Meeting Mr Milkfish

It was way back in 2003 when I caught my first Milkfish on fly and they are to date, the most hard fighting fish I've encountered on a fly rod.

Location: East Coast Lagoon, Singapore
The East Coast Lagoon started off as a place where sun bathers could swim in calm waters away from the waves of the open sea. That is all I know. But in the late 90's, it was converted into a salt water fishing 'pond' where anglers paid to fish. The pond was stocked with the usual species found in pay-to-fish locations, namely the Barramundi, Fingermark Snappers, Mangrove Jacks,... etc. Small milkfish were sold by the pond operators and used as live baits, but many managed to free themselves from the hooks and lived in the lagoon. The fishing pond then went out of business and was returned to the authorities which built a perimeter fence around it whilst deciding what to do with it. A couple of years passed without any activity.

It was in 2003 when a young chap by the name of Nicholas (who was also a crazy fly fisho) got to know another young chap by the name of Matthew who happens to live near to lagoon and have been fishing it regularly with bait (and with good results). It came to Nick's attention that there were Giant Herrings in the lagoon and we started to have many night "operations" to target these fish on the fly. Nick caught quite a few as he was there almost every night, while I , unfortunately, never hooked one. There were many times when fish rose to our gurglers, poppers and sliders but missed the flies completely. And we would realise later that they were probably not herrings....

Another few months passed and Nick decided to venture to one of the two platforms (where water still flowed in from the open sea) in the middle of the lagoon. It was there that he saw many large schools of Milkfish cruising to and fro from one platform to another. Nick tried relentlessly to catch these fish with a bread fly but was not succesful. Determined to hook a Milkfish, Nick returned with (real) bread and decided to burley up the fish and casted his imitation amongst them. His determination paid off and he cracked the code for catching these freight trains.

Nick decided to share the 'spot' with a few of us more 'senior' fishos to aid us in the capture of our first Milkfish. The trick was to wade into the water to waist level, and burleying the bread in batches, allowing the wind from behind to carry them towards the platform. Once the bread got near, they were 'hammered' by the large milkfish. No one would believe that they are 'vegetarians' with the way they were eating the bread. The plan was to get them to swim closer and closer to us as they go for the next batch of bread burley.

I lost four Milkfish before I finally landed one. The knot gave way on the first, the hook broke on the second, the hook fell out on the third and fourth. On that fateful sunday, I decided to walk the path of the Thai workers who laid nets below the platform. They were able to wade at waist level till they were 5 metres from the platform. As I drew near, the sight of the tails of big Milkfish swimming sent my adrenalin sky high. I'd be the most unlucky person on earth if I don't hook one. A 5 metre cast was all it took before a Milkfish smashed the bread fly!!! WOOHOO!! It only took a few seconds and I'm into the backing... the fish swam around the platform and I thought I'd lose the fish for sure... but luckily, the stainless steel piping of the platform did not cut me off and after some persistence, the fish came back. I guided it away from the platform and into open waters. And it took another 25 mins to subdue the beast. But I finally have my first Milkfish in my bosom!! It weighed 15lbs on the Boga.

I went on to catch another three Milkfish on subsequent trips to the lagoon and they never cease to amaze me with they speed, power and stamina. What impressed me was that my Sth Cassette Reel (that cost me less than US$70) and Cortland 333HT line (bought at K-Mart for less than US$20) was able to withstand the runs of these rockets. The rod - a 7 wt Sage RPLXi - also performed marvelously. These fish are definitely ranked near the top of my list.

Tight Lines!
-Justin-

My first fishing comp

hey all,

fishing seems to follow me every where. Even to work! The company that I work at organized a charity "fish off" to be held to day. i went for the short pre fish with most of the other competitors. the team consisted of 4 people. Henry, pete, myself and boss man ( i still don't know his name all I know is he can fire me and not even Henry can save my arse)

Due to the high volume of work, we opted not to fish the whole time allocated for the pre fish. Subsequently yours truly is stuck here at my desk with not much motivation to work. Henry is teaching the boss man how to fish (he never has in his life- he's a hunting guy).

so here are some posts of the morning's pre fish.

we saw a lot of surface action setting out at the pre dawn hours. needless to say every one started flogging and it was really difficult to even get a hook up. talk on my boat led to the usual 'wrong fly' pressuring the fish' 'they aren't interested' topics. This all reminded me of Justin's experience with the sambos. with this in mind, I loaded up a spinner with a metal slice and chucked it in. I was thinking that even if it wasn't the sambos I'd have a chance at whatever pelagic species lay down there.

