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The marriage life of an angler

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It’s been more than six months since I last blogged. Quite a few reasons why. The most obvious would be that blogging simply isn’t that popular anymore. These days you have to upload short catchy videos for fast consumption to get the metrics. The less obvious would be marriage life and new commitments. If it’s one thing I learned, it’s that you tend to slow down on fishing when you get married and that isn’t a bad thing. Strange right? Most anglers tend to say it with a grimace but once you truly grasp the meaning, you will find out it is more than just fishing. Married life means you do more things with your partners together. You go house shopping, furniture shopping, dinners, outings, holidays and more shopping. In my case, we do a little bit of fishing every now and then too. And then there’s prawning. We have been visiting Sembawang Hai Bin Prawning (Singapore) quite a bit since it is quite near our marital home. So far so good, we generally do quite well at the pond ...

Maldives Honeymoon Adventure 2018: Fishing, Resorts, Snorkelling, Diving and Island Homestays

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The last time I went to the Maldives with Shawn , we experienced much of the culture and island life in one of the many local islands in the Maldives. We even spent the nights at a simple home-stay and ate local food. That experience was extremely refreshing since I always loved to discover the people behind the places I traveled to. I found out that there was so much more to the Maldives than just sun-tanned westerners lazing around in the beaches (and their drinks). Can you put fishing into a honeymoon? Yes you can! Fast forward to 2018, I was now married and appointed to be the chief organiser of our honeymoon trip to the Maldives. At first, I wanted it to be an all relaxing luxury stay at a secluded resort on an island in the Maldives. As time went by, I knew we would be bored after just a few days doing nothing in a resort (which some people argue is what exactly you should do in a honeymoon). After a little tinkering and searching around, I had the perfect answer - I would...

Fishing in the Maldives with Seagal Sportfisher Maldives

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Are you looking to bring your wife or girlfriend on a fishing trip? Then the Maldives would be an excellent choice as it provides a comfort and is also suitable for beginners. I was quite worried that Bakgal would be daunted by fishing in Maldives. After all, it is our honeymoon and fishing there can be quite "hardcore". We will also only be fishing with artificial jigs and poppers which require proper technique. I got worried for nothing though as Bakgal managed to secure so many kinds of fishing during the trip even though it was her first jigging trip! We booked Seagal Sportfishing Maldives Fishing Charter for a few days so we could have a relaxing Husband and Wife only fishing trip. Credit to the Captain (none other then Captain Ibrahim Ibee, previously Captain of Noranee 2) because he brought us to easy spots where the fishes weren't too big (very important), were very tasty and just had the right amount of fight in it that was suitable for a honeymoon fishing t...

'Fat Monkeys' western food at 965 Upper Serangoon Road (Punggol Nasi Lemak)

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I have pretty high standards of having cow (beef) on my plate so I was sceptical when I read the description of Fat Monkey's 'Dabomb'. The description on the menu said succulent beef with caramelised onions, cheddar cheese, bacon and BBQ sauce. The picture of the dish made me think I was eating a giant beef puff. For someone that eats beef at rare or medium rare with salt, this didn't look good to me. So I waited. And then it came out. The exterior looked normal enough. As I cut into the puff, the oozing cheese was also pretty normal (I mean, oozing cheese things are so common these days) and this was no different. As I dug in, the simple and proven combination of onions, cheese, bbq sauce and beef worked. The beef patties were very juicy and not overcooked. They were not overly seasoned or done so that was good and I had the feeling that they were handmade. The dish came with fries and salad too albeit the side dishes being too normal. At $13.90, this wasn...

How to maximise your fishing package at Gills Fishing Pond?

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Come at the right time, at the right price! The best package to take based on their current promotion is definitely the 9pm to 6am (next day) promotion at $60. This is 9 hours at $60 which amounts to $6.70 hourly (cheaper than prawning!). Gills allows you to "keep the hours" and requires that you top up a minimum of 1 hour ($30) when you want to redeem your remaining hours. The best time to fish would of course be the timings where they release fish. It's a pretty small, contained pond so not much retained fish from previous releases will linger for long. Here's a quick guide on how to utilise* the hours for the 9pm to 6am promotion. Total hours: 11, Total spend: $120 (additional 2 hours x $30) 1st trip: 9pm to 1am (total 4 hours utilised); 10pm and 12am fish release 2nd trip: 9pm to 1am (total 3 hours utilise + 1 hour top up); 10pm and 12am fish release 3rd trip: 10pm to 1am (total 2 hours utilise + 1 hour top up); 10pm and 12am fish release Of cours...

Bring Kids Fishing!

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Hi all my beloved readers, Thank you very much for you past and present support in following my social media and blog posts. It has been more than 10 years since my first blog post and the way that people share fishing stories has changed drastically. The community has seen fishing forum adoption, Facebook pages and closed groups. After a long thought, I've decided to also evolve the way I engage with you guys. I mean, all you need to do now is to Google and you can get all the answers you need about fishing (except secret fishing spots in Singapore of course!). I'm currently still selling madais, tenyas and metal jigs in my little online shop but what's going to be changing is that I'm going firmly into a cause that I strongly believe in - to bring kids fishing. This is something that I feel is lacking in the world we live in these days where parents do not teach their kids healthy activities. Instead, kids are always glued to their computer screens. This is a pi...

Fishing with the Prince of Peace (Jeff Tsen), Sembawang SAF Yacht Club, Singapore

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Do you like catching small reef fish like arumugam, john's snapper, leatherjackets, hang zi hee, leng chiam and so on? Well, then you better head on to the Prince of Peace (POP) fishing charter boat in Singapore. Berthed at the Sembawang SAF Yacht Club, the POP is helmed by veteran skipper Jeff Tsen (Dr. Rod). Jeff has been around for years and is also the skipper for the infamous sampan fishing charters. He's a fan of catching small fish which is a welcome sight because small fishes can be really tasty and good fun! Because of some last minute weather, we cancelled our sampan trip and went onboard POP to do some changi/ubin fishing at last minute notice. Jeff was a no nonsense skipper and we were tasked to meet at the pier at 6am in order to meet the tide. We would first head to Changi to buy our prawns and ice from the kelongs and then head to the hybrid spots to nab some groupers. After that was reef fishing time for the rest of the day. How did the day go? Busted off a...