Fighting Spider Hunting Adventure - The West

I stayed at the North-East side of Singapore and seldom gone to the west side to hunt for fighting spiders. Last Saturday, Simon proposed to try a new spot at Jurong Road together with Ah Seng's group. It was a long journey but our hopes were high. As we drove past the destination, we were joyed to see that its a long stretch of road with green vegetation on one of its side. There were CB trees along certain parts of the road as well.

We parked the car and immediately pounced into action. While waiting for Ah Seng and his friends to arrive, we tried the surrounding area near to where we parked the car. Simon and Ura headed straight for the CB trees while me and Jong went deeper in to the forest. After 20 mins, me and Jong were both empty handed but Simon and Ura got afew male spiders from the CB trees. I gave up the search on those soft leaves and headed for the CB trees. Besides the CB trees, there were some patches of wild pepper plants next to it as well. I guess I had no luck on that day as even on the CB trees, I caught none !!

Ah Seng and his friends arrived and we changed to another spot which was 500 meters further behind from where we parked our car. It was another CB trees area but not much spiders could be found. I lost one average size male. Just as I thought I had him, he slipped onto the grass patch. What a smart spider !

While the whole group doesn't seem to catch much spiders, we decided to head for Jalan Bahar which was not far away. Along the way, we saw some very nice stretch of CB trees next to the Singapore Omni-Theatre. The spot looked promising and we decided to give it a fast search. After 10 mins of searching, there was no sight of fighting spiders and we gave it up and headed for the targeted destination - Jalan Bahar.

We