The crowd of about 2,000 people that turned up at a Pasir Ris Town Park fishing pond on Thursday night shocked its owner.
Mr Darren Seng of Kelong Lifestyle, who offered free fishing from 9pm on Thursday to 7am yesterday, did not expect such an overwhelming response.
The 34-year-old said he organised the activity because he wanted people to "reconnect" with the facility which he took over in May.
After the takeover, he proceeded to spruce up the place. To this end, he introduced tilapias into the pond as they help to clean up the water by eating algae and undesirable water plants.
Mr Seng later introduced more than 500 fish of various species to eat up the tilapias which were too small to be considered an attractive catch.
As he now has many fish in his pond, he came up with the idea to allow people to fish for free for a night.
"I wanted to let people have a chance at fishing and let them revive their 'confidence' in the pond," he said.
Just for the free fishing event, Mr Seng released 2,500kg worth of fish into the pond.
Mr Jith Fernando was one of the anglers who turned up at Kelong Lifestyle on Thursday.
He said: "I was there for only 30 minutes and caught a fish (red drum) weighing over 4kg."
FisHing group The 32-year-old, who has been a fishing enthusiast for 11 years, was there with his fishing group. He said: "It is hard to get the whole team to come because of work commitments, but some of us managed to make it."
Mr Isaiah Manivannan, 31, who works in marketing, caught a 680g malabar grouper. He said: "I am happy to come to this free event and have fun with my friends."
When asked if he was planning anymore free events, Mr Seng, whose pond is open 24 hours, said: "We have no other free events planned at the moment as we are concentrating on organising competitions and other events."
This article was first published on August 2, 2014.
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