillago, a species I have caught before.

After a while, I hadn’t caught anything new, and when a monkey arrived and started lurking around just out of sight, it made Lillian a little nervous, so it was definitely time for a move. We headed further west until we reached the next bridge. When we got there, I forgot about what fish might be in the water again, and began scanning the exposed mud of the mangrove banks. There were dozens of one of the larger mudskipper species present, the algae eating, Boddart’s goggle-eyed goby, but initially I didn’t spot any giant mudskipper. I know from experience that trying to tempt algae eating fish with regular bait can be extremely challenging, and this proved to be the case. Dropping bait in their vicinity almost always resulted in the target scuttling off across the mud in disgust, or the odd fish simply ignored it. 

Eventually, I watched a giant mudskipper appearing from a big burrow in the muddy bank opposite, and after waddling through the mud, it settled down by the water’s edge. Fussy eaters, they are not! As soon as my piece of prawn landed near it, the fish quickly shuffled over and swallowed it eagerly! I waited a second before striking firmly to set the hook properly. Fighting a fish through mud is a pretty strange experience. It’s more a case of avoiding getting your line tangled around branches and other debris as you slowly winch it back towards you. I soon “landed” the fish and popped it into my net to prevent any escape attempts, but it was well hooked and going nowhere. Washing the mud from it before taking a few photos, I was over the moon to catch only my second ever giant mudskipper.

In my experience, once you unhook them and handle them for a bit, giant mudskipper actually become quite calm.

I love catching giant mudskipper! Can you tell from my demented expression?!

Popping the big brute back, it headed straight back over to its burrow and disappeared, no doubt taking some time to contemplate its strange encounter with the weird looking creature. Yet again, turning my attention back to fish that lead a much more conventional lifestyle, I started targeting the archerfish that were hanging out in the area. They are also a very cool group of fish in their own right! They live in the water but prey on food items that are often out of it after all! There were two species present, but only the banded archerfish, which made up the vast majority of the shoal, were fooled by my prawn and bread chunks hitting the water, rushing over to engulf them quickly. 

I ended up catching dozens of these banded archerfish. Great fun on my ultralight tackle. 

The handful of spotted archerfish in the group were clearly being a bit more selective in what they ate. Really, I should have gone off and found an insect to hook and cast out, but Lillian was already slightly freaked out be the fairly big lesser banded hornets that were munching away on a big piece of prawn I'd left out on the wooden rail in front of me, so I binned that idea. Instead, I switched to fishing on the bottom for a while again. This produced a few more knight goby, and then I caught my second new species of the day. 

My first amboina cardinalfish. Quite a pretty little fish with some iridescent markings. 

At this point, we heard a thunderstorm approaching, and it started to rain. Lightly to begin with, but I suggested we head all the way back to the landing pier. If it was dry when we got there, I’d fish for a while from the pier itself. If it was raining, there were places where we could get some shelter. We also planned to climb up Butterfly Hill on our way back to try again to get some photographs of them, but unfortunately the rain’s intensity increased before we reached the bottom of it and by the time we had made it back to the pier, we had taken a bit of a soaking. 

It rained heavily for a while, and as we were already soaked, I decided to just pack away all my fishing tackle. With no sign of the thunderstorm or the rain stopping, we decided to cut our visit to Pulau Ubin short, making a final dash out onto the landing pier to catch another bumboat back to the mainland.

So, the weather had not been kind yet again on our second day trip to an offshore island. That's travel for you, and we still had an enjoyable time there despite getting drenched! Despite being a little worried about what its intentions were, Lillian was happy to have seen her first wild monkey. On the fishing front, I'd caught a couple of new species and added a few more to my tally for the trip. I enjoyed catching the giant mudskipper in particular. They are such a bizarre fish! The archerfish were great fun too. I'd caught fifty-one species during our time in Singapore, including twenty new ones. Not too bad I felt, probably exceeding my expectations given we'd done a fair bit of sightseeing. The following day we were flying from Singapore to Phnom Penh in Cambodia to begin the second part of our adventure. I wasn't sure what to expect fishing wise but was really looking forward to visiting a new country and trying to catch some fish there too!

Tight lines, Scott. 

More Species Hunting Adventures in Singapore: Part 4.

On the fourth day of our time in Singapore, we caught the ferry over to St John’s Island. Another must visit place for any species hunting angler who visits Singapore in my opinion. Lillian was keen to do some fishing, so I set her up with a Rock Rover of her own. Only a short distance from the landing pier, we kicked the session off by targeting pink speckled shrimpgoby, ledgering small pieces of prawn on the bottom. At this point, I realised that I’d left my bait scissors next to the hotel bathroom sink, which would make cutting up my prawns into nice neat tiny pieces almost impossible, so I’d just have to improvise for the rest of the day. That said, I was still quite annoyed with myself! Anyway, the area we fished over was evidently still home to a very healthy population of pink speckled shrimpgoby, as we both caught one on our first cast. After catching a few more, admiring their amazing markings before popping them back again, we moved on to a second spot nearby.