Long story short, I hooked up with my first Australian salmon after about 5 odd casts and half hearted hits. It was really fun even though I was packing it in a little heavy with 14lb braid.
After landing and releasing the Sambo henry made the call to fish the heads as it looked like only luck will let you hit a fish.(they had been flogging the whole time to no avail.)

We fished to heads for about half an hour with not much luck. I hope things heat up during the comp hours. one fish just doesn't cut it. But I am really happy with my first Sambo.
(sorry , about no swell photos I was "busy") we do need a more committed camera person.

bread fly

I've only taken up fly fishing for a couple of months and have been having limited success. Justin told me that it would take a while before i could land my first fish properly. His words were true and I only managed to tangle with fish that were obliging enough to "commit suicide".

This all changed recently when i came up with an idea to tie a sinking bread fly to be presented in a burley trail. Reason being that the bream seem to take unweighted bread pieces that were presented to them in a burley trail.

I'm happy to report success and here are the photos!

enjoy!

false cast

Hi everyone,

Hope that the past week has been good for you in one way or another. Being a rather light work week, I thought I’d better go out to get a picture or two for the site (it’s really an excuse to go wet a line.) I visited a couple of places during the course of the week. Though not exactly new grounds to myself I learnt, as we always do in our sport, many new things and gained new insights into this ever addictive pastime of ours.

First up was a trip to a little estuary near my home. Part of the lane cove river, there was a little tributary conveniently located in the suburb of Rhodes. Having some knowledge of the place, I decided to test the place for it’s capability to produce on the outgoing tide. This time round, I came with a new plan to have some fun while waiting for the tide to change.

Packing a loaf of bread (Yes I do cheat…) and a box of lures, I arrived at Rhodes half an hour before the highest tide. First stop was a structure that I have affectionately named “bream corner”. I let out the burley and baited up. To my disappointment, the tactic didn’t work and I ended up getting impatient after half an hour. Looking over to the sand flats and seeing that they were still exposed, I thought I better try again next time. I let out another 2 pieces or so of burley and rigged up for some lure fishing.

Working my usual lure beat, I met with more disappointment. This went on till I reached the drainage pipe that marked the beginning of the flats. Here, my luck finally turned as a flathead of about 40 centimeters inhaled my lure. Luring action continued with a few small bream and tailor providing much appreciated action. As the fish at the sand flats went off the chew, I decided to try the bream corner one last time. I was rewarded with two decent bream for this decision. The day ended on a satisfying note. 15 fish landed with 5 being legal. I’m happy to report that all fish were released unharmed.

Next stop on the list was the good old bream pond at glebe. It has been a while since I have enjoyed any tangible success at glebe. The day started with 4 good bream on bread and ended when I hit 2 good flatheads on lure at the beginning of the run out tide. All in all, 6 fish released to fight another day.

Enjoy the pictures and sorry for the short reports. I will endeavor to be more succinct in my next post. I’m a bit of an airbag. I must apologize.

Till next time!

Tight lines and good fishing.

first casts

Hello people,

The weather's warming up in Sydney and hopefully the fishing as well.
Have been fishing quite abit in the past three weeks, thanks to the
discovery of a productive spot as well as the return of Brandon to
Sydney.

First picture is the end-of-day catch after a session (the best one in
four) at the new bait soaking spot. Water depth is pretty much like

Clifton Gardens, and so is the rig used. The spot is within the Sydney

CBD. On that particular day, Reuben and me were fishing the upcoming
tide from about 11am to 4pm. There were intermitten showers but the

fish dont mind, before the first shower, Reuben hit the biggest bream
of the trip, and continued to hit 2 more as the rain came down. I only
had one bream for the whole trip. When the rain stopped, I released 2
undersized snappers, and had a bite off on a suspected big tailor. We
proceeded to land 5 Tailors. And when the tailors went off the bite,
The Trevallys came in a constant trickle till about 3pm. Would
actually be going back there this

weekend if not for the APEC making
the CBD area out-of-bounds. But the good thing is that Friday is a
public holiday, and Reuben and myself will be doing some flycasting
and fly fishing.

