Popularly known as Little GuiLin, this park is officially name Bukit Batok Town Park, is used to be a quarry. When it pay it's due, the part of the remaining rock feature are suppose to look like the famous scenic GuiLin in China, hence it is named Little GuiLin.
There is a pretty decent size lake which is towered by rock cliff on one side, which is totally unaccessible, while the other bank is where the park is.
Park is located on Bt Batok East Ave 5, which is a 5 minute walk from Bt Gombak MRT station, or using bus service 945, there's a bus stop right at the door step of the park. Those who drive can use the nearby HDB carpark, which is free on Sunday and Public holiday. Park at the waiting area at your own risk.
I will split the park into 3 section, when facing the rock cliff, left, right and center. The right and center portion are have a steep bank with low stone walk, which makes landing large fish close to impossible unless you are using heavy line or have landing net.
On the left side, is where I usually go to do some fishing water luring, something that I start to do on a regular basis just recently. When I first started luring, I simply just can't get any hits, fishes are simply not interested to chase my lure. Maybe I sucks at it, maybe where I fish have no fish, maybe the fishes dun like my BO, excuses excuses. Thus I lost interest in luring for a long period.
Recently with the petrol price hitting sky high, I decided to go back to do fresh water luring to cure my fishing itch. Because there is 2 legal fresh water pond near my place, namely Little GuiLin and Jurong Lake. Take the saving from petrol and buy some lures.
Determined to get some fish on lures, I need to learn how to work these lures, luckily met Fishless on a couple of St John island trip and he is kind enough to teach this old man about the different type of lures and how to work it. Old man then dust off his Abu 5600D5 and Majorcraft Slicer and is ready to rumble! Hold on a second, unlike the 90mm and 120mm lures, lures used for freshwater are generally small and lighter, quick check on the Slicer, what the heck, min weight 3/8 oz.... WTF!!!! No choice, revert to back up set, Shimano IM6 with Daiwa SS700 (I change to Ofmer Axis 6 at a later stage and the SS700 is too heavy and upset the balance of the rod).
3 trip and zero fish, this old man feel his blood pressure raising, getting very edgy, kind of like menopause. Already start to bald and still pulling his hair out trying to figure out what want wrong and why no fishes. Even the very scenic view of this park fails to take this failure off my mind.
I needed help badly, and PM Dave, Lure Haven, asking him PB take simi lure. his reply 'Generally everything, and easy to catch'. WTF, easy to catch yet I still zero figher. I give myself more excuses, Little Guilin have NO FISH, that's why I caught Nothing.
However, excuses are excuses (women know this phrase very well), I still believe that there are still fishes in the lake, I still need to prove myself wrong. So on a regular basis, my weekend early morning are spend at Little Guilin, determined to get something, esp PB, on lures.
No sure if my technique improved, or I have better luck, or I have downgrade to a smaller reel and thinner line, or whatsoever reason, the last few trips I managed to land one or two PB, not big but at least proof that this lake is still not dead. This is the area where I usually go fishing, the left side of the lake, it is an open grassland, and natural bank. So landing the fishes does not need any landing net or special equipment.
okay okay, before you start asking me how come no pic of fishes. Just this morning, I caught my biggest PB there and also the smallest one ever. Felt damn bloody bad as you can see from the pic below, one of the treble hook ripped the flesh off it's cheek. Now disfigured, I hope that that the male PB will not be turned off by the scar when it recovers and mate with it soon.
Lure is a Yozuri Crystal minnow, Green Gold if I remember correctly. When I am about to go off, I heard some rattling plastic sound and I decided to investigate. Thinking that some frogs might have trapped itself in one of those discarded plastic bags. See what I 'caught'. PB fry.
Happy to see that as it means that water condition is good enough for the wildlife there to reproduce and then let me catch them, hahaha. However, do remember that this lake have no stream to refresh it's water, water are from the rainwater from the surrounding. Thus sediments are something seen on the water surface.
Anyone keen to join me on weekend morning to try out this lake do contact me to arrange. As always, please practice CnR, and fish at legal area. If we are able weed out illegal fishing, hopefully more reservoir, lakes, rivers will be open up for legalized fishing. I know lah, legal place less fish, fish smaller. But hope everyone can and will do their part in hope that more places will allow anglers to fish.
