bad weather

for the last few weeks my fishing buddies and i were compelled to stay aground...with strong wind and dusty weather we were unable to go fishing... for the last few weeks the weather was really unfriendly, sad to say when the weekend approaches the weather gets even worst so we were unable to go fishing..

we are all hoping that this weekend will be much better, as soon as the weather clears, we'll all be back to our favorite past time....

gearing up....

after the long walk to our favorite spot, here are my fishing buddies starting to gear up and getting ready to start casting their respective lines and ever eager to reel in any thing that bites....

of course everybody hope to haul the biggest one...

the long walk....

no matter how long a walk it may seem to be, the group is all pumped up and eager to haul the catch of the night no matter how small or big it may seem to be... no matter how heavy the load may seem to be...

all set to go

after a brief photo session everybody is geared up to go out fishing... after the previous weeks very productive stint, everyone is eager to haul the biggest catch of the night...

a photo shoot before we go...

for the first time a chance to have a photo shoot before going out on a fishing trip.. with the newly acquired digicam with self timer, picture taking is an ease...

seated from right on yellow shirt, Leo, Allan, Bong, Benny, Eddie and me.... hope to complete the group when tow of our colleague come back form vacation.

just sizing up

as if trying to weight each cat fish, our fishing buddy Allan is standing with two of the biggest catch of the previous nights fishing trip....

rest time...

after a night tiring out of fishing , it is time to rest, here is the great pioneer Eddie, our adopted father of fishing taking a much needed rest... at the background Allan is looking from afar trying to figure out how to tease us again, trying to size up what is the next joke to crack....

showing off

time to show off the catch of the night... here is my fishing buddy Allan trying to show off with our friends and Bong standing by..

i was kidding him, that he will make a good fish vendor... it seems to suite him.... then of course we are just kidding around...

looks like a fish market

after a good night sleep, it's picture time..... Bong, Eddie and Allan looks like they are tending a stall in a fish market... with the previous night's catch of approximately 25 kgs. all in all no wonder the long walk home seem to take forever...

home at last

after a busy night and a long 600 meter walk and 20 minutes drive, the team is back to home base where the night's catch has been cleaned and readied for cooking... not until a good night sleep of course..

a long walk home

talking to each other while contemplating on the long road ahead, Allan and Bong take one step at at time while towards the vehicle waiting some 600 meters ahead...

heavy load of the night

it was really unfortunate that my two fishing buddies Leo and Benjie has to work the next day, so they missed all the action of a very exciting night...

with just the four of us, Bong, Allan, Eddie and myself has to carry the night's catch, not to mention all the 7 fishing rods and all the fishing rig on a long 600 meter walk to the vehicle...

let's call it a night

after a very enticing and nice fishing night out, my fishing buddies, Allan and Bong has to carry the night's catch for a long 600 meter walk...

but then again as they say, it is really nice to walk with this much of fish as it is all worth it...

just before going home

just a day before going home, my friend and fishing buddy Edgar still joins us for yet again another fishing day... unfortunately all there are that day was cow fish...

nevertheless, there will be much more to catch when he comes back...

teamwork at its' best...

as always whenever a buddy is in need of a helping hand, our team is always ready to lend helping hands as shown where where the spikes of the catfish are being removed to make sure that it doesn't harm anybody to avoid anybody being pinched that is known to cause fever....

bong's 2nd catch of the night

once more bong landed another sizable catch, with another cat fish that is approximately 2.5 kg... Allan, our other fishing buddy is always ready to lend a helping hand, as shown her ea he tries to help Bong remove the hook out of the catfish.....

the night's total catch

after over 5 hours of fishing the team was rewarded with quite a catch.. as it proves to be a worthy evening...nine catfishes and an estimated total weight of 22 - 25 kg...

the team who dwindled from a group of 8 to just four of us, has to wonder how to haul the catch with all the fishing rigs and a 600 meter walk to the car...

