The skin cancer protectant

So, i was complaining about how the sun is bringing forth an unwanted evolution in our skin colour to ernest every time we fished during the day. We seriously need to get ourselves protected from the harmful UV rays and sun block of any amount of spf doesn't seemed to work, so, while shopping around at beach road with my mum , I saw this.

Cool rite! It made me look like I'm gonna start throwing shurikens at people. This thing is also damn cheap la, its just 3.50 bucks . Its cheaper the the cheapest sun block i can find out there. Just don't be seen wearing this on board any public transport or so, you'll most likely end up replacing mas selamat.

Then while i was walking around more, I saw this damn sleek looking ranger cap. Which i think could make a god combination with the hood like this..

Not bad eh, the whole setup only cost me $7.50 =)

The record fish.

So, it was just any ordinary daily session at bedok jetty . It wasn't that ordinary because the gal and her girl friend joined us in our weekly session. After weeks of absence, jy also finally made his appearance.

Our bait fishes were once again scarce for the day. This is the frustrating irony. When there are little bait fishes around, the big fishes around would be hungry, if there are plenty of bait fishes around the big fishes will just eat the bait fishes and feel full.

The weather was unrelenting with the sun scorching the tarmac ,creating an hell on earth effect at bedok jetty. While me and ernest were gawking at the rest for not wearing long sleeves, we are also the ones sweating like dogs with the long sleeves acting as mobile sauna suits.

The sauna mobile suits

The aims for todaks yield pathetically puny sized ones which kinda dampened the team's spirit. Combined with the lack of baits, it was indeed quite frustrating.

The sun got the better of them.

However, just as desperation got the better of us, the bait fishes were back! Yayness. I took the opportunity to teach the girl how to jig for tambans and unhook them. Well, heres a compliment, shes a quick learner and quite a lucky one too. She managed the tambans by herself and ernest called me over my cell to get my ass back as my rod was bending. The todak feeding frenzy came on and the team was getting hit after hits of todaks and spirits were high.

If you pay close attention, its actually the same fish caught below-_-

Soon, the action died down and it became the restless waiting game again. Suddenly, my noodle got an extremely huge take that had the uncles around the rod shouting and yelling, infact the rod almost dropped into the water(I need a rod holder). At the speed of light, I ran to my rod rescuing it from the menancing torrents and tightened my drag and gave it a light strike. From far,i could see the fish leaped out of the water . Its quite a big one as even though my drag setting was already quite high, it was still peeling line out of my spool.I had to ran up the jetty in order not to let the todak get under the jetty furthur up. That attracted alot of spectators and one of the uncle commented that i could join the olympics. The fish made its last run near the jetty and was finally subdued . As i swung the fish up on to the jetty the hook came off due to the weight of the fish.. Luckily it dropped onto the jetty and didn't fell back into the water. Think we seriously need to get a gaff soon or else we'll be losing to all our big catches.

68cm, 750grams. Its small compared to desT's catches.

That kinda concluded the day as we packed early and head home. My dad didn't have time to come fetch me back as usaul so i had to take the public transport back, which is a painstaking ordeal. Its totally like the journey to the west. Oh well, guess i'm too pampered by my dad.

Me and ern's noodle rod

This picture is supposed to enhanced the width of the todak.

The family!

Alas,bjt at 5 pm. Taken by Soon, extremely photoshopped by yours truly..

Psychotic fishing uncles

I need sleep! I seriously need some sleep soon or else my blood shot eyes are gonna start bleeding. So, heres a quick one to update on what happened today.




Early this morning I woke up at 530 am to go fishing with sum and soon. I think we're getting more and more hard core as the weeks past and when we reached bedok jetty, it looked so barren and forlorn that we could literally cast where ever we want to cast.





The bait fishes were every where today so jigging for baits was easy, how ever , probably there was a change in tidal conditions or sorts, the bait fishes looks like baby godzillas and were alil too big for fishing. We soon got enough of bait and started fishing.





My noodle rod haven't got any takes on the new method I employed which I didn't anticipated for it to happen. My braided lines got tangled into a huge mess which in the end , i've got to sacrificed the mess up bunch and cut them away and rejoin the line. Now, that meant that I've got less line on my noodle rod now. I casted it out as per usual and soon enough, there was a strong pull and my line was like pouring out of my reel. When it was doing that , I was still slowly strolling over to my rod to pick it up when i suddenly realised that I'm left with little line on the reel which eventually got stripped of my reel, which means, the main line is on the verge of snapping .





