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Reflections
Welcome to our scrap page of random thoughts and potentially irrelevant and possibly irreverent reflections that may or may not have anything remotely to do with fishing. What 95 years old have to say 1st Jan 2012 - by Andrew At Christmas service last week, our church pastor recounted to us about a survey that was carried out amongst residents at an elderly care center who were 95 years of age (or above). The focus of the survey was about what they would have done differently if they had their lives all over again. Interestingly, 3 reoccurring themes were evident from the survey. The first was that these residents all wished that they had reflected a lot more upon life when they had time on their sides. The second was that they regretted living a little too conservatively and not taken more (calculated) risks when they had the capacity to do so. Lastly, they all wished that they had focused more of their time, talent and treasures on things that would have ever lasting value, which they could leave as a legacy when they had passed on. With 2011's passing and another year gone by, these sobering considerations are truly worth considering and planning for to ensure that we make the best of what life has to present to us. Blessed New Year! "... a bad day fishing is so much better than a day at the office" 25th Dec 2011 - by Andrew In October, I had the honour of being invited by my mate Ron, to go and fish in Sepayang for giant snake head with our Alangka Jumbo Frogs. Sepayang, is located in Endau Malaysia and is approximately 280km from Singapore, and 7km from Kuala Rompin on the east coast of West Malaysia. The location appears to be a man-made water catchment area that has been purposefully dammed up leaving in its wake a sunken forest of dead and exposed tree trunks. However, regardless that this be the case, Sepayang is nothing short of breath-taking in respect of its natural beauty. Anglers who go there for the first time, as in my case, are awe struck by the absolute absence of any man-made noise, the vastness of the terrain, the picturesque lush surroundings and perhaps most importantly of all, the lack of any other human contact at that location. What this creates is an indescribable sense of tranquility - which for a city dweller as myself, brings much respite and restoration to a restless mind caught up with the hecticness of city life. A day out in Sepayang, regardless of whether you catch anything, is guaranteed to be, as they say, "chicken soup" for the soul. As for the fishing, I witnessed many occurrences of giant snake head fry coming to the surface, which suggests a heathy breeding environment for this species of fish. Over the course of 2 days, Ron and I caught about 21 giant snake heads of various sizes on our Alangka Jumbo Frogs, with him out-catching me 5:1..... kudos to him. The Jumbo Frogs were absolutely perfect for this location. They cast well and stood up to repeated snake head attacks, that no soft body frog could hope to ever withstand. I also managed to get another opportunity to put to the test, our prototype CTS extra fast action, 10-20lbs, EBX blank, that we co-designed with Stephen Pratt of CTS and showed at the Thai Tackle Show in April 2011. However, that said, all this is of a lesser significance to me than the privilege of being able to witness first hand, God's magnificence in his creation of Sepayang's natural beauty and to receive the much needed peace that I experienced whilst fishing at this location. As they say, a bad day fishing is so much better than a day at the office.  "go and soak some bait....." 21st Dec 2011 - by Andrew In years gone past, December was a period of time that was used to account for the year that had gone by and to plan for the year ahead. The organisation that I had given a significant part of my 30s, mandated that we take time out from our daily, mind numbing routines to ruminate upon and determine if we had been good stewards of our time. Often this would entail going through and listing out all our achievements of that year and comparing it against a set of pre-agreed objectives to determine if we had met our mark or fallen short of it. In addition, bosses with whom one would have a direct or indirect reporting line to, would be required to set out and share their agenda, which would ultimately be distilled down to form the following year's objectives. With just 10 days to go to the end of the year, I cannot image this being a better moment to keep to this time honoured practice, of reflecting upon the last 355 days and to formulate our agenda for 2012. Whilst easier said than done, particularly to tame a chaotic mind ladened with the dross of the year gone past, a journey of a thousand miles can only begin with the first step. In my case, what I can see that will ease me nicely into my first stride for the new year, would be to make it a point to get out more often and do as my mate Mike Tan would say, "go and soak some bait". What would be yours? |
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