I was in Singapore for work this week. It's not a great fishing place due to the population density, and there are few options but I thought I would give it a try anyway. My meetings finished up at 2pm on Friday so I took a cab to a place called Bottle Tree Park which has a fishing lake. You have to pay a fee and they stock it with various fish. I didn't know where to begin, but since they only allowed single barbless hooks I went with a white Gulp jerkshad and tried fishing it various ways until I got a strike. I actually hooked up in the first few casts but didn't set the hook well because I wasn't really expecting it. I was ready for the next strike and the fish hit the lure at top speed and kept going, burning off drag. I knew it was a strong fish after a couple of runs and then it leaped clear out of the water and I could see it was a 10lb+ Pacu. I had never caught a Pacu before and had no idea they could fight and jump like that. Anyway, it took a solid 10 mins to reel it in using 30lb braid and a 12lb leader. Great fight. Good thing I had set the drag right because it made several runs and a couple more jumps. I was pretty stoked after that but I missed the next few strikes. About an hour later I was able to catch some sort of Asian catfish. It was a bit bigger than the Pacu but did not fight as hard. That was it for me but I was happy to land a couple of fish on lures in a couple of hours in a continent I had never fished. The locals were all using bait and picking off a catfish here and there. They seemed pretty excited about the Pacu.
Later on I met up with my coworkers at a prawning pond also in Bottle Tree Park. You pay by the hour and fish for prawns with little cane poles and tiny bits of bait. It took a little while to get the hang of it but we managed to land 15 in an hour. We then went to the restaurant to have them cooked. Tasty.