Toman Teaser

Watch this blog for more on the Tomans!

LAZY Fishing

This is the epitome of lazy fishing:

Desaru Adventure Again

Finally, after much waffling about we made it to Desaru for the second time. We crossed the Causeway at 5.30am and proceeded to gather supplies. 3 plates of wanton mee, 2 kgs of live prawns, a preemptive seasick pill and several hours later, we arrived largely unscathed at our destination: Kampung Nelayan in Desaru, Boatman – Ah Hee.

But first, some kool pictures of kute kats that we encountered along the way for my kat loving friends. Bingo!

My first trip to Desaru was an awesome affair, and I had high expectations for this trip. So high that I had wanted to get a spanking new Jigging Master reel to bring along. In short, I came all prepared to lay the Sweet Chin Music upon the Desaru-ean Creatures of the Deep.

How wrong I was. But the signs were obvious. If only I had known . . . . . .

I should have known when there was hardly any action for the first 2 hours, and the next 2 hours and the 4 hours after that.

I should have known when the most exciting fish of the day was a sea bass.

I should have known when there were no big fish (or any fish at all) and the boatman started telling us about all the big fish he caught YESTERDAY.

I should have known when we were so bored and we started talking about fishing a mermaid and what we were going to do to it if we caught one.

I should have known when we decided that if we did catch a mermaid, we would wrap her in banana leaves to keep her moist.

I should have known when the only reason for keeping the aforementioned mermaid moist was so that she would taste better when we pengkang-ed (bbq-ed) her with sambal.

I should have known when it started raining.

I should have known when it didn’t stop raining.

I should have known when we started singing the songs on the Michael Learns to Rock Greatest Hits album. In order.

I should have known when I heard that the boatman’s ringtone was the theme song of 爱.

I should have known when it stopped raining, then started raining again, and我问天我问天能不能别捉弄 (I asked the sky, oh sky, please don’t use us for your games) but it still didn’t stop raining and by this time, we were at Track 5 (25 minutes).

But most of all, I should have known when the duck rice stall at Taman Sentosa wasn’t open that morning =(.

As a consolation, we managed to lay the smackdown upon some unfortunate crayfish that wound up swimming in Nestum, as well as some innocent deer that fell on a hotplate.

Ah Desaru, 又再爱你折磨是我自己 (if I continue to love you, I am torturing myself)

Still, pictures are in order:

View Larger Map

Pandan Reservoir - first try

I am most upset. Have you ever seen a three piece rod like this?



No? Me neither. That's because rods dont exist in 3 pieces like this. I quite cleverly managed to turn my 2 piece rod into a three piece rod.

Now, let's start from the beginning:

This afternoon, I was feeling a little frisky, so I decided to take my spanking new Shimano Antares out for a walk to Pandan Reservoir. Nice cloudy day, not too hot, and when I arrived, I saw some people at the corner hook up a huge peacock bass.





Use of bait is prohibited in reservoirs (to prevent polluting the water - which we drink), and any fish caught must be released (for conservation - they're not tasty anyway). Turns out that some in this bunch were using dead prawns as bait. Eventually, they did release the peacock bass - into their ice box. I don't understand why people must be so greedy.

Anyway, the day was going good and I was practicing casting the baitcasting reel, when BAM! I accidentally slammed my rod into a metal gate that had very cunningly snuck up on me. And that's when I also created the mother of all backlashes on the reel.



Backlash, bird's nest, char bee hoon. What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other would smell as sweet. And a char bee hoon would, as a char bee hoon should, be just as BLOODY ANNOYING!

It occurs when the spool overruns the line, resulting in the excess line doubling back on itself. Such is the bane of all baitcasting reels. After spending half an hour trying to clear it, I concluded it was a pointless endeavor and cut the line instead. So now I've only got about half the line I originally started with.

Pandan Reservoir. I'll be back.


View Larger Map

New Toys

New toys! And with these I enter into a new genre of fishing - luring!

This is my first baitcasting reel:



The Shimano Antares DC7. SHINY. SO. VERY. SHINY.



Side plate reveals options. Too many for someone who cannot deal with choice, but nice to have. Oh so nice to have.



Feel the POWAH!



Oh fisher boy, the tomans, the tomans are calling