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Post by mtshark on Apr 21, 2009 13:44:53 GMT 8
Dear FFCS's members,
Could you kindly forward me your email addresses and contact numbers to my inbox?
(Especially the EXCOs and official members who have signed up.)
Right now, we are given a chance to present our dreams as proposals to the government bodies. We need passionate fliers to lay their time and efforts to help fulfill our dreams to legally fish in open waters in Singapore. It could be our only one time chance to do this and we seek all members to help in whichever way you could to help fulfill our dreams. If you could offer a hand or leg, we need you.
The government is opening their doors and let's not wait or delay any longer. We have a dead line to meet and we need passions from you all to get the ball rolling.
No more talks without actions. It is time for us to act or be-axed.
Even for non-members who would be contributing their efforts, your contribution for the future of fishing in Singapore will not be forgotten.
Edward Ng
Fishing is a Passion! Flyfishing is for the passionates!
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Post by Qwek on Apr 21, 2009 15:05:08 GMT 8
Hi Edward,
Can you work closely with Wisp aka Tien Yun and RMG aka Kevin Ang on this. We had a picnic for all concerned to give us their inputs and also to meet PUB representative as well. The picnic was very well attended even at a short notice. It was also attended by fellow kakis from FK, but it is a shame that none of SFAS representatives were presented.
Thank to both Wisp and RMG for their efforts in bringing PUB, NParks and the flyfishing community together. Together with the Shadowcaster aka TY, they are working on a proposal based on our members' input as well as other.
Together with your input and those that you have gather I'm sure that the team will have stronger and better ideas to bring across to the authorities. Please help Wisp and RMG to gather ideas and support for this new era.
Wisp and RMG have arranged for us to meet up with PUB and I understand that PUB have also ask SFAS to attend and to give their view as well. The following are representing the flyfishing community for the meet:
Kelvin Ang
Tan Yik
Henry Lau
Edwin Yong
Tan Tien Yun
Qwek Chin Ming
Should you like to be included please contact Wisp or RMG. I think we should leave the arrangement to both of them since they have being in comm with PUB.
Cheers
Qwek
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Post by wisp on Apr 22, 2009 9:54:22 GMT 8
Good Day all!
Edward and I have contacted each other over this, so we will be working on further establishing contacts with PUB and NParks. I was actually planning to start a thread disseminating what will be discussed over these series of meetings.
However, I will need to discuss with officials with PUB about the agenda of the first meeting. Kevin Ang aka RMG is currently setting up NParks to arrange a similiar set of meetings and hopefully we can get both agencies to talk with us on the same table soon.
TO describe the set up of these meetings as these meetings will be different from the past excursions with PUB:
1) the FFC will be represented as equal talking partners with SFAS instead of SFAS representing our interests. Meaning to say, PUB will now directly talk with us instead through SFAS by proxy
2) An external party facilitator , Yusfiandi Yatiman (Yandi for short), will help with the chairing of the meeting and making sure both parties keep within the lines of the agenda. Having experience in fisheries research in Raffles Musuem Of Biodiversity Research as well as being a nature guide /documentry narrator for various nature volunteer groups, he is also a commitee member of the PUB waterway networks advisory council and will be well informed on the intentions of PUB.
3) These meetings will be held regularly as the proposal with be a 'work in progress' with PUB. Meaning to say, instead of just working on a proposal and do a final presentation with PUB, we will be working on this together WITH PUB and see what works with them and us and what doesn't. A rejection doesn't mean the end of the story for us in short, but simply as a manner of redefining our ideas.
I hope this thread will be an active one, as we really do need to set the momentum going on this one, as for once PUB is taking our tone and putting it into practice with frightening urgency. This is the time for the members of the club to show our mettle and show PUB what we can do that others have tried and failed before.
Please present any intiatives or any ideas that any of you have so we can bring it up to the PUB officials. I may even add this thread for them to view it whenever they're free.
It's show time guys. Make some money and take names.
Regards,
TY Tan aka Wisp
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Post by pirate! on Apr 22, 2009 11:10:30 GMT 8
Hello everyone!