Luckily, the main line didn't break and i got there just in time before the fish made another run. Sigh, just when things seemed alittle brighter for me, i reeled in the fish and found yet another tangled mess just before the fish, more line cut off. After the next todak, i decided to retire my noodle rod. Sigh,I need to do line shopping soon.





Having nothing else better to do, i decided to start jigging for bait fishes again. By this time i've a cable car set up for my surf rod which I just dropped an godzilla size tamban into the water with. As I was speaking to this Belgium lady about how big the fishes from Belgium are, my rod surf rod bent and almost fell off the jetty!The macik beside the rod was like BIG FISH BIG FISH!!!





Again I had the urge to stroll over again how ever, some one behind me shouted RUN LA( Malay accent way) and I sprinted. Note, i strewn my jigging rod on the floor where some one conveniently stepped on it later and broke my jigging hooks.Back to the fish on hand , when i reach for my rod it was already bending profusely and it suddenly stop, I thought i lost the fish when suddenly, it started its run again! It was damn exciting although seriously, the surf rod was an over kill for that fish . Every time the fish did an acrobatic stunt by leaping out of the water , the hearts of the people watching it skipped a beat.People started commenting on the type of fish it is and when finally, after a few minutes, the fish surfaced and I brought it out of the water..It was a queen fish! The feeling was just too slick when I look at my first queen fish, ay. That slickness feeling how ever was destroyed when i saw some one almost landing a queen fish about 4-5 times bigger then mine. Tsk~



One thing about bedok jetty is the amount of inconsiderate , cocky and selfish bastards on the jetty. There were plenty of squabbles going on at the jetty today with one involving this young man and this old man. Both of them are equally hot headed and they almost went into a fist fight. Hurling vulgarities with each other, just over some tangled fish lines and hooks is simply over board.Then there is homicidal fisherman who fishes all those bait fishes and just leave them to die on the floor. Which he kicks them down at the end of his killing fish and time session. What i've witness today is totally senseless and i'm seriously very disappointed with the people and size of my queen fish. Tsk, I guess thats what you get when you're fishing in Singapore i guess.

Whats the point of fishing when you want to fight and get angry over it?

Jc's Otak Otak

We are delicious, eat us

Just the day before I came back with kilograms of fish meat from the catch at bedok jetty. Cooking the fish was also part of my agenda when I targeted the species and thus , to follow through with the plan , I went to the market with my mum to get the ingredients for the dish.

Summing up the ingredients

The dish I'm gonna make with the fillet is the familiar nonya snack, Otak otak. I've researched over the net looking at various recipe and decided that daz's recipe makes quite a good reference thus , using his ingredients as a guide, I came out with my own version of Otak Otak using todak fillet.

Spices galore

Since its a nonya cuisine, it has its flavour set on this few common spices you see in the picture. I ahd a hard time buying them as I only knew their 'christian' name not their chinese ones , so its more like a picture describing session at the market place this morning.


I think the most tedious part of the otak otak making process is the part where by you've gotto remove the seeds from the dried chilli. You've gotto soak them in hot water for around 10 mins for them to soften and then, use ur hands or a small tea spoon to scrape out the seeds and stalk inside . At the end of it, expect to feel your hands burning as the chilli works into your skin.

These things hurt

The lemon grass seems to play a big role in the ingredients as they some how, form the base of the whole otak otak binding the latter together after they cook. Unlike daz, I decided to dice my lemon grass before placing them into the blender so that their fibers won't be in very long strands.

Very good coconut cream and lemon grass

Another key ingredient i thought would be the laksa leaves. Woots, these fellows add alot of flavour even though in small amounts. I cook taste them exploding in my mouth when i bite down on my otak otak.

Of course, the must have compliment in a nonya dish would be the belacan . I think almost all nonya dishes use this ingredient to add flavour into their meals.

Belacan,the key ingredient

Combining all the ingredients together in the blender, add alittle water to the latter in order for the blender to work its magic. Blend till extremely smooth,my blender broke down halve way, so ay, its not as smooth as i wanted it to be but its still good.

