Jenius

It would be pretty cliche of me to start off yet another post with something on the lines of "it has been awhile bla bla bla..." so let's not do that today.

If you're reading this, chances are you would have already visited my online store at https://www.dabomb.sg/

"DABOMB Singapore aims to provide quality entertainment through quality products. 

DABOMB.SG will not tell you that we try to keep things affordable or that we're doing this as fellow anglers.
We hope our products would speak these intentions clearly."

Yes, I do know the above sounds as though I am throwing shade at a few establishments and I would like to highlight that if the shoe fits... :D

Jokes aside, the current products are mostly offshore staple items - jigs, assist hooks and sinking minnows. Although I am a firm believer of creativity and innovation, I would also have to acknowledge that certain time-tested items will most definitely remain top choices for anglers. As such, these are the items which I have chosen to wager my resources on and will do as much as I can to keep costs low.

In recent years, there has been an influx of innovative products that are crazy brilliant. In our shores, we have experienced waves of trends that have intrigued our minds and pockets. Ajing lures, big hyper realistic soft lures, dual-function top water lures. Don't get me wrong, I do not in any way think that these are inferior products. In my books, they are top notch in pushing the innovation and design of the way we fish - a beautiful testament to our progress. However, I do feel that the way these products are pushed and marketed more often than not instills a skewed perception of fishing to newer anglers.

Young anglers who bought those exorbitantly-priced lures and are afraid to cast them, new anglers who believe that a certain lure will be more effective because of its country of origin, fresh anglers poisoned to think that only a certain style of fishing is effective. I've met them all and I sometimes find it saddening that these perceptions persist to nurture inflexible minds (even though these anglers would still outfish me any day hahaha).

And this is the reason why I wanted to establish DABOMB Singapore https://www.dabomb.sg/ as a gateway platform for newer anglers. I do hope that someday DABOMB Singapore would be the source for newer anglers to get cheap shit that work so that they would be able to fish with greater freedom, fish with less fear of loss and hopefully as a result, develop a deeper understanding of the art and greater appreciation for its simplicity.

I do hope that i would be able to sustain this venture (this first week has been shit LOL). 

Alright its 3.30am, hope y'all have a great life.

Cheers! :D

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 group behind the Singapore Beach Fishing Competition, the Singapore Surf Cast Club or SSCC for short also owns a highly active Facebook group linked here and the group was the main reason why I bought my first surf casting set (which I am trying very hard to sell on Carousell hahaha). With members in the SSCC page always updating on catch reports which occasionally include monster-sized fish, it was just a matter of time before I owned my own surf casting setup.

Reaching the venue at around 0730hrs, I was greeted with the coastline fenced up with surf rods. This was my first time attending a surf casting fishing competition and man was I psyched just by the number of rods lined up. Many groups of anglers had stayed overnight at the venue to secure spots for the event. I promptly made my way to the registration area and collected my goody bag which included a tee shirt and a Shimano cap which was part of an early bird registration giveaway. Initially, I was excited when I read that SSCC managed to secure Shimano as one of the sponsors for the event and thought they might give away maybe a few goodies like maybe some fishing lines or maybe a pair of pliers like for their open house event but I was slightly disappointed when I could not find any Stella reels in the goody bag (hahahah, just kidding la, the product brochure definitely made better reading material as compared to Twilight). The organizers for the event also briefed me roughly on the procedures for the day which I felt was definitely a good touch.

With the sun slowly rising, I made my way to my eventual fishing spot. The walk to find an opening between the line of rods was definitely a better atmosphere as compared to when at a pay pond. People greeted with smiles as compared to the usual death stare I have faced at pay ponds as though a lousy angler like me would even manage to "steal" a fish (how is that even possible though haha). Anyway, I managed to find a spot next to the guys from Team DFG or Deckhand Fishwhisperer Gonewild. Kaya buns were the plan for meals for the day and I consumed 2 for breakfast.

At 9am, the sirens blazed and the surf casters took turns casting their lines of hope. With my amateur casting technique, I managed an average cast which was an insult to my 14 foot rod. My only concern was really to not cross anybody's lines but I think I did it all the same (sorry guys haha). The day went on with retrievals and recasts with little to catch which is of the norm for Singapore waters generally.

