More Species Hunting Adventures In Singapore: Part 7.

On the morning of the last day of our holiday, we got up quite early and took a Grab taxi to Bedok Jetty. As we arrived, a local angler caught an impressive wolf herring on a live bait. My mate Lee caught a small one when we visited Bedok Jetty last year, but this thing was huge and had a nasty set of teeth on it!

Wolf herring, not the most attractive fish in the sea, that's for sure!

Setting up my rod under the first shelter on the jetty, mainly because it looked like it was about to start raining at any moment, I started off by tying on a set of sabiki. The lady who had caught the wolf herring tried to sell me a set of her handmade ones. I'd watched her pull up several full sets of sardinella using them whilst I got my own rod set up, but I decided to try fishing with my own ones. There is definitely a knack to catching sardinella using sabiki. A knack that the lady had clearly mastered, as I watched her repeatedly pull up five or six almost every drop whilst a teenager on my other side, also using a set of her sabiki only caught one or two. I struggled to catch any on my shop bought rig, but eventually landed a one or two a couple of times.

My first fringescale sardinella. The locals target various species of sardinella, using one or two as bait and taking the rest home to eat.

Switching to fishing small chunks of prawn close to the bottom, I caught a few pink ear emperor and a diamond wrasse before adding three more species to my tally. None of them were new to me, but the third was my fourth shrimpgoby species of the trip. I love shrimpgoby, there's just something about them!

First up was a juvenile yellowfin snapper,..

...which was followed by a monogrammed monocle bream,..

...and then I caught this lovely masked shrimpgoby.

Just look at some of the colourful markings on those fins!

At this point, we decided to move to a new spot, and as I was keen to catch some tripodfish. Having been given some great information on exactly where to try, we moved up to a spot close to the end of the jetty. Not long after we sat down, it started raining, but Lillian had brought a large umbrella, so we sheltered underneath it. There were other anglers fishing either side of us who had lines out, so I couldn't quite fish the exact area I had been told to, but I was able to drop my rig in reasonably close to it. My first drop produced another wonderfully colourful shrimpgoby.

A peacock shrimpgoby, with its reflective, almost metallic blue spotting. Simply stunning!

Casting out and waiting for a short period, if I didn’t get any bites, I’d slowly bump my running ledger rig along the bottom, repeating this process until something hit my bait. This produced a few oriental sillago and my bait also got stripped a few times.

I'm not sure why, but I just don't find sillago that interesting.

Feeling slightly frustrated, I switched to a slightly smaller hook and tiny pieces of prawn. I should have done this sooner, as this slight tweak worked a treat, and saw me catching two more new species in consecutive casts.

The first was this long-tail tripodfish.

Followed shortly afterwards by my first ever longspine ponyfish.

Before we left, we decided to try one last spot, right at the end of the jetty on its left-hand arm. This produced a few butterfly whiptail, and then the last addition to my species tally of the entire trip.

The colouration of butterfly whiptail can vary, but the small black dot at the root of the tail encircled with a V is the feature to look for.

This lattice monocle bream was my 114th species of the trip. A total I was very happy with!

After about a dozen "last casts", I ran out of bait, but Lillian found a scrap of dried up prawn on the ground and told me to have one last "last cast". The dehydrated scrap proved to be a tough bait for the fish to easily strip off, and after missing a few bites, I caught my last fish of the trip. It just happened to be the same species as the very first fish of the trip, caught three weeks earlier when we visited Bedok Jetty. Time flies when you're having species hunting fun!

This pink ear emperor was a nice fish to finish off my Asian species hunt!

Packing away my tackle for the final time, we walked back to the car park where we had been dropped off and took another Grab taxi up to Mandai Wildlife Reserve, where we spent a few hours exploring Bird Paradise. It was raining while we were there, so some of the birds were taking shelter, but enough were out that the experience was still enjoyable.

Who doesn’t love penguins,..

…flamingoes,..

…colourful parrots,..

...and birds that look a bit like Robert Smith of The Cure? Lillian is a lifelong fan, but somehow didn't see the likeness.

In the evening, we headed out for a nice meal at BBQ Box, just around the corner from our hotel. Way too many tasty grilled skewers and a few delicious salads were washed down with a huge jug of ice-cold lemon and lime tea. With a long day of travelling to do the following day, we didn't want to be suffering with a hangover!