Pink speckled shrimpgoby are awesome. My personal favourite shrimpgoby!

Just look at those beautiful markings!

It was official. Lillian had joined the pink speckled shrimpgoby fan club!

Arriving at my second chosen spot, I quickly spotted one of the species I had caught there during my visits to St John’s Island the previous year, as well as a species that I had spotted, but had failed to catch. At this point, Lillian declared that she didn't want to fish any more, telling me that it was too hot, and also, that I made fishing and catching fish look much easier than it actually was! I took this as a compliment of sorts, but was slightly disappointed that I’d probably be fishing solo for the rest of the day. As I started fishing again, she seemed quite content to watch and point out fish to me. I was happy that at least she had given it a go, caught a cool species and also had a new-found appreciation for the finely tuned skill set I’ve built up over the years!

The first species I caught at the second spot was orbiculate cardinalfish. Hanging around some drifting debris, they were very obliging when presented with a chunk of prawn. Slow moving, it was also easy to avoid catching them once I'd added them to my tally.

Before too long, a few anchor tuskfish appeared from down amongst the rocks to attack my bait. Fast and very aggressive, they kept darting out and stealing the bait from my intended target!

Eventually, I managed to present my bait close enough to a few yellow banded damselfish for them to get an opportunity to eat it! After striking too soon, pulling the hook out of their mouths a couple of times, I managed to hook one.

Having successfully caught my first new species of the day, I then turned my attention to a shoal of nearby glassfish. Setting up my tanago rod with a simple split shot rig and casting a tiny piece of prawn into the shoal, I quickly caught a few. Popppng them into my viewing tank I quickly realised I had caught two different species, one I recognised from last year's trip to Singapore and a second that was new to me.

This is Kop’s glass perchlet, I caught lots of these whilst fishing out on Pulau Ubin last year.

This tiny transparent fish was my first ever Vachelli’s glass perchlet.

Happy enough with the start to the day, we decided to head over to the causeway joining St John's Island to Lazarus Island. By this point it was very hot, and despite a slight breeze blowing, I was finding the heat pretty hard to bear. I'd also forgotten how unforgiving the reef there could be. Fishing closer in to try to minimise tackle losses, some small damselfish were rapidly and expertly stripping my bait. To make matters worse, hacking my prawns up with my multi tool was producing a mushy paste. Not ideal for achieving a bait presentation that would last a little bit longer!

I think it was the hottest day of the trip so far. Probably not very clever being out fishing in it. Lillian had wisely brought an umbrella, so at least she was able to sit in the shade as I stubbornly soldiered on.

I added a few species to my trip tally, and spotted some Indo-Pacific sergeant that I tried to catch. The smaller damselfish had other ideas, were much more aggressive, and kept stripping my bait within seconds! Clearly there was a large shoal of the much less colourful damselfish down there. Switching to a tiny hook, I started catching the species responsible.

After adding white shouldered whiptail,..

…and silty wrasse to my trip’s tally,..

…I discovered that the super efficient bait strippers were a shoal of silver demoiselle.

Catching the silver demoiselle became slightly annoying, so I began casting further out, but this just resulted in multiple lost rigs. Moving around, constantly rebaiting, or tying up rigs in the intense heat soon became very frustrating, so we walked around to a life-saving, but quite expensive, shipping container shop. A fairly new addition to the Islands, that wasn't there when I visited last year, it was well stocked, so we got some ice creams, two large bottles of ice-cold drinks and found a shady spot near the Seringat Island Pier to relax out of the sun and enjoy them. The floating pontoon had several boats moored to it, so I fished down the wall, over the railing in front of where we were chilling out. The bottom was quite rocky, and I lost a few rigs pretty quickly. I persevered and caught a few fish, but only one species that I hadn’t caught already.

My first Spanish flag snapper of the trip.

Despite the intense heat, which had made fishing rather uncomfortable, time had flown quite quickly, and before we knew it, the time had come for us to head back around to the landing pier on St John’s Island to board the last boat back to the mainland. I may have toiled in the heat and not caught as many species as I’d have liked, but I had still added a few more to my tally, including a couple of new ones. I think the next time I'm in Singapore, I'll make any trip over to the Southern Islands when it's a little bit cooler if possible, perhaps even resorting to going over and spending the night!

Tight lines, Scott.

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More Species Hunting Adventures in Singapore: Part 3.

