Westlake Fishing Village

Last Friday night, we went to this commercial fishing pond to fish. There were plenty of FREE parking spaces there unlike the one at Pasir Ris. If you’re thinking of travelling there by public transport, you can alight at Lakeside MRT station. Go to the opposite bus-stop and take SBS bus service 154. You should alight the bus at the 4th stop, right after Parkview Mansions, which is on your left. This place not only caters for 24 hours of fishing and prawning. They also have Pub, KTV lounge and food for your leisure and entertainment after a hard day’s work. Night fishing starts from 9 pm to 7 am and is priced at $30. Live prawns are priced at $4 for every 100g. We reached there at 9 pm and began to prepare our fishing gears.

“Know your enemies and yourself; you will win hundred times in battles”- Art of War by Sun Tze. So, we went around the pond to find out what types of fish were caught by other anglers. Our verdict; there is only one - Barramundi or “Kim Bak Lor.”

Now that we knew who our enemies (fishes) were, we decided to opt for the float technique in order to target the barramundi, a mid-to-surface feeder. Joe, my buddy, brought his lucky Penn fishing rod, while I had my secret weapon; the Abu Garcia. We barely warmed the seats when suddenly several solid blows of the whistle, followed by some stomping of the feet, jolted us out of our seats. Wondering what the commotion was all about, we quickly looked over our shoulders. To our surprise, we saw an overly enthusiastic Bangladeshi worker dashing towards the pond. Only as he hopped onto the floating platform did we realize it was time to release the fishes. It was approximately 9 30 p.m.

Finally, the moment we had been waiting for was finally here. It was time for some real action as the adrenaline rushed through our bodies. After more than an hour of non-stop casting, our high hopes gradually turned into despair. The fishes refused to take our live baits (prawns)! Sigh…….Shoulders dropped and crest fell. We quietly sneaked past my wife, Lilian, our only spectator, to hide our embarrassment. My buddy and I decided to take a break. So, I passed my fishing rod over to her. In a jiffy, she took a strike! “Stop pulling our legs,” we shouted! She carefully reeled in a barramundi. Dammed! We were really pissed! This “Have a break, have a kit-kat” syndrome is getting into our nerves. We felt like screaming our guts out in frustration!

By midnight, we could barely open our eyes. We were constantly dozing off while still clutching on to our fishing rods. Our meetings with “Mr. Zhou” (Zhou-Gong) were abruptly disrupted by the same effervescent worker - Wake-Up call at 1 am – releases fishes a second time. A check with the worker revealed that they would release about 30 fishes each time. “Must be 30 minus the 0,”my buddy said, irritably.

After our coffee break, we decided to try different methods. We did the sinker, dragging, jiggling and even made tried casting to practically every spot but to no avail. As the night dragged on, our chances seemed increasingly bleak. It was already half an hour past 4 and we only had 1 fish for catch, courtesy of my wife.

We were so dead tired that we took 40 winks. We had to leave our poor girl to fish by herself. By the time we were awake, it was a quarter to 6. We decided to call it a day. As we packed our equipments, we found another fish in the bag. She must have caught it when we were in slumber land. In order not to deflate our very fragile male egos anymore, she didn’t dare to tell us. We gave her a hard stare and she merely gave us a cheeky grin in return.

Then she gave us a reassuring pat on the back and said: “I had a wonderful time! Joe, you can keep the fishes.” What a gentleman! Uh…hum I mean woman.

Next time we’ll make sure we get our revenge. We promised (Fingers crossed)!

FINAL SCORE: Girl 2½ (½ for fish that got away in battle) Guys 0

Oops, forgot to mention. For those who like fishing, do give this fishing pond a try. I am sure you will enjoy it.