Just a small selection of delicious grilled meat and seafood skewers we enjoyed.

Sliced lotus root and smashed cucumber salad. A balanced diet is important, after all.

The following morning, we returned to Changi Airport, the fourth time we had used it in three weeks! Killing some time before we had to board our flight back to the UK, we visited its butterfly garden! My friend Nick had tasked us with getting photographs of ten different species of tropical butterflies whilst we were away, and we had failed miserably! We’d seen hundreds, but they don’t tend to sit still long enough for a photo in the wild. In the butterfly garden, a couple were more than happy to pose.

This is a common rose.

This is a clipper.

Boarding the plane home at the end of a holiday is always tinged with sadness, but all good things must come to an end. Lillian and I both love visiting Asia, and I love species hunting there. Visiting Singapore, Cambodia and Thailand, we’d had an amazing time and have decided to return to Japan next November for another three wek adventure. We’ll be revisiting some of the places we’ve been to during three previous trips, as well as some new places. As always, I'll be doing a spot of species hunting too.

My fishing sessions had been enjoyable and very productive. Here's a list of the 114 species I caught over the duration of the trip, with all the new species in bold.

1. Anchor Tuskfish
2. Argus Wrasse
3. Banded Archerfish
4. Banded Grunter
5. Banded Sergeant
6. Banded Silver Biddy
7. Barred Mudskipper
8. Bigeye Cusk
9. Bigeye Trevelly
10. Black-spotted Snubnose Goby
11. Blackline Rasbora
12. Blackspot Sargeant
13. Bluegill Longfin
14. Bluelined Hind
15. Brownstripe Red Snapper
    
16. Butterfly Whiptail
17. Candystripe Cardinalfish
18. Cantor’s Gudgeon
19. Checkerboard Wrasse
20. Chinese Demoiselle
21. Chocolate Hind
22. Common Silver Biddy
23. Congaturi Halfbeak
24. Cook’s Cardinalfish
25. Crested Grunter
26. Decorated Ponyfish
27. Diamond Wrasse
28. Dory Snapper
29. Duskytail Grouper
30. False Scorpionfish
31. Fanbellied Filefish
32. Flame Cardinalfish
33. Forest Betta
34. Fringescale Sardinella
35. Giant Mudskipper
36. Giant Trevally
37. Goldlined Sweetlip
38. Green Puller
    
39. Grey Demoiselle
40. Harry Hotlips
41. Houndfish
42. Humpback Cardinal
43. Humpbacked Cardinalfish
44. Indo-Pacific Sergeant
45. Indochinese Spotted Barb
46. Iridescent Shark Catfish
47. Jansen’s Wrasse
48. Javaen Barb
49. Javan Ricefish
50. Javelin Grunter
51. Knight Goby
52. Kop’s Glass Perchlet
53. Lattice Monocle Bream
54. Long-tail Tripodfish
    
55. Longspine Ponyfish
56. Lunartail Puffer
57. Malayan Tiger Barb
58. Mangrove Jack
59. Marble Goby
60. Masked Shrimpgoby
61. Mayan Cichlid
62. Minute Mudskipper
63. Monogrammed Monocle Bream
64. Moon Wrasse
65. Mottled Spinefoot
66. Nile Tilapia
67. Obscure Damsel
68. Ochre-striped Cardinalfish
69. One-spot Snapper
70. Onespot Demoiselle
    
71. Orbiculate Cardinalfish
72. Oriental Sillago
73. Ornate Goby
74. Pacific Dusky Wrasse
75. Pale Rasbora
76. Peacock Shrimpgoby
77. Pearly-spotted Wrasse
78. Pink Ear Emperor
79. Pink-Speckled Shrimpgoby
80. Red Tilapia
81. Redbelly Yellowtail Fusilier
82. Redcoat
83. Rib Bar Cardinalfish
84. Robust Mangrove Goby
85. Scissortail Rasbora
86. Siamese Glassfish
87. Silty Wrasse
88. Silver Demoiselle
89. Silver Sillago
90. Spanish Flag Snapper
91. Spectacled Sandgoby
    
92. Streaky Rockskipper
93. Stripe-nosed Halfbeak
94. Striped Snakehead
95. Striped Snapper
96. Sulphur Goatfish
97. Threadfin Acara
98. Three-spot Cardinalfish
99. Threespot Dascyllus
100. Tiger Barb
101. Timor Wrasse
102. Toothpony
     
103. Tropical Sand Goby
104. Two Spot Demoiselle
105. Two-lined Monocle Bream
106. Vachelli’s Glass Perchlet
107. Weber’s Chromis
108. Western Mosquitofish
109. Whipfin Silver-biddy
110. White Shouldered Whiptail
111. Whitecheek Monocle Bream
112. Yellow Banded Damselfish
113. Yellowfin Snapper
114. Yellowfin Surgeonfish

Adding the new species to the list of all the species I've ever caught, when I got back, I realised that I had passed the five hundred mark. A great achievement that I'm very proud of. Over the coming years, I'd like to try to hit one thousand eventually!

Tight lines, Scott.

Acknowledgments:

I'd like to thank fellow species hunters Luke and Arthur for their advice on fishing various venues around Phuket before the trip. It was very useful!

Most of all though, I'd yet again like to thank fellow species hunter Jiayuan for his invaluable help throughout the duration of my trip. Whether it be information on the best places to try for certain species, or helping to identify some of the fish I'd caught, his knowledge was incredibly useful and equally impressive! We kept in touch throughout pretty much my entire trip. This, despite the fact he was busy with university exams and projects. Sadly, his academic commitments meant that we didn't get the chance to meet up during either of the Singapore phases of our adventure, which I would have loved. Hopefully, the next time I'm in Singapore we can go species hunting together!

More Species Hunting Adventures in Singapore: Part 2.

Moving to a second shelter on the other side of Bedok Jetty proved to be a good idea. Letting my rig drift under the jetty was very productive, and before long, I was catching a few different species that I hadn't caught during the first couple of hours.

My first mottled spinefoot of the trip. These are venomous, so I try to minimise handling where possible.

This juvenile brownstripe red snapper was my third new species of the session.

It was followed by a couple of species I have caught before, like this bluelined hind,..

...and this diamond wrasse. Also known as the bubblefin wrasse, last year we caught dozens of them, but they were much scarcer this time for some reason. I only caught two all day.

Then I caught another new species in the shape of this peacock shrimpgoby also known as the bluespotted watchman goby. I love catching shrimpgoby and the iridescent blue markings on this specimen were simply stunning!

After a while, the sun was a little lower in the sky, and the shade offered by the shelter had all but disappeared. As there was no longer any real advantage to staying underneath it, we headed up towards the start of the jetty, an area I didn’t fish at all during my previous visits to the jetty. I wanted to try fishing over the sand there, to see what species it would throw up. Casting out away from the jetty, I caught a couple of Oriental sillago, had my bait stripped repeatedly, and then had my hook bitten off completely. Something toothy was around! Adding a couple of small rubber float stops above my hook to try and prevent it happening again, I soon caught one of the culprits.

This lunartail puffer was another species that was a new one to me.

Before too long a shoal of halfbeak showed up, and quickly changing my rig so I could freeline small pieces of prawn close to the surface, I caught one of them. To my surprise it turned out to be another new species.

This is a Congaturi halfbeak. The tip of its lower jaw is red. Last year, I caught lots of stripe-nosed halfbeak, the tip of their lower jaw is bright white, which appears to glow when they’re in the water.

Switching back to fishing on the bottom, but closer in to the Jetty, I got an aggressive little take and the culprit shot off under the jetty. I managed to quickly bully it back out again though, before it could get around the jetty’s concrete legs to cut my line. After a spirited little scrap out in the open water in front of the jetty, a small jack was soon brought to the surface.

Small but still great fun on my ultralight setup! Only my second ever bigeye trevally. I caught my first in Japan a few yeas ago.

Fishing hard on the bottom soon produced an additional two new species for me. First up was this sulphur goatfish, a rare capture around Singapore I would subsequently find out!

It was soon followed by this javelin grunter, my last fish from Bedok Jetty on the day.

Whilst my session on Bedok Jetty had come to an end, my fishing for the day had not. Walking back up to the Bayshore MRT station, we caught a train west and got off again at Gardens by the Bay. From there we walked south to the Marina South Promenade where I'd try my luck at a few spots as we made our way west along to another spot.

Tight lines, Scott. 

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More Species Hunting Adventures in Singapore: Part 1.

