Snips n snaps of our lives: January 2009

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Dolphins

Posting some clips from last week. Dolphins swimming around to have a go at the breams!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Farm life! 2

A couple of other pics I took when I was at the farm

Monday, January 26, 2009

Happy Chinese New Year 2009!

To all friends and family, happy CNY! Have a good one!

For us, we went to Fokuangshan temple after our reunion dinner. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Huat ah!!!

Refreshments after

The temple

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

We got an invitation from Nicholas to go down to his uncle's farm down south for a stayover. It's about 4 hours drive from my place and this time only I went because Zq has already started her semester.

Anyways, it's a really beautiful place with 142 acres of land. If you have no idea how much that is (I don't exactly know either), just look at the pictures. It's huge!

Throughout the journey we could see plenty of farms with sheeps and cattle against the backdrop of mountains the view is simply beautiful. All these at only 2 hours out of the city.

This is the gate into the farm. From the gate you can't see the house yet, we have to drive for 1 or 2 minutes.

The house is sitting on top of a hill with a magnificent view.

Drinking coffee every morning to this sight, I can imagine that.

Now let's go into the house. Very..... farm-like!

And they have a very cute dog.

Nic's uncle is somewhat like a game hunter and this is one of the prize "trophies" he had; a buffalo horn obtained using a bow and arrow. Don't get me wrong killing animals is not my thing but it is still impressive.

Will post more pictures in the next post.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

G'day mate!

Decided to go a little earlier this morning and saw all three familiar faces there. Bout half an hour after wetting my line, saw this beautiful fish in the water and dropped my line right in front of it. Guess it couldn't resist a free mussel and I got it up pretty quickly. Yeaaaah babey! and pretty good size too!

Wah shiok man!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

A hazy day

It's a pretty hazy day today here in WA because of a couple of bush fires. Just at the city centre King's park had it going and up north at Yanchep about couple of hours drive from our house about 5000 acres of land were burnt.

Anyways, went back to my usual spot today hoping to catch some good fish. As I got out of the car someone yelled "Hello!". Turns out a good man I met at north mole once was also there to have a quick go at the water. Even funnily, that selfish old man I talked about in my previous post? They're friends.

When we reached there another of his friend was already there and I saw more than 10 tarwhines on the floor. Never seen so many good sized fishes being caught up before!

Apparently the school was there this morning and they were popping up at every pylon. Geared up quickly and within 5 minutes of dropping my line, I got myself a decent sized tarwhine. These fishes are small but they sure are feisty and definitely fight much better than black bream. Sooner later Charles pulled up a ~35-38cm black bream. After that the bites stopped coming... damn. I'm going back tomorrow.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Best day of my fishing life

Today is about the most amazing day in my life; fishing wise. Let me tell you the entire story how it all began.

I've been fishing in this place called Canning bridge for over a year and the main species of fish I've been targeting is black bream. I've caught a few small ones, with the larger ones only barely past legal size. Anyways, to catch a black bream over 40cm is like the holy grail of black bream fishing and after fishing there for so long and seeing nothing, I was starting to lose hope. Until yesterday, there was an old chinese guy fishing there and in a mere 2 hours, caught 3 black breams and a tarwhine, all of very good size with the largest bream measuring at 38cm. He was quite a selfish bloke and he refused to tell me how he caught it; in fact, he told me outright he wasn't going to teach me how to catch fish because then more and more fish will be caught.

Anyways, I was pretty devastated because I didn't even have a single bite even though I've spent so much time reading up on and experimenting on rigs and baits. So I spent most of my time yesterday peeking at the way he rigs his line, the way he fished and the places he fished at. Went home, starting tying knots and stuff and trying out a new rig pretty confident that this time I'll get those breams and on the way back crossing the bridge, I saw a few schools of tailor, a couple of good sized black breams and even a stingray. This has got to be a sign and I told myself I'll come back tomorrow and pleaaaaaaassssse please just let me get it and I told myself that I'll only catch two breams and I'll let anything above 40cm and below 30cm back into the water. ps: Black breams are really slow growing fishes and anything above 40cm takes about 15 years to grow into.

So this morning after dropping Zq off to uni I made my way there again and within 10 minutes of dropping my line I got a bite and a missed hook up and a couple minutes later another bite but nothing. This is a good sign.

After about an hour with no hook ups except a small one, I moved to the closest pylon (pillar) to shore because a gut feeling told me to try it. As soon as my bait dropped in, "WHAM!". The bream hit is super hard and the fight was so strong it kept dragging my rod under the bridge with the drag running at strong bursts. After fighting for awhile, I caught a glimpse of it and it's pretty damn good size. Just straight after that it made a last dash which busted my line. Damn!!! But I swear that is the strongest and best bream fight I've ever experienced.

After 30 minutes I was onto another fish, this time 30cm which is pretty decent size and the largest I've caught so far. Don't underestimate these fishes; they fight pretty darn well and if you've never fought one before they'll bust up your line in the pylons.

At around 11.35am, I dropped my line at the second pylon which was quite shallow. Felt a bite and "WHAM!", hook up! I fought to pull the fish out from under the bridge with my drag running in bursts. After it came out from under the bridge, it swam between two pylons, taking my line with it and this time I was really worried that my line will get snagged and busted again. Thank god this time I let my drag do the work and just try to hang on with all I can when the fish decided again and again to make a run for it. In my mind it was something like "Nonononono please stop pleaaaaaaase don't go in there!!!" After awhile, I reeled it up and the first sight of it caught my breathless. It was HUGE. I've never imagined myself catching a 40cm monster but there it was and it still has fight in it as it tried to muscle it's way down a couple of times.

Finally, I landed it and it's 43 freaking cm! 43cm man! Beat that!!! It's mouth and head is thick almost snapper-like. Got a guy to take a picture of it with me but I think he didn't press the camera button hard enough so I didn't get a picture with it, deeeym. But anyways, I took it against the measuring ruler and there you go mate!!!

A part of me wanted to keep it but another part of me knew that I had to let it go, despite what people would say. A lady there even wanted to buy it off from me but I just had to do the right thing. A fish that has lived 15 years to grow to that size doesn't deserve to land on my dinner plate. It just waste, nothing more.

So yeah! Today was probably the best fishing day in my life. Not only I caught a huge bream, I had the courage to let it go, swim away, and fight another day.

You know, in this world full of takers, sometimes you have to give a little bit.

ps: I'm definately going back tomorrow.