Here are the fishing calendars for Pulau Ubin based on Garmin GPS. Garmin uses its own secret recipe, something that got to do with Solunar Theory. The periods happen to coincide with the 1st and 15th day of Chinese Lunar Calendar.

Best fishing forecasts for Pulau Ubin.

January 2012
- Sun 08 ~ Wed 11
- Sun 22 ~ Wed 25
Feb 2012
- Tue 07 ~ Fri 10
- Tue 21 ~ Fri 24
Mar 2012
- Wed 07 ~ Sat 10
- Wed 21 ~ Sun 25

For those using traditional Chinese lunar or moon calendars, you can click the links below the lunar date and tide times for Pulau Ubin.

Jan 2012
Feb 2012
Mar2012

Ubin’s hell guards (黑白无常). Their job is to catch ghosts and send them back to hell. Link warning. Scary pictures.

We hoped to make a spirit themed walk to Bukit Puaka area, a place considered by Ubin islanders as being haunted. Residents tell stories of being lost even in broad daylight in places they were familiar since childhood.

Despite being skeptics, we are hoping to be caught up in the same paranormal phenomenon. But this time with high tech tools to help us. My GPS is logging the location of every step we made. Its recording will show if we have been walking in circles or taken to Mars by alien probes.

We are also armed with the latest flashlights. This time with RA clicky high CRI LED lights fitted with longer lasting 17670 batteries. The lights also enable us to take better colored photographs. I also brought a Thrunite 300 lumen P60 style XP-G R5 3 mode drop-in. This drop in allows me to use Surefire 6P heads with forward clicky, fitted on Solarforce 18650 tube. They would be our high tech amulets against ghosts.

The walk was leisurely while taking nature photographs along the way.

Located 100 meters away from Malay Kampong, this bamboo clump was inhabited with interesting creatures including including a scorpion, slugs and insects that crowd and move together.

Spooky stories about banana trees have been passed from kids to another for generations. When I was little, I was told that the the banana flower is where the banana ghost hides during the day. If you tie it with string the ghost will grant you any wishes to free herself.

The village provision shop was still open late into the night. We soon found ourselves engaging in swapping ghosts stories. The one told about Noordin famous white ghost with a baby on her arms is most frightening. Another is sightings of a blue colored giant mountain spirit walking the hills of Bukit Puaka. And that was way before the movie Avatar came out.

Time passed, we decided to postpone our ghost trail after allowing ourselves to be spooked, discretion being the better part of valor.

We went to Ubin jetty. Fish were biting and this angler landed a snapper.

On the way back we heard mewling high up the trees. It turns out to be a rarely seen spotted wood-owl. It’s a juvenile bird calling for its parent. Adult wood owls emits a loud and eerie frightening sound which is commonly heard at Malay kampong area.

Pictures above are all taken illuminated with RA high CRI clicky flashlights by photographer Andy Ho using a high iso Nikon D3s camera.

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Fishing is good in Ubin now. Most likely due to devotees seeking merit by releasing live seafood in the sea. They should have built reef sanctuaries for the fish to hide and seek freedom in. Many bumboats were chartered out and visitors have to wait more than a hour for a boat to get back to mainland.

Live seafood set free

Large grouper caught at Marman river and steam-cooked for our delight.
Updated: June 2010
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Update: 7 Feb 2010. Extremely lucky guy caught a large sea-bass at Marman beach.


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The best chance to catch fish is to paddle some distance away from shore.

Unfortunately Ubin marine life is slowly choked by pollution. The water cannot renew itself by tidal directions due to the causeway cutting off the straits. Water run-offs from ship repairs contribute to the pollution also. Sea-horses have long since disappeared. During heavy rains, salinity levels dropped so much that fish farms lost their livestock. The other is plankton bloom causing huge numbers of dead fish. They can’t sell their fish anyway as the water is declared unclean by the authorities.

Below picture: Serene beach at Outward Bound School (No trespassing). Pasir Gudang Port can be seen in the background.

Fishing from the jetty
For first timers, best bet is still at Ubin jetty using live baits which you can buy at Changi village. You can get lucky if fish were released by Buddhist groups.

Other fishing spots.
Ubin disused granite quarries are fenced up and trespassing is not allowed. Good fishing spots if they are opened to public. Snakeheads or Toman fish are seen there including Kois.

Click here for google searches on latest discussion from fishingkaki.com. Like many of their members have observed, you need to be hardy to bear with mosquitoes and trek to remote spots. The taxi uncles knows where are the good spots if you charter their van-taxis. According to them, best lunar dates are 8-12, 24-28 when current are not too strong.

Fishing at night.
Although there are boats leaving for Ubin at night, its harder to fill up with passengers so waiting is necessary. Best is go on weekend eve or public holidays arriving at Changi Point Ferry before 8pm. Share costs of chartering the boat if there are not enough passengers. Bring enough food and drinks to last you the next morning.

Crabs, shellfish and prawn fishing

You can get large crabs like this for dinner and other shellfish. But that involves stomping in mud at low tides.

As for prawns, I have seen some anglers who got lucky and caught large ones while fishing during at the abandoned prawn farms during high tide.

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Other restrictions
Fishing at Chek Jawa is not allowed. Use small pen knives or razors to cut baits instead of large filleting knives to avoid being hassled unnecessarily by Aetos guys manning the x-ray counter.