Jenius

There's something about the D'Best Pro Pond at Pasir Ris which always compels me to do up a blog post. No, I am not sponsored by them but I'd gladly welcome any of such opportunities thrown my way.

It's the September school holidays and D'Best Pro Pond has a few promotions on going including the "Kids fish for free (with each paying adult)" promo and the buddy package promo. Being the unemployed bloke that I am, I'd definitely think twice before visiting any pay ponds as I am never confident about recouping the initial investments in value of fish. However, seeing that a few promotions were on and being the weak-willed person I am when it comes to angling, I succumbed. 

My entourage for the day was made up of Marcus and Reuben. 

The setup I had with me for the session was my ultralight/ajing setup which consisted of the Majorcraft First Cast rod paired with the Shimano Nasci 500. Pink colored Fins Windtamer braided line of 4lbs break test was spooled on the reel with a 8lbs Varivas fluorocarbon leader. Initially, I had thought this setup was akin to bringing a knife to a gunfight but it was not the case at all with me comfortably managing the 2 barramundis. Of course, the story would have been starkly different if I were to have hooked on to some of the bigger snappers and GT in the pond which other folks were landing today.

The day started off pretty decent with me landing 2 KBLs within the first hour and also missing one about 5 minutes after the hour mark but my luck ran out after the hook spit. Reuben managed to land 2 KBLs around the size too. Marcus on the other hand has not had any luck getting bites at the Pro Pond for quite some time now (don't give up Marcus!). 

All in all, as always I enjoyed my time at the Pro Pond and would definitely recommend anybody acquainted with children under the age of 16 to take advantage of the current promos to share the beauty that is fishing. The promotion ends on 12th Semptember. If you're too busy to take your child fishing, I would gladly take him/her fishing during this period as long as you sponsor my session (yes, I am willing to make the greatest of sacrifices for the future of the world that is your offspring). 

Tight lines and smiley face :) 

The videos are pretty self explanatory but here's a summary of what went on that day.

Woke up at 5.30am to catch the early bus out to catch first light. When I arrived at Chinese Garden MRT station, it was still pretty dark out and I had initially intended to fish at the white bridge located in between Chinese Garden and Japanese Garden. A voice called out to me about 5 minutes into my journey and the owner of said voice made an inquiry on my purpose of being there (full conversation in video). After a small chat and a long walk, I arrived at the legal area only to find that it had been closed since 1st July. Slightly ticked off by how the day started, I carried on an arduous journey to the Lakeside area to try my luck. Less than 10 minutes into the session and I got my first bite of the day and also my first on the Jetty. It wasn't a biggie but small fish is better than no fish any day. I stayed for about an hour and left as all the walking had taken so much time that the sun was soon up and glaring.

I came back at last light at my usual spot where baiters and dabao kings hang out. They seemed to have had quite a good haul in the afternoon with plastic bags filled with struggling fish. Some of you might condemn their act or condemn my act of not intervening but to each his own. While I am sad that there's less fish for leisure, I am pretty sure the fish concerned would not go extinct any time soon. Last light was pretty good for me with 3 bites even though I only landed a small one. I dropped the rest just off the edge of the water but they were not biggies either. All in all it was a pretty good day for me until I broke my rod whilst trying to remove a huge piece of rubbish i had hooked up. I guess you gain some you lose some hahaha.

Tight lines and smiley face :)

P.S. Do visit my shop via the link above. Stocked up quite a few nice things and trying to keep the price competitive to benefit anglers. :)

It's been awhile since I last went fishing and an even longer while since I last celebrated Youth Day. Anyway, I've been real busy off late having had just finished a great trip to Bangkok, working on one of my side projects to bring to you guys a little something and also sending out resumes. Add me up on LinkedIn here LOL

Okay! Enough about me (not really). Today was my second time at D'best Pro-Pond at Pasir Ris and my first time doing a full luring session (I really hate tiring out my master hand. *wink*). Having had received a couple of lures from a dude in Japan, I thought I'd give the lures a go and see how they performed. Personally, I've not seen them used in Singapore and wondered how effective they could be as the concept was pretty Jenius in my honest opinion. However, having spent about an hour with no takers on those lures, I decided to rig up a curly tail I just ordered on Aliexpress not too long ago.