Thank you very much to Tien, Edward and the FFC exco for the work they have already put in. i would like to put forward the following ideas.
i think we should have the following,:
for immediate introduction
larger fishing areas (possibly entire reservoirs) but with various off limits areas [e.g. macritchie zig zag bridge, coves X,Y,Z, point X to Y on north shore of reservoir R] to allow fish breeding areas and sanctuaries with lots of structure either man made, natural or a combination of both which act as a "fish production bank". to reduce the chances of poaching, the area should be stacked with structure e.g. fallen trees, logs, FADs so that a fish will be able to rush for the snag if hooked.
fishing licenses... this would allow funding of various programs such as maintainance of our fishing areas, stocking (discussed later), However, not everyone will be happy paying for a license, therefore we should keep one or two reservoirs aside for free fishing, or have a free fishing zone.
Kayak fishing- isn't our back cast dangerous? our backcast can get dangerously close to the walkway, or even go over the walkway. This is why i went to macritchie once with a fly rod, and haven't been back since. Sometimes innocent pedestrians walk behind us when we back cast, without our knowing even if we look before initiating the cast. e.g. LPR legal area in the evening you've got kids running around here, there, everywhere and Macritchie legal area with the footpath behind the fishing area, seperated by a small strip of grass.
Bait fishing... This is a touchy one with 2 surface concerns which are, littering and healthiness of the bait. sometimes people want to just try out fishing or go marker fishing and getting to the sea may be inconvenient if one does not drive or be unable to locate a pond which produces consistently. so why not allow bait fishing with certain baits e.g. earthworms, bread, crickets, live baitfish. the immediate downside to this would be how does one obtain "undiseased baitfish", and the various other baits.
more FAD's and structure... to provide shelter for our predators, shelter for baby fish and a hiding place for baitfish. It could also serve to boost the fish populations of fishes in the reservoir, both game fish and baitfish.
Education about proper fish and release handling techniques. Remember some time ago we had a flaming about the "proper" way to use a Lip grip? well, the pros and cons of the lip grip as well as proper fish handling should be presented. e.g. wet hands before handling a fish. Could a rubber mesh or knotless mesh landing net be better than the boga grip? boga grips could cause internal damage or jaw injuries while the net definately removes the fish's protective slime and can tangle with dropper flies or treble hooks. Speed of getting the fish back into the water is of paramount importance as we don't want our fish dying having spent too long out of water.
bag and size limits
we may need to implement culling/stocking based on scientific opinions, this allows populations to be controlled, and helps to prevent indiscriminate killing of fish, haven't we ourselves gotten or seen people get upset about fish being left on the side of the reservoir to die? Peacock bass are outcompeting our snakeheads, due to various factors such as a shorter breeding cycle. Reducing PB population would enable the snakeheads and other species to make a comeback. we should not exterminate peacock bass but instead regulate their population using scientific study based culling to enable the capitalization on all the species that are present here in our reservoirs. regulation of the PB population can work in our favour, it can enable the increase of average sized peacock bass we catch (now which angler wouldn't want that).
Stuff for the future
the introduction of water hyacinths
Water Hyacinths provide shelter for baby fish, a hunting ground for predatory fish and birds, and help to remove waste materials in the water, they are floating plants so their population is not difficult to control, furthermore they can be grown in direct sunlight! when their population rises too much, they can be harvested and used for compost.
fish stocking
This is in case in the future our resourse is not sustainable because we do have a large number of people per unit area in singapore, so fishing pressure would be very high. we're not like new zealand or the US where there is a lot of water and enough for everyone. to still find areas which have been untouched or lightly pressured fish that still take flies very readily. when fish stocking and size regulation are used together, the time taken for a comeback of fish that have a low population will be much faster! sadly, stocking is quite an expensive idea.
hatchery
A hatchery would enable the regulation to a certain extent the type of fish that are being stocked, be it baitfish or predator. what we do not want is to be stocking different sub species that were not originally present in our waters.
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Post by pirate! on Apr 22, 2009 11:25:44 GMT 8
i neglected to mention one point in my post under stuff for the future,
Suitable release site
should a hatchery and/or a stocking program be started, we would definately have to find a suitable release site and define a minimum release size for the different species or else the majority would become baitfish. characteristics of the site would be abundance of food, and cover, the larger the amount of cover and sanctuary, the smaller the fish that can be released.
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Post by mtshark on Apr 22, 2009 11:39:29 GMT 8
The following are the passionates who are putting fore their precious time to help, thank you very much!
Kelvin Ang
Tan Yik
Henry Lau
Edwin Yong
Tan Tien Yun
Qwek Chin Ming
Edward Ng
Stephen Lipp
Chee Yung
(the above name list is not of any order)
Anyone else who is interested and willing, pls include yourself further into the list.