Let it rip!

Next would be the todak fillet itself. I think the next time i do this again, i'll just pure todak fillet without bones from the stomach. I thought that the meat from the stomach would make alot of flavour to the otak and the bones were fine enough to be crushed and mixed into the mixture. It seemed alright when i was pounding the meat how ever,I felt the bones only after i eat them.

Sashimi??

Tsk, handling the otak paste and the banana leaf is yet another ordeal. Its hard to get it right at the first few otak otaks, which resulted in busted leaves and leaks, how ever, after a few more practice, I thought I'm making decent looking otak otaks already.

Put us into the oven quick!

I didn't have the luxury of a bbq pit in the house so i made use of my trusty oven and set the temperature to around 240 degrees on baking mode. The objective of cooking the otak otak would be to solidify the mixture. Once the otak otak becomes hard, its ready. How ever, you could leave it in there for a while more if you want a crispier version .

Ah.. we love sun tanning...

Well, here it is , Jc's otak otak,full of flavour, have to improve on its texture, well, I've got plenty of todak meat to experiment on since i've only used up one piece today . More to come more to come =)

Lunch for the missus

When times are bad, life looks grim and every thing becomes slim

With the graduation I'm left with too much time and often, money consuming activities. So much so that due to my inability to secure a stable temporary job, I'm officially running low on cash. With the very little i had , its hard to find entertainment for myself. Driven by a spur of interest and enthusiasm, I went against all odds bought myself a noodle rod . The temptation took a better of me and my mum even called me a good for nothing at the end of the day.

Teal ultralight, I love it =)

Yet another reason why i love it , its korean.

Well, a noodle rod is basically a very long rod, which is extremely slim. The physics of the rod is such that , its thin and long , which makes it flex very easily. Which also in turn meant that the rod is great for absorbing any form of shock from the line . Well, i won't go into details for the description of the functionalities of the rod, we'll just leave it at the fact that it is a great rod and i love it.

My rod is long...

After researching the net for a series of methods to tie our rigs and knots, I've employed a form of rig which is able to carry out the capabilities of the noodle at its best. After giving my equipment a dry pre-run at home in my own bed room, I'm ready to go fishing.

Sample, not drawn to scale.

I called up Ernest and soon ning and jun yuan my usual fishos just a day before the trip and they are surprisingly keen on fishing the next day itself despite the sudden invitation. So after an evening of discussing and planning over the tele , we're set to meet next morning with soon driving us to the infamous bedok jetty.

Well, I'ld say its one of the best place to fish in town actually, after years of fishing by many anglers and usually nasty net casters the jetty itself is still very productive with bait fishes and sort. We reached the jetty at around 8 and as soon as we setup our tent and equipment , we're ready to fish.

Just 10 mins into fishing while i was still letting the current drift my float out my line shot out of my reel rapidly. It was a fish alright and as soon as i tightened my line and gave it strike, i could feel the fish at the other end went frenzied. My reel was screaming as it was letting out line and my bendy rod is bending like a bell curve, absolutely thrilling. Soon I've attracted a crowd and they all started surrounding me as I tackled the fish. After around 15 mins, the fish succumbed and it was brought up with the help of the friendly regulars .

Aiyo, look at that, that's happiness smeared all over the face.

Seriously, I think a measuring tape would be better.

Those 'jaws ' punch some 4 holes into my middle finger.

Soon with his trophy

Ernest with his pawn.

Its a Todak or other wise also known as a gar fish . My dad's friend complimented that it is actually a good eating fish which how ever is shunned by anglers due to the fact that it has plenty of bones in them. Well, it would actually make a good fish in a dish i've had in mind and researched on lately. The otak. Hopefully I can prepare some of these before jm's bbq on the 25th .

Daz's version, copyrighted to him.

As the day went on ,we're landing more and more todaks and at one point, we even ran out of bait for these chumps. Luckily Tambans (bait fishes) were abundant at the jetty and like spartan warriors , the three of us were jigging desperately for the latter.

Well, here it is the total catches of the day , which unfortunately , foolish me de gutted three of them before the final photo shoot.That makes alot of specimen to try out the above otak recipe, hope it'ld work out.