bong's at it as well

once more bong proves himself to be quite a fisherman as well, not to be outwitted by the fish he manages to haul this catfish as well matching the one hauled in earlier by our fishing buddy Eddie...

with the 3rd catch fish caught by the team, it really is very encouraging especially with the size of the catch

2nd catch of the evening

the great pioneer Eddie sure is lucky last weekend, as shown here in the picture hauling his second big catch of the evening in less that an hour he has to reel in this catfish in over 10 minutes...

watching him reeling in the catch makes you a bit weary... hoping that the line will hold and that the fish will not slip away... that night was surely a lucky night...

good catch indeed

the great pioneer is back in to his old self...my fishing buddy Eddie best known to the team as the great pioneer is considered the master fisherman .... and last weekend he proves himself again by landing the biggest catch of the evening... all smile as he looks at the looks at the catfish.. as if telling the fish it took me over 15 minutes to reel you in....

catfish season

it has a few weeks that we have been wondering where are have all the fish has gone to... a few times that my fishing buddies and i were not landing good catch... but not this weekend, the long wait was over and there are signs that the big fish are back in the sea.. finally my fishing buddy Eddie, the great pioneer as we call him landed a sizable catch... and told us that the catfish seems to be back...

almost weekend

it's Tuesday once again... another working day and we will be off to fishing again on Thursday... time really flies when you are busy... a week has almost pass us bay again and it is week end again...

we always look forward to the weekend so we try to keep ourselves busy during weekdays... soon enough you will realize that you need to prepare for the next fishing trip... i sure hope and pray that i can finally land a much bigger fish this time...

keeping my finger cross...

cow fish...

this is one of the weirdest catch i ever had in all my fishing trips... this was two weeks ago... i though i have landed a good catch since the line was quite heavy though it wasn't really that difficult to reel it in....

when i finally managed to bring it ashore we were all astonished.... two cow fish biting together.... this is unusual considering that they have such small mouth and am using Mustad hood #2...

good thing that i seems all the cow fish has gone somewhere else... i hope they stay away for good...

the pioneer....

our good fishing buddy whom we fondly call Mr. Eddie, he is the group's fishing pioneer.. we met him through my brother who used to work here in the Middle east as well, they were office mates and he has been fishing for a good 2 decades i imagine....

he has his hay days so to speak, having caught sting rays, catfish, lapu lapu and other species of various sizes... he even had an odd experience when he caught a wild duck a few years back...

fishing buddy going on vacation

a few weeks of break is forth coming to one of my fishing buddy, he is scheduled to go on his annual vacation before the end of the month... he has been on an extended stay already due to heavy work load.... just like me fishing is his favorite way of relieving stress and enjoying the camaraderie that we share while we wait to land a good catch...

i bid him an enjoyable much deserved vacation.... a time to spend with his family and all his loved ones...

another week ahead of me

week end is over... and it has been a very happy weekend indeed spent with my fishing buddies, and we look forward now to a new working weekend... time to go back to the main business... being contract workers.... another week of preparation for anther fishing weekend....

it is always nice to look ahead for the forthcoming working day as it serves as an inspiration for another weekend to be spent near the shore... the excitement of landing a good catch,and the time to spend with my friends once more....

the fish curry

after the long wait and tedious preparations by bong and edgar, the much awaited meal wass ready to be devoured by the hungry fishing buddies...

we always look forward to a big catch... and a delicious meal afterwards....

this would be the meal for the day, and look forward to what next week's fishing trip would bring us

it was grilled

at last a decision was made by my fishing buddies how to cook some of the previous night's catch... this will definitely complement the catfish...

ready to be cooked as well

with sizes as such, one quick and delicious way of cooking this fish is by grilling it... another way is by steaming it... we usually clean the fish and salt it initially and then decide later how will we cook the fish....

ready to be cooked

the catfish seems to be so big when it was caught and being cleaned but after cutting it to pieces
it doesn't seem to be to so once it is placed on a container...

