This was a recent scouting trip to Happy Farm. These guys were catching a few tilapia on lures, but weren't seeing much bass action.The final leg of the preliminary round of the Pure Fishing 2011 Asia Cup wraps up this Saturday with the tournament arriving at Happy Farm fishing pond in Bade, Taoyuan County. This is the round that I’ll be participating in and I wish I could say I was a bit more excited. I have scouted out this pond on three occasions and have yet to experience or witness any real action outside of the bait anglers landing tilapia.
If any readers are wondering why there haven’t been many new fishing reports of photos posted in the last month, the reason is that I keep heading back to Happy Farm and getting shut down. I have spotted the occasional largemouth bass, the target of this tournament leg, but haven’t seen that many being caught.
What I did notice was the visibility in the pond is pretty poor and the water his heavy stained green from algae. The oxygen content may be low because I notice several tilapia gulping air at windward end of the pond. I’ve also spotted a few sluggish and sick looking bass, carp and tilapia. That said, I’ve also seen many big fish jumping and rolling in the middle of the pond.*
So, it should at the very least be interesting to see what happens when 50 tournament anglers show up on Saturday. I have my doubts that the action will be as wide open as it was at the previous two legs.
Speaking of which, pure fishing has posted pics from the second leg in Tainan on their site. It looks like a good time was had by all catching a mixed bag of barramundi and bass. There are a couple of nice fish in a few of the shots.
*Just to clarify, I don't have a completely negative take on Happy Farm. The staff there are very friendly and so are the other anglers. It has a more family friendly atmosphere than some other ponds in the area and if you are a bait angler, you'll probably do well fishing there. I'm just a little dubious about the bass action.
Here is a map to Happy Farm in Bade for anyone interested in viewing or fishing their in the future.