Brandon returned from his holiday in Thailand and fishing comp in Fiji

and was raring to try for Aust Salmon on fly in the harbour. A last

minute trip was arranged late friday night for a sortie on Sat
morning. We located the salmon but they were very spooky, and we only
had 2 chances to cast at them. Unfortunately, we didn't hook any. Good
news was that among the 5 to

6 fly boats out there, only one got fish.
Feeling pretty dissatisfied and hearing of reports of the bass coming
on the bite, we decided to head west to the sweetwater see if we're
lucky. We tried the usual spots that Brandon "inherited" from a
fishing guide but had a big fat donut after an hour and a half of
casting.

With nothing to lose, we thought that we should head over to the weir

for a look. Good thing we did... the place looked like bass country...
tall grass on the side of the banks, sparse underwater vegetation seen

about 2 feet below the surface. We bombarded the area for nothing in
the first 30-45 mins until about 520pm when the rises / surface
activity started to pick up. At the time, I had given up hope of
catching something for the day, and decided to tie on a pink charlie
to see if I could entice a herring to strike... there's gotta be
something with all the water act

ivity happening... whenever I saw a
rise, I would cast within 2 feet of it. And on the fateful cast, my
line tightened... After a drought of 2weeks, it felt good to hit
something decent on fly again. I thought it was a herring but Brandon
called bass after seeing its forehead. The fish was guided into the
net without any dramas and I finally landed my first Australian

Bass!!! After wasting about 10-15 mins trying to get a good shot on
the phone camera (that's why the lousy pic quality), back to fishing.
Saw another rise about 60-70 ft away, put in a cast, 3 strips, and I'm
on again. But this time only a little one. And after that, they went

off the bite... the surface activity was still happening but they're
just not taking the charlie. It's pretty late anyway so we headed
back.

This sunday would be the Sydney angler fly fishing social for Aust
Salmon in the harbour, I'll be on Brandon's boat again and we'll see
if we get lucky this time round. Still do not have plans for Sat at
the moment. Can't wait for friday.

Cheers mateys!

-Justin-

The hatch "ing"

The whole idea of having a post space was born out of- like many things- boredom and laziness. Justin started it a week or two back. He posted a "fishing report" of sorts on the email. As usual, in all things fish related I blindly followed. an error in the email delivery and the lack of space for us to send the very much needed photos ("no proof ' situations and to prevent the whole "I swear! it was that big!" that is somewhat part of the sport) prompted me to think if there would be an easier and more constructive way to get out the fishing reports.

Then it dawned on me. Instead of typing and uploading photos on email and being constrained by size the name list we can remember to include, I and Justin could simply share out mini adventures (in angling terms they are interesting) more fully by posting them on a blog/page of some sort. I honestly haven't spoken to Justin Yet, but I'm sure he'll agree to this.

SENDING OUT A LINK TO A PAGE IS EASIER THAN WRITING AND SENDING AN EMAIL.

plus we can share the fun with a whole bunch of people we don't know! ( I never saw how that could be appealing..

So without further or do,

I give you Justin's email that started it all.

The First Tail Swipe

Hi All!

A Huge Welcome to the newly (and very cheaply) created, fishing dedicated, space on what we have now know as the internet. There are countless of sites out there already offering fishing reports, gear reviews and other angler resource and we are probably following in what looks like a huge trend in the angling community.

What differentiates us from other blogs/pages/forums?

Well, it's primarily a blog about one and sometimes 2 fishing nuts. We'll post the reports. (Feel free to fight amongst yourselves in the comments columns) bore you with our antics. Stick a photo or two that you could rip. We're basically going to plaster this fragment of the web with what angling is like in our adopted Sydney and in our lives in general. So if you're a fishing nut, it's probably a good idea that you set up one as well. :)

Toodles and till next time