but don't be deceived... after cooking this fish, it has fed all 8 of us with a bit to spare...

fish curry

having skined and clean the fish it's time to preapre the ingredients for cooking the fish curry...

this will surely be a hearty meal...

cooking preparation

after a good night sleep, it's time to prepare the night's catch for cooking... first my friends has to skin the catch fish and then cut them to pieces..... this will sure be a delicious fish curry in the making... with this size... it will sure be more than enough for the six of us...

a closer look

here 's a closer look of what my fishing buddy has caught that night it really is worth the trip that night as we are sure to have a nice lunch the next day...

posing...

as usual to have a few souvenir pictures it time to have a bit of photo shoot....

lucky fisherman

my fishing buddy Bong seems to be the luckiest amongst us last Thursday... having caught the catfish earlier, here he is now with the biggest "bakuko" locally called sha'ham or shu'hor

a sizable catch

we sure have made quite a headway this time... with my fishing buddy having quite a sizable fish... and we were hoping that we will have a few more of these later on...and in our next fishing trips...

a bit bigger this time

as we perceived, the fish seems to be back as we continue to catch much bigger fish that we used to... and we hope that this continue to be the case....

another photo shoot session...

this time my fishing buddy Edgar, who is a veteran of catching much bigger fish than this.... last year they landed a total of 23 pieces of catfish some as big as this and some much bigger... unfortunately they don't carry camera that time... good thing we always have a camera phone handy these days

it sure looks big...

this fish sure looks intimidating after we unhooked it... but first thing first... having caught the fish the next thing to do is to cut the three pointed fins...

these fins are surely more dangerous than other thought... i know one Arab before who we met while we fishing a few years back who got pinched by these fins, next fishing night we met him he told us he got a fever out of that...

for posterity sake...

just having a photo shoot of the night's biggest catch s far... hoping to land a fish as big or better still, a bigger one....

a happy fishing buddy.....

my fishing buddy "bong" sure is a happy fisherman that night... having landed the biggest catch of the night sure keeps a smile in his always jolly face that night...

he would have been happier though have his line did not cut the second time around it was caught by seemingly a big fish...

while he was pulling his other rod, the second one was whacked 3 times bending his rod holder 45 degrees but unfortunately by the time he get to his second rod, the line already cut...

they sure are back....

after a while of casting and waiting... my friend has been rewarded with a much better catch... he managed to pull up a more or less 2.0 kgs. of cat fish or we locally call "kanduli"... it was a bit of a fight for him but it was all worth it...

the fish are back....

it was a night out again with my fishing buddies last Thursday night... and we believe that the fish are back in season as we start catching the same old fish we used to catch... they are not so big in size but they sure are tasty... am not sure what it is called in Arabic nor in English but we call it in our local dialect as "bakuko"

fishing day....

it's week end once again and we are off to our favorite fishing place.... hope we have a good cath this time....

fishing as a way of relieving stress

as we all know, sport fishing is a very good past time and proves to be very relaxing, depends on how you take it of course.... for me and my fishing buddies it is one way or relieving our week's worth of stress... and the good thing about it is, when you get lucky you will have at least meals worth of fish ; better still you can have a weeks worth of fish....

weekend is here again....

it's another week end.... for us it's another fishing opportunity for me and my fishing buddies... one is out on his annual vacation and will not rejoin us until the last week of May, and another buddy due to go out by next week...

at any rate, we still have a few fishing buddies to go with and hopefully this weekend will be better than the last few weeks we are having... we hope to catch something bigger than what is shown in the picture.....

night fishing

fishing at night it it is quite different in daylight for many obvious reasons...... but come to think of it most of our big catch are either at night or day break...here is how it looks at night at one of our favorite fishing spot...

fishing at night

fishing at night is unique as it possesses a lot of challenges.... a view of one of our favorite fishing spot at night....

unfamiliar catch

sometimes it is nice to catch 2 or 3 fish at a time even if they are not too big.... but it would be nicer if it is something that you are familiar with.....