The highlight of the day was definitely the shouts that blared through the air whenever anybody managed to get a bite. "MARSHAL! MARSHAL~~!!" shouted groups of anglers as they tried to get the attention of the event marshals that had to be present during the removal of the hooks for the fish to be counted. It was definitely an amusing occurrence and everybody would actually feel joy for the person who has landed the fish. Midway through the competition with little bites from my area, an angler 2 rods beside mine landed a pretty nice grouper on his fabulously red rod. I took a video of the catch just to show you guys what I'm talking about.

Going to such an event alone is never a good idea because you can't just leave your rod there to go pee or to get some sustenance and surf rods are not like luring rods which you can just carry along to the toilets. Luckily for me though, I have a big bladder and my new friend Khai from DFG. He introduced himself to me and I tried my best to converse in my unpolished bahasa ( I know now that "umur" means age. I learn something new everyday. LOL). Later that day, I would receive some kindness from the group in the form of Mee Goreng which was definitely a class higher than kaya bread. It wasn't the first time I received kindness in the form of food from surf anglers with the previous time from a regular angler at Labrador Park during my first overnight solo session there a while ago.

The rest of the day was pretty mundane at my side and I did not manage to catch that stingray which I had initially hoped my sand whitings would attract. Somebody did manage to land a 5kg stingray though which was also the heaviest catch for the day.

Overall, the event was well-organized and with the event area being so huge, it must have been a tiring event to run. Thank you SSCC team for making the competition a success and I'll definitely look forward to more surf casting competiton once I learn how to do a pendulum cast (kidding la, don't cross line I happy liao).

Tight lines and smiley face :)

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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.

Optimism, positivity and hope consumes all anglers at the start of every fishing trip. Could today be the day they catch that one fish they could finally show the haters who never comprehended the joy that is derived from the art form? WELL NO. Today was not that day for me. But here's my day at Labrador Park nonetheless.

If anybody ever asked me which is my favorite place to fish, it definitely wouldn't be Labrador Park. Labrador Park is a known sangkut (snag) haven in the fishing communities of Singapore. It is common ritual for novice anglers such as myself to pay tribute to the sea surrounding the park by means of periodic sacrifice of lead weights. Of course, there are spots and techniques that would minimize such nonsensical customs. Apart from being a hard place to fish (because you know, rocks are hard), Labrador Park seems to have quieten down on front page worthy catch reports. Another downside is that you gotta cast pretty far out to get anything decent as the water closer to the shore at the "Lepak Spot" is rather shallow. The area nearer to the closed jetty seems to have deeper waters due to some sort of drop off but that area truly is where the sangkut deity hangs out. That said, let's move on to the good stuff.

Labrador Park has its own MRT station and a 7-minute walk from the broadwalk would take you a sheltered events area where weddings and functions would occasionally be held at. This spot, makes Labrador Park worth the effort to head to. The shelter is huge and would house a number of anglers during the weekends and when it rains (leave your rod out and take shelter :3), it has amenities close by which includes toilets and a vending machine, and is close to a car park which is a terrific landmark for one to link up with fast food delivery personnel. It is also at this spot where getting snags are less frequent relative to fishing at the areas near the closed jetty. Labrador Park is still famed for eging though. The first time I saw a live mollusk caught was at Labrador Park. A Caucasian man was luring with a soft prawn-shaped lure that had treble hooks when he caught a nice little cuttlefish (pictured below). 

So I reached Labrador Park at around 1pm with prawns bought from NTUC to test my new surf cast rod, the XABA 14feet rod (will do a review of the rod soon). After a few test casts, I rigged up a clip down pulley rig, put half a prawn on and cast away. There were a few nibbles here and there and also an encounter with a 1.5 feet todak on one of the retrieves but the day was basically a dud. There were a few other fishos during my time there and none of us got anything. A Malay man struck a conversation with me in the national language and he talked about his fishing experiences and how he used to catch stingrays at the jetty that were so huge he had to give away most of it to the other anglers. My hunt for the elusive ray continues. 

The ramp. Don't climb over or try to walk down to the rocks to collect anything you dropped as the rocks are slippery. Tried once and went home with bloody hands. Never again.