Made a few trips to ORTO Fishing Paradise (formerly Bottle Tree Park) during the heightened alert and found it quite relaxing and entertaining especially since "SNA" was involved. I mean who on earth plucks out his rod holder together with his rod when the fishes take the bait.  What's the best bait at Orto? Over the past few trips, we reviewed this and it was quite obvious that the fishes there love live bait. However, if your live bait is lampan, that's a bonus. Size must not be too big or too small and just right. Kinda like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  Some tips at Orto. Hook sizes must be big at minimum 7/0 to be able to properly secure the bait and ensure hook up. Surprise though, we dropped some barramundi aka KBL on rubber lures during the trip. Anyway, I still don't enjoy the fight of the fishes here. What I like is how the fishing is similar to live baiting for toman and sailfish. Opening the bail arm, letting the line go out and closing the bail and

Nice malabar grouper on Island Angler Giant Rubber We had yet another Changi Offshore with Ah Fong and this time I had some admins from Singapore Fishing Telegram  joining in. It was quite a short trip since the current guidelines stipulated that we could only fish for 4 hours. This led us to coining the term "Changi Pro Fishing Pond" since Pro Ponds usually is for 3 to 4 hours fishing. We fished the upcoming tide on this afternoon trip and just two observations. Was a good day out! Decent CR Big snapper! Giant rubbers continue to work but luck is important... Lucky boy Yifan caught a decent malabar grouper on this trip. Interestingly, the colouration was quite yellow and there could be a good chance it was a released fish. Nevertheless, it still was greedy enough to gobble up a giant rubber lure by Island Angler that was hooked onto a tenya by Yifan. The hook was too small though and luckily the fish got hooked by the assist hook. No surprise that giant rubbers worked... Zen

Torpedo Rohu Fishing in Singapore has been seriously boring and dull due to the pandemic. We aren't allowed to go overseas and there has been the constant pivoting to arrange local offshore fishing trips amidst safe distancing restrictions.  I mean it's so boring that I even found time to try out Orto Fishing Paradise with Ah Du a.k.a Sharkbait a.k.a "Sometimes Machiam Expert". Did I enjoy myself? Yes... I think so. I learned quite a bit of new techniques and insights although the pond being a catch and release one was a minus for me. (Sorry, I'm now a fully fledged baiting unker) What I did learn though was... Big baits work! Especially the resident lampans... Big baits work for the Chao Phraya Catfish (CPC) at Orto. I think these fish are even more bored than us but will definitely chomp on big baits. Maybe it's also them being aggressive but since Orto is filled with lampans, it is only natural that it would be an awesome bait for the catfish. Use small bai

Yet another 4 hour Changi Offshore with Ah Fong but this time with our number 1 sifu Matt a.k.a Ah Bao. Not a bad day as we caught some fish for the table! Fish were biting hard when the tide was switched. Good 4 hour haul With our sifu Matt Fish took an interesting jig... Interesting indeed... For Ah Fong's contact: https://baktao.blogspot.com/2019/11/7-recommended-fishing-charters-in.html

In the past, we would always use live prawns for Changi Offshore Fishing as table sized fish like groupers and snappers were abundant. It was the "default bait". But things are different now as the fish stocks have went down and you can't get the quantity that you used to. However, you may still get quality or size if you persist and that is what we tried during this trip – by using big octopus baits! Live octopus were used by old timers in the past for big fish but was not so readily available then. With social media and the live bait delivery network, things are different now and you are usually able to get octopus baits easily. The octopus baits we used today are not that big but are around medium size with length around 5 to 7 inch size. There are smaller ones below 5 inch and bigger ones above 8 inches too.  This greedy red snapper took octopus bait! Some notes... Octopus baits are CHEAP because they last very long. You can land multiple fish with it and still contin

Night fishing at Southern Island is probably my most favourite form of fishing as you go for the big and tasty fish like big golden snappers. And if the fish aren't biting, bring the squid home! I think I'll probably never get sick of it. Couple of trips with "Wreckhunter" a.k.a Abang from RSYC this year. Some yielded very excellent size Golden Snappers but the conditions were kinda cranky this year for the open season Singapore night fishing because of the typhoons at Indonesia. We also noticed that there are more blue spotted rays being landed than usual... Interesting... Not too sure how Chin does it but Chin is really the star performer of our night trips... For Wreckhunter contact: https://baktao.blogspot.com/2019/11/7-recommended-fishing-charters-in.html See what I mean? Chin scores another nice Deep Sea Mangrove Jack aka "Ang Ka Tia" in 2021! Chin again scoring a good golden snapper while the rest of us blank out... Made tomato soup from the snapper!