St John Island - 20 May 2012

Todak posing with the tackle that kills it

Made this trip basically to seek revenge from the last trip, tide is similar so too is the weather. Hoping to see some queen fish again, no time is wasted to jig for bait fish from elsewhere, instead once we touchdown, straight away we headed to the linkway and hope to get some live bait fishes there.

Similar to the last trip, bait fishes are hard to come by, finally get one from an old uncle and quickly hook with on my noodle rod. And the wait begins for the arrival of the queen.

Saw a splash earlier so hopefully it is a sign, but alas a todak took my live bait and then spat it out, killing it. No choice but to start bottom fishing again for bait fish while leaving the freshly killed bait fish in the water.




Then the todak strikes again, DesT notice some action on my side and walks over.
DesT - Look like it is a big one I saw earlier.
Me - Big mah? I dun think so, although it didn't jump much.
DesT - Let's see when it closer.

a while later.....
DesT - Yeah, it looks like the big one I saw on the other side.
Me - Doesn't look big to me, maybe 80cm plus
DesT - Hmm... doesn't look that small to me
Me - I dun really care, I wanted the queenie, this is a by-catch

So up it comes, once it is on the grass patch then did I notice the length of it, it is indeed not that small. DesT took out the measuring tape and measure it. It comes just short of One meter, considered large in our local water.

Well, that's the only decent catch we had the entire day, and this is going to be donated to Raffles Museum to be preserved as part of their studies.

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Tackle used
Rod - GLoomis GL2 NR1382
Reel - Shimano Alivio 2500 body (Modified) with AernosXT C3000 spool
Line - Spiderwire EZ Braid 10lbs, with 12lbs Surecatch leader
Rig - Float with 15lbs line and Aji 12 and Aji 14 double hook

Spool Line Holder - DIY Style

Finished Product on Reel

I have always wanted to do this when I started freshwater luring. As usually the fishing starts at day break, thus the night before I will tied all the necessary terminal tackles and will be almost ready to go when I reached the fishing ground.

However, I didn't get to start doing it until recently where the past couple of trips, for various reason, I needed to setup fast and time is wasted for me to tied the terminal tackles.

Initially wanted to buy off the shelf, but when I see the stuff available and the price, I rather put my money to better use. Taking those commercially available as a reference, thought of a few design and finally decided to get it done once and for all.

Made to Measure, this one fits a 1000 sized reel

There is a couple of design swimming in my head when I am shopping for the stuff required, but decided on this for a few reason.
1. It is cheap
2. I have no idea how long can the elastic band last, so doesn't want to waste money on velco strips to make it adjustable.
3. As mentioned, as it is cheap, I can basically make one for every single reel that I have, so no need for it to be adjustable.
4. Purely for vanity reason, I can customized it with my nickname, instead of doing free advertisement for others.

The design and production is so simple that I am kind of embarrassed to put it up, had I managed to get the elastic bands in black or red, I believe it would look better. Anyway, the concept of this design is from the fingers guards that I used when I played basketball donkeys years ago.

Item Required
Elastic Band (I am using one with 15mm width for this, use one that fits your spool)
SuperGlue
Flat Pliers
Cig Ligther

Even the Super Glue I use is a cheap one.

Work out the circumference of your spool (if you have forgotten it is 2πr)
Cut elastic band to this length.
Use the lighter to burn off those frayed ends.
Apply Super Glue to one end of the elastic band at about 1cm width.
Put the 2 ends together, with the Super Glued side in contact with the other end. Overlap at appox 1cm.
Use a flat plier and apply pressure to the overlapped portion, avoid using fingers as the glue might get onto your fingers.
Viola, it is done and ready to use when it dries.


Now, based on how what it described above, and using a very complicated mathematics calculations, you will find that the finished elastic band about 1 cm smaller then the spool circumference. The smaller diameter of the elastic band is to keep the line in place and is not too difficult to put it on as well.


Of course if you are doing for a much bigger reel, you might want to get a thicker elastic band. But for Shimano 1000 to 2500 sized reels, I find that 1.5cm is just about right.

Shimano Slade 1000FB - Upgrading the reels

When I first gotten this reel at a Shimano event, I decided not to modify it, use it out of the box for as long as I can and see how long can it last. Mixed bags of respond from me, the good part is that the reel lasted with zero maintenance, bad news is that the bushing holding the Drive gear starts to create more friction that the inertia force required when you start to crank the handle increase quite a fair bit.

Thus make my way down to the ball bearing shop to get the necessary bearings, and do the change of the bushing to bearings. Of course, since I am dismantling the reel, might as well clean up everything and give it a full service.

And this reel also get my upgraded version of roller bushing upgrade to ball bearing. The previous version is hard to replicate as it is tough to find the necessary parts, and the need to trim down the bearing outer race to a smaller diameter. More on this on my further posting.

Three old man and a Queen

22nd May 2012, a planned trip to St John island to do some fishing, the tide is right to do some todak hunting and I have some other stuff to do, namely to take some pics for an article for a fellow fisho, and test out the new lines that I have spooled in.

Upon reaching, I immediately start to jig for tamban, on previous trips, they are pretty easy to get, however on this trip it is tough, before long we know what happen, there is a queenie whacking baits fishes just around the area. DesT hooked up a live tamban and managed to get a hit, but failed to set the hook. He is so hyped up that he refuse to move his butt until much later. With a predator in the area, tambans are hard to come by, finally we have no choice but to get some glass fish on top of the few precious tamban we get.