Prawning @ Orto
Prawning~ Don't worry, this post is still about food (We live to eat!) Just that we're going to have to catch our food before we can eat it. This rather expensive pastime used to be the craze when we were younger. However, recently we've been feeling a bit reminiscent and so we headed down to Orto - the former Bottle Tree Park less the bottle trees for some prawning action.
That's the fishing pond, but for small timers like us, we headed over to the prawning pond.
It turned out to be very crowded, and everyone was crowding around one pond, can you imagine. Seems like they were only releasing prawns into that same pond. Beside that, there was a pond for yabbies (cray fish), which we were keen to try. But first, we decided to have a go at the fresh water prawns.
First you've got to unroll the hook that's wrapped around the rod and then adjust the float. There's some marking on the pillars that shows approximately how deep the pond is, so make sure there's sufficient line between your hook and float! Some people also dip their rods into the pond to measure the depth of the sides (apparently the pond is curved towards the middle).
Next step is to put some of this bait (we took the free chicken livers) onto the hook. Should be self-explanatory!
Then you cast the line and wait! It was not our lucky day:( Only managed to hook our first prawn after an hour of waiting while the ahma across us keep hooking up prawns every 5 mins or so! Her basket was filled to the brim :o
We let this poor pregnant prawn go. Too small for eating anyway! Yeah and these ones have those weird funky bluish pinchers. Some cruel lady next to us was using a scissors to trim them off before unhooking the prawns -- to our shock and horror.
After an hour or so at the freshwater pond, we were off to the yabbie pool. Our first yabbie! These cunning blighters are more cunning than your average fresh water prawn. They play with your bait and we kept messing up the timing to strike. In fact, most of our catches were because we foul hooked onto a part of their claw or body.
Eventually, we narrowed our technique to counting about 15s once the float starts to sink. Not a very good hit rate though ): There was this uncle nearby who consistently landed yabbies every minute or so, and he was like fishing off the side of the pond. Perhaps a yabby hotspot? For those pro at prawning/yabbying, do share some tips please haha.
Eventually, we narrowed our technique to counting about 15s once the float starts to sink. Not a very good hit rate though ): There was this uncle nearby who consistently landed yabbies every minute or so, and he was like fishing off the side of the pond. Perhaps a yabby hotspot? For those pro at prawning/yabbying, do share some tips please haha.
Not a very good haul of yabbies ($36 for 5, that works out to be $7 per yabby) The big one on top put up a rather spirited fight. Gonna cook and eat you later.
We ended up bringing the yabbies home and boiling them. Was extremely fresh and sweet. Yummy!
Address: 81 Lor Chencharu, 769198
Opening Hours: Mon-Sun, 00:00-23:59
Website: http://orto.sg/activities/prawning-at-orto/
Contact: +65 6257 2972
Damage: $20 for 1 hr, $30 for 2 hrs, $36 for 3 hours
0 comments: