Received a CR msg from Alex on Sat that he caught only a parrot fish and his AE was injured by the fish's 'vampire fangs'-liked teeth. With so many unfortunate reports (from our previous trip at Lab Park), I went for the Sunday trip with little or zero hopes in getting any
fishes...
Started on bad note
During the setup then I realised that I forgot to bring the right joints for my paddle! My kind-hearted buddies,
Dave and Chee Wai decided to sacrifice one of their's and lend it to me. I cannot imagine myself dragon-boating all the way and crossing channels using this method of rowing all by myself in the AE.
More bad luck
After some hard paddling against the current to our 'lucky' spot, then I discovered that my floor mat turned soft
and I knew immediately the patched job I did last week did not work! The multiple layers of glue could not prevent the air leakage with about 130kg of load sitting on it! Bo Pian, I used the bellow pump to add more air back to the floor mat in the sea! Darn candid man, should have video-ed it down...
GOAL#1
Suddenly heard a shout and I saw Dave waving to us. I knew he kenna and quickly rowed over to find that he got a nice and beautiful parrot. 
We tried our luck, hoping that we can hit that school of them but all became quiet. We hit the mangroves and zero action again.Giving up, Robin and I decided to join Dave and Chee Wai at the deeper ends channel.
GOAL#2 – The Long and Tiring Fight
I stopped at our lucky spot again and decided to give it a try before joining the rest. After about 5 minutes, my
line started to scream and I quickly set the hook. The strange thing was that my line kept going and going and I thought it might be some huge drifting rubbish…then my line stopped…I pumped and felt the weight. As I retrieved my line…then it started to run at lightning speed again…I knew that it was a fish…and a big one too. I repeated the steps for a good 20 minutes...and was getting tired and worried! I realized that this bugger has dragged me about 100m from where I was and against the current. I needed reinforcement…so I shouted to Robin and Dave. I looked back and saw them enjoying the scene of Super Virgo cruise ship moving into the channel. Damn! I shouted again “BIG FISH” BIG FISH” and finally got their Robin’s attention. This bugger really got darn good stamina…I continued to fight and let it ran and hope that it would get tired out and come to the water surface. But it did not.
Finally, Robin got here and I decided to let him have some fun. The way this bugger was bending my rod scared
the hell out of me…I was praying hard that the rod, hook and the 20lb needle would not give way…
Robin fought for a good 20 minutes and Dave and Chee Wai finally appeared. We were all trying to guess the identity of the bugger and I confidently said that it was not stingray…(Check out the video file in the library)
Then Robin passed the ‘baton’ to Dave as he was getting tired trying to pump the bugger up.
By this time, the bugger seemed tired but Dave said it was darn too heavy. He tried to pump it up for 15
minutes but failed…By now, we all knew it was a stingray for sure.
Finally, Dave managed to pulled the tired bugger near to the surface to confirmed our guess…A big stingray…The problem is how do we get it up???
Robin and I decided to hit the shore first and then took over the fishing rod at the side of the ram. Then we
dragged the bugger near to the breakwater rock. Robin was trying his best to pull it up but was concerned that the rod or the line would give way. By now, our drama has attracted the attention of the nearby fishing kakis. One super helpful abang, Mr Latiff, came to our rescue! He was practicing his surf casting and came up with a fantastic idea to tie a big fishing hook to his rod and suggested using that to pull the stingray up. The hook got the stingray but the fishing line used to tie the hook to the rod came loose! Damn!
Dave suggested using our kayak paddles and we immediately sprung to action. There were 4 paddles used: 2 to pin down its tail so that Latiff went to break off its sting, and the other 2 paddles to support the stingray, preventing it from falling back into the sea…Finally, we scooped the bugger up with 4 paddles! This is darn candid man…too bad we did not capture it in video! Actually, it was fouled hooked. The hook missed its
mouth and pierced through one of the openings below the mouth. I was too darn lucky!Another Chinese uncle also helped us in the exercise and I must say SOLID TEAM WORK! Estimated weight - 15kg (according to Latiff and Chinese uncle)
Latiff volunteered to slaughter the bugger and I must say he is a PRO man. He cuts it up beautifully and
flawlessly! We kept half and gave the rest to Latiff and the Chinese uncle. Latiff was darn impressed with my tackle setup and I think he is going to get a set too…
MPA busybody
After we were done and doing cleaning up, came along a MPA officer and inquired about our ‘actions’ in the water. He explained that the camera at PSA building captured our actions (I think they were suspicious when they saw 3 kayaks congregated together in the sea and spent so much time trying to ‘pick something’ from the seabed). He asked about our kayaks and when do we usually go…I asked if we breached any rules and he replied no…Anyways, we knew he was doing his duty so we co-operated nicely.
Strike While The Iron is still hot
Without much delay, we packed up and sped down to Robin’s place to enjoy a fresh and tasty lunch and of course…whisky on the rock!
Conclusion
1. It’s worth to invest in a good rod.
2. Fishing needs luck and skills.
3. Fishing bring new friends.