The last time I visited Singapore, with my mates Chris and Lee, Marina South Promenade was the first place that we fished. It wasn’t particularly productive, and even worse it was hellishly snaggy, so my expectations were understandably pretty low. The tall trees behind us provided us with some welcome shade, and as we wandered along we stopped at a couple of spots, so I could have a few casts. Sadly, my recollection of my previous session in the area proved to be quite good, I caught hardly any fish, nothing new, and spent more time tying up rigs to replace the ones I lost than I did actually fishing, so I threw in the towel fairly quickly, and we headed along to Marina South Pier for one last short session. 

Bottom fishing along Marina South Promenade is not a productive approach in my fairly limited experience.

By the time we got along to the railings just past Marina South Pier, the sun had set, and it was starting to get dark. Perfect for me to target some cardinalfish. The decision to fish after dark was a last minute one, and as a result, I didn’t have my headtorch with me, but we made do with the lights on our iPhones. Rig wise, I fished a drop shot rig but instead of tying on a weight, I squeezed on a couple of large split shot. The idea being that if they got snagged, I could apply a bit of pressure, and they would simply slide off the bottom of the rig. Lowering this rig down into gaps in the submerged boulders straight down the wall, it didn’t take too long for me to feel a few small taps. Before too long, I’d caught a couple of different species of cardinalfish. 

The first was a flame cardinalfish, my first ever. 

It was followed by a few candystripe cardinalfish. A species I have caught before in a few different places around Asia.

Just before I was about to finish fishing, I caught my first ever bigeye cusk. I’ve no idea why their English common name is bigeye cusk, their eyes are pretty tiny! 

The following day, we took the MRT to the HarbourFront station, then hiked up the Marang Trail through a forest to Mount Faber Station, so we could take the Singapore Cable Car over to Sentosa Island. There was a little bit of light rain falling as we made our way up, and off in the distance there were a few thunderstorms and what looked like a heavy downpour.

It’s usually raining somewhere in Singapore!

The cable car ride was very impressive, and I say that as someone who isn't really a big fan of heights!

Once safely over on Sentosa, we went for a walk around. I had my fishing gear with me, but fishing is not permitted anywhere on Sentosa Island sadly, at least not from the shore. Instead, to get a quick fix of fish, we visited the S.E.A. Aquarium. Lillian loves visiting a good aquarium, and with a 2 for 1 offer on admission tickets, it was an opportunity too good to miss!

Highlights were this bigeye soldierfish,...

...and the weedy sea dragons. Very cool looking fish!

Taking the cable car back over to the mainland, we caught the MRT and headed to a small park containing a pond. At a couple of places around it there were no fishing signs, but I was reliably informed that there was a small area where fishing was permitted. 

No fishing here. 

After a bit of searching, I found a spot deep in the undergrowth, where I could chance my luck.

Setting up my tanago rod and fishing a tiny piece of bread under a pole float, I quickly got started. I had two target species, both of them non-native to Singapore. Fortunately, both were present, and even better, both were also very receptive to my micro fishing approach, readily attacking the tiny fleck of bread as it fell through the water column. After a few failed attempts, I started hooking a few of them.

I caught a few blackline rasbora very quickly, but the fish I really wanted to catch,..

…was a tiger barb! What an awesome micro species!

After catching these two tiny fish species and popping one of each into my viewing tank, I was about to take some photos of them, when a small snakehead briefly entered the shallow water directly in front of me, no doubt attracted by the activity of the hooked fish and keen to investigate the possibility of a potential meal. It sat motionless for a brief moment, before it spotted me and quickly swam off again into heavy weed to my left. I’d have loved to set up my Rock Rover to have a go at catching one, but as I’d caught what I was after, and wasn’t totally sure about the legality of fishing where I was, I took photos of the two micro species, quickly packed up my tanago rod, and we headed back to take the Circle Line further north to our second fishing spot of the afternoon, a spot I’d fished at the last time I visited Singapore. After a bit of a walk, we arrived at a small stream that runs out of a jungle into an urban area. On first impressions, most people passing this small stream would find it hard to believe there were fish in it, let alone a wide variety of species. Fishing from a wooden bridge just inside the jungle to begin with, tiny pieces of bread on tango hooks quickly produced a few small fish. 

 

Indochinese spotted barb were present in large numbers. 

I was actually hoping to catch a danio, a fish that’s popular with beginner aquarists. After a while, the small shoal of Indochinese spotted barb seemed to lose interest and swam off downstream. It was at this point I caught this male Forest betta. 

The humidity under the canopy was oppressive, and in no time at all we were both sweating profusely as a result, so we decided to head out of it and for the rest of the session, I fished from a small concrete road bridge over the stream. Switching to my Rock Rover, I fished with a larger hook and was soon pulling out a few more species.

The predominant species was Mayan cichlid. 