At the start of November, my girlfriend Lillian and I headed off on our fourth trip to Asia. We both love visiting that part of the world, and this time we began and ended our journey in Singapore, a country I visited last year for a one-week fishing trip with two of my mates. As well as being an amazing place, Singapore is also a species hunter’s dream, with an incredible amount of diversity in the fish species found there. The last time I visited, I caught sixty-nine in a week and barely scratched the surface. There are over a thousand species in the waters of Singapore!

Arriving in the morning, and not feeling tired at all, despite having not slept much on the thirteen-hour flight there, we decided to do some sightseeing on our first day. I left my fishing tackle in our hotel room and off we went. After catching the MRT Circle Line from Mountbatten to Bayfront, we spent the day visiting a few of the well known tourist attractions in the surrounding area. It was raining when we emerged next to the Bay Sands Marina Hotel, so we headed to the nearby Flower Dome and Cloud Forest, two gigantic air-conditioned glass greenhouses housing impressive gardens inside.

The Flower Dome contains a plethora of exotics plants!

Some impressive wooden sculptures too, my favourite being this dragon.

Inside the Cloud Forest green house there were several impressive water features.

Cloud Forest was set over many different levels with elevated walkways.

From high up inside, we could see our next stop, the SkyPark Observation Deck at the top of the iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel. The rain had stopped, so we walked through the Gardens By The Bay to get there.

From the SkyPark up on the 57th floor of the hotel, we enjoyed panoramic views, including of where we had just come from, The Flower Dome, Cloud Forest and the Gardens by the Bay.

Returning to the ground floor, we then took a walk all the way around the bay, passing the Merlion fountain.

The last stop on our sightseeing tour was the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel.

Where we enjoyed a couple of its famous Singapore Sling cocktails.

By this point it was early evening, and having covered a fair distance on foot, in Singapore's hot and humid conditions, we were both feeling a bit tired, so we headed back to the Geylang neighbourhood where we were staying and had some food, before retreating back to our air-conditioned hotel for a shower and fairly early night!

On day two, we had a bit of a lie in to try and catch on some much-needed sleep. When we did finally get up, I grabbed my fishing tackle, and we set off on foot to use the MRT again. On the way to Aljunied Station, I picked up some large prawns at the Sheng Siong supermarket on Geylang Road and popped them into my wide-mouthed flask. It’s great for keeping them frozen all day until I take them out one at a time to chop them up! After a couple of line changes, we eventually arrived at Bayshore MRT station and waked from there down to Bedok Jetty, a must-visit venue for any species hunting angler who visits Singapore! Arriving just before noon, we strolled out onto it and in the shade of one of the jetty’s four small covered areas, I set up a simple two hook flapper rig and baited up its small hooks with little chunks of prawn. A slight wind kept us cool as I fished away, I quickly opened my account, then steadily added more species to my tally as the afternoon progressed. No casting was required, as many fish are located around the structure's legs or underneath it. Dropping straight down, literally every cast resulted in instant bites, my hooks either being stripped in no time at all, or a fish being caught.

Bedok Jetty produces a multitude of species!

My first fish of the trip was this pink ear emperor. There are lots of these around Bedok Jetty.

After catching a few of them, I caught a pearly spotted wrasse.

A type of smelt-whiting, this bottom feeder is an Oriental sillago.

Next up was a small fanbellied filefish, another species I caught on Bedok Jetty when I visited last year

My first new species of the trip was this banded silver biddy.

I then caught this rib bar cardinalfish,..

...and a small false scorpionfish. As its name suggests, this species isn't actually a true scorpionfish. It is not venomous, but its appearance provides the benefit that the close resemblance protects it from predators, which would not prey upon the venomous scorpionfish that it looks like.

Next up I caught a few of these spiky little fish, at first glance I mistook them for crested grunter, but they were in fact banded grunter, making them my second new species of the trip. The stripes on a crested grunter are curved.

I then caught a beautifully colourful butterfly whiptail. The second part of their name comes from the very long filamentous ray at the top of their tail fin.

Only a few hours into my first session and I was almost into double figures. Not a bad start at all. We then decided to move around a bit and to try fishing over a few different spots. The current had picked up and it was pulling my rig out away from the pier. A switch of sides was in order so that I could use the current to get my rig underneath the pier instead.

Tight lines, Scott.

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