Tomans 102

I seem to have a thing for tomans, and in particular, the Toman Pond at BTP. It is a convenient way to soothe the itch. Nice pond, good catches, not too expensive if you manage to share with many people. Its also a good way to introduce people to fishing. The last time, being complete noobs at this, we weren't terribly successful. Things were quite different at Tomans 102. I even managed to convince 2 fishing virgins to come along =D

Seriously, a damn relaxed day. Fishing, under a papaya tree. What more could you ask for? Well, maybe a bigger papaya tree. I is the LAZY FISHERMAN. And so everyone was chillaxing...

The recess bell for the toman school must have rung because the bites started coming...

I got the first hook up and a nice 4kg toman was the prize.

It wasn't long before everyone else started getting their hits as well.

Just takin' my fish out for a walk, yo.

A special mention to my 2 fishing newbie friends who decided to drop by in the middle of their bike ride. Super easy to teach and such good

The Cyclist Who Caught a Fish...

She got 2 good sized tomans that fought hard. I remember my first time fishing. All I got were a couple of lousy puffers... o_O

At one point, I ran over to help the noob friends land the fish. After phototaking and fish release I turned around to find my rod gone! It was in the POND! OMG... Thank goodness the internals of the reel were still kinda dry.

Not all were landed of course. There must be some monsters in there. Look at this wire trace...

Toman pond. Damn fun for a quick fix and to bring friends along if you want to convert them. Here's some videos of the cyclist landing his first 2 fish ever...









Oh Toman Pond, I love thee. I will be back for Tomans 103. Who's with me!

Tomans 101

Snakehead (Channidae) (ikan Haruan) are freshwater fish native to the region and much of Africa. Valued as a food fish in these parts, it is used in many Asian and Chinese dishes. The most popular is of course as sheng yu, or raw fish porridge. Apparently its also supposed to have restorative properties, especially for people recovering from operations (e.g. an operation to reattach your finger after it was bitten off by a snakehead which you were trying to catch in order to cook porridge).

Interestingly, the zoo keeps snakeheads...

Just in case you didn't believe that this was the zoo, here are pictures of some other fish the zoo keeps:

Alligator gar. That's the ugly one on the right. The ugly one on the left is me.

And the polarbear fish. You won't be able to see these in the zoo for now, because they're being moved to the upcoming River Safari.

Back to tomans. So we were at toman pond for the first time. Lots of busted lines because we didn't think to bring wire. But we managed to land a few.

Why no manly pic of someone holding up the toman by their fingers? Because my friend (of course not me la) dropped the thing whilst trying to hold it up, and it wriggled down the steps and back into the water!

Notice the zig zag water marks on the steps. Yes. Most embarrasing way to lose a fish EVER - it wriggled away from you.

Plans to return to the toman pond are already underway. =DDD

Toman Teaser

Watch this blog for more on the Tomans!