For those of you heading over to the Pro-Pond, do take note that there are some structures in the water near the fish holding nets and you might want to avoid casting too far deep in said areas even though they've proved to be the hot zones for bites. Even after losing a couple of curly tails to those structures, I stayed resilient and continued fishing riskily at the edge of the structures. After a couple of casts, I felt like I had hit another snag but positive vibes ran through me as I managed to tow the weight at the other end of the line slightly up the water column. The feeling was akin to when you hook onto a huge plastic bag filled with water at one of those west side reservoirs. SPLISH SPLASH SPLOSH and happiness took over me as life struggled at the other end. Man was it heavy to pull the beast with my light-ass rod. As color started to surface, I noticed the swimming pattern of the fish was off and had a hunch that something was not proper but I carried on with the drill. Moments after, my kaki landed the grouper and wrecking the net as a result of simple physics. It didn't matter to me as I've finally landed my first ever grouper! :) On inspection, I found that the I've hooked the fish on one of it's fins hence the unusual swimming pattern.

The rest of the day was casting and retrieving and I landed a pretty decent seabass (didn't manage to capture the footage as I had forgotten to switch out to a fresh battery for my cam. sigh~). Another grouper was spotted a couple of times swimming quite close to the surface and not far off from the edges of the pond like an NSF on guard duty but it didn't take any lures presented and was even spooked by my curly tail. All in all, it was a pretty decent day at the Pro-Pond for me even though my kakis didn't manage to land any. There are good days and bad days but any day spent fishing is definitely a great day.

As a cheap miser of an angler, it is no surprise that I would scout far and wide for the cheapest of alternatives the world could offer. Aliexpress has become one of my go-to sources whenever I need something, angling related or not. There is a sequence of steps I take in order to decide where I make a purchase (which I should discuss in another post).

There is but much debate about the purchasing of products online and even in this day and age, it is hard to say for certain whether a purchase made online would hold sufficient credibility. Shipping issues aside, it is always a bit of a gamble when making a purchase on an e-commerce site such as Aliexpress. Of course the landscape that is internet shopping is improving daily and rapidly but occasionally buyers do face disappointment when they finally get their product [for example this fake of a fake (SJ4000) of a fake (SJCAM which is a popular GoPro alternative*) which I bought a while back https://sg.carousell.com/p/52447114  << its pretty funny apparently]

Fret not anymore! Your hero is here! LOL.

So I bought a bunch of soft lures a few months back and only managed to try them out recently. They were quite cheap in my opinion as they were going at around slightly more that 8USD(around 13SGD) for 50 pieces of 75mm lures. I bought the paddletail variation and they came in 5 colors which I didn't really fancy (but they were cheap, like me. cheap.) At first glance, they did look really good as they were packaged very nicely like most budget lures with the whole ziploc bag thing and they even had Korean words at the back (which might have been Kpop song lyrics for all I know). Price wise they would be less than a third of Z-Man lures but of course the quality would be different.

Personally, I am no expert in luring and lures but it is quite noticeable when comparing the texture, elasticity and rigidness between a lure from Z-Man and the one I bought online. The Z-Man definitely feels like it is able to survive longer than the Bassland (that's the brand apparently) lures but with shear quantity advantage, the Bassland does have its edge. Credit has to be given to Bassland for adding a random mess of glitter in the soft plastics which would definitely serve as an irritant for peacock bass.

I was out testing a new lure I purchased the day before (which I bought on impulse) but nothing was taking that particular lure. A small incident with a tree traumatized me and after managing to retrieve my new fat lure, I immediately kept it and switched to a cheaper alternative- the Bassland soft lure on a 1/4oz jig head. The Kuying Snapshot paired with a SeaKnight BC reel was the gear of choice for the day. A few misses later, a juvenile PB went for my lure and swallowed if whole. The hook was set through its nostril which meant that there was almost no leeway to escape. It's been quite awhile since I caught a peacock bass (simply because I don't do too good luring). The last time I caught one was when I was still using a flip phone. Whatsapp wasn't even a thing then.

So yeah. If you are willing to wait 3 weeks, willing to take your chance on a brand not many have heard of or if you're just cheap like me, then the Bassland soft lures might be for you. They do work but I would not be brave enough to say that they are effective (because PBs have a reputation for going for most lures)

A small fish is better than no fish any day. Till next time, tight lines and smiley face :D