There were a few Nile tilapia in amongst them. 

Then I spotted what I thought initially was a goldfish. Dropping a piece of prawn in its vicinity, it initially swam off. After I’d caught a few more Mayan cichlid, it reappeared from underneath the bridge. Slowly lowering my bait down a little further upstream from it, the colourful fish took it eagerly before charging off. After a short scrap, I landed the fish, at that point realising it was in fact a colourful tilapia.

A hybrid, known as a red tilapia, I would later discover. 

After taking a few photos, I released the colourful fish slightly downstream. Returning to the bridge, I was surprised to see a couple of snakehead poking out from the darkness of the bridge’s shadow. I knew I probably only had one chance to catch one, so I moved back from the water, quickly tied on a stronger, slightly larger hook, and baited it up with a large chunk of prawn. Creeping back to the edge of the bridge, the two snakeheads were still sitting there motionless. Slowly lowering my bait down about a foot away from them, I wasn’t too surprised when they both lurched forward and attempted to quickly swallow it. Of course, only one of them succeeded, and firmly setting the hook, all hell broke loose! The hooked fish swam off strongly downstream and put a fair old bend into my rod, almost forcing it against the structure of the bridge. Thankfully, the angry fish was able to take some line, as had my drag been set any tighter, I’m fairly confident my ultralight rod might have come to a nasty end. After its initial surging run, I was able to play the fish slowly back upstream from underneath the bridge and then through some weed before pulling it up onto the grassy bank.

My first striped snakehead. A powerful fish!

Armed with a large mouth and powerful jaws, they are a super aggressive predator. 

Putting the fish back, I fished on for a short while, but the commotion caused by the thrashing snakehead seemed to have caused all the other fish to flee the area. Anyway, light was beginning to fade, and we were both feeling pretty hungry, so we headed off to catch the MRT back to Geylang where we planned to get freshened up before going out for a Chinese meal! The following day we were leaving the mainland in search of more species, and Lillian had declared she was going to fish with me!

Tight lines, Scott.

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More Species Hunting Adventures in Singapore: Part 2.

Moving to a second shelter on the other side of Bedok Jetty proved to be a good idea. Letting my rig drift under the jetty was very productive, and before long, I was catching a few different species that I hadn't caught during the first couple of hours.

My first mottled spinefoot of the trip. These are venomous, so I try to minimise handling where possible.

This juvenile brownstripe red snapper was my third new species of the session.

It was followed by a couple of species I have caught before, like this bluelined hind,..

...and this diamond wrasse. Also known as the bubblefin wrasse, last year we caught dozens of them, but they were much scarcer this time for some reason. I only caught two all day.

Then I caught another new species in the shape of this peacock shrimpgoby also known as the bluespotted watchman goby. I love catching shrimpgoby and the iridescent blue markings on this specimen were simply stunning!

After a while, the sun was a little lower in the sky, and the shade offered by the shelter had all but disappeared. As there was no longer any real advantage to staying underneath it, we headed up towards the start of the jetty, an area I didn’t fish at all during my previous visits to the jetty. I wanted to try fishing over the sand there, to see what species it would throw up. Casting out away from the jetty, I caught a couple of Oriental sillago, had my bait stripped repeatedly, and then had my hook bitten off completely. Something toothy was around! Adding a couple of small rubber float stops above my hook to try and prevent it happening again, I soon caught one of the culprits.

This lunartail puffer was another species that was a new one to me.

Before too long a shoal of halfbeak showed up, and quickly changing my rig so I could freeline small pieces of prawn close to the surface, I caught one of them. To my surprise it turned out to be another new species.

This is a Congaturi halfbeak. The tip of its lower jaw is red. Last year, I caught lots of stripe-nosed halfbeak, the tip of their lower jaw is bright white, which appears to glow when they’re in the water.

Switching back to fishing on the bottom, but closer in to the Jetty, I got an aggressive little take and the culprit shot off under the jetty. I managed to quickly bully it back out again though, before it could get around the jetty’s concrete legs to cut my line. After a spirited little scrap out in the open water in front of the jetty, a small jack was soon brought to the surface.

Small but still great fun on my ultralight setup! Only my second ever bigeye trevally. I caught my first in Japan a few yeas ago.

Fishing hard on the bottom soon produced an additional two new species for me. First up was this sulphur goatfish, a rare capture around Singapore I would subsequently find out!

It was soon followed by this javelin grunter, my last fish from Bedok Jetty on the day.

Whilst my session on Bedok Jetty had come to an end, my fishing for the day had not. Walking back up to the Bayshore MRT station, we caught a train west and got off again at Gardens by the Bay. From there we walked south to the Marina South Promenade where I'd try my luck at a few spots as we made our way west along to another spot.

Tight lines, Scott. 

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