We shall see what we could come out with to move forward and make us a better day at our favourite water holes.
Once again, thank you very much!
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Post by mtshark on Apr 22, 2009 11:40:18 GMT 8
i neglected to mention one point in my post under stuff for the future, Suitable release site should a hatchery and/or a stocking program be started, we would definately have to find a suitable release site and define a minimum release size for the different species or else the majority would become baitfish. characteristics of the site would be abundance of food, and cover, the larger the amount of cover and sanctuary, the smaller the fish that can be released. Thank you for the input!  |
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Post by Chee Yung on Apr 22, 2009 11:52:55 GMT 8
Thanks to the movers for this initiative. Kindly confirm time and place so that we can attend.
Thanks!
CY
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Post by mtshark on Apr 22, 2009 12:23:53 GMT 8
Thanks to the movers for this initiative. Kindly confirm time and place so that we can attend. Thanks! CY Thank you CY, you're in! Once the time and date and venue is fixed, Wisp will update us! |
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Post by wisp on Apr 22, 2009 13:05:29 GMT 8
It is heartening to know our club is rallying to the cause.
Unfortunately for the official meeting, we could not possibly squeeze in the entire club into the conference room and manage it. Thus regrettably, I could only ask exec comms to attend the meetings with PUB and SFAS, in addition to those who are very much involved in the current proposal efforts.
Exec comms, if you're interested please send qwek and me at rhembran@gmail.com your email as it is very urgent.
However, we would not let your rallies be in vain. We will be transparent on what we talked about with PUB, and likewise we would endeavour to bring the PUB officials out to meet the likes of you. PUB needs people to help out in the outreach programs, conservation aspects as well as volunteers to help out in the initiative if it gets through. We will make sure PUB have you in mind to meet their and our needs.
Likewise, we need help in the following areas:
1) Sponsorship/Marketing contacts
2) More Scientific contacts from our SE Asia region would be good
3) Fisheries/Business Management contacts
4)Education Institution Contacts
Looking at the following responses, it seems to me we may need to arrange a gathering before this meeting to hear these people out. Qwek, you think we could hold one at either Coho or elsewhere? If Coho is preferable, I would ask Annie for permission.
Thanks and Regards,
TY Tan
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Post by wisp on Apr 22, 2009 14:09:34 GMT 8
Dear All, meeting on next thursday will be at 6pm to 7pm
the meeting will be ON THE DOT at 6pm because Yandi has to leave by 7pm to make it to the air port, so all participants PLEASE BE ON TIME OR EARLIER.
Regards, TY tan
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Post by wisp on Apr 22, 2009 22:12:03 GMT 8
As the first step to get you guys involved, Yandi and me , inclusive of the people involved will be coming down to Coho at 7pm to discuss the agendas for next thurs meeting.
This would be a great chance to learn about the initiative and how it came about and what is PUB stance on this whole subject matter.
Also, this would allow us to gather all the input from the members and sharpen our points to present to PUB to what we stand for and why they should consider us.
I hope to see you guys there in force.
Cheers and Regards, TY Tan
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Post by wisp on Apr 22, 2009 22:12:49 GMT 8
Note to Ex CO: I would need your email and NRIC number for security clearance at env building PUB
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Post by BillyTeo on Apr 22, 2009 22:52:18 GMT 8
The following are the passionates who are putting fore their precious time to help, thank you very much!
Kelvin Ang
Tan Yik
Henry Lau
Edwin Yong
Tan Tien Yun
Qwek Chin Ming
Edward Ng
Stephen Lipp
Chee Yung
BillyTeo
(the above name list is not of any order)
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Post by bananafly on Apr 24, 2009 7:02:14 GMT 8
Hi all,
I wish you all the best in this undertaking. I have sent a message to Wisp regarding my concerns (as an angler and as a person who has to interact actively in a system that is very much like the one being proposed)
NSW has a great fishery but there are the downsides. These said downsides are not something that the Govt. of SG, as I remember them to be, or its affiliated bodies will be too keen on tackling.
WISP has my 2 cents worth and I will not start a debate here on the forum regarding them as I feel that any discourse will not be constructive to the greater good.
However, the one concern that affects everyone would be the exclusion of the baities.
Remember that almost every angler started as a baity and baities form a large portion of the angling demographic. (you'll need them to gain long term momentum and spread out the load of the undertaking).
Regards and all the best
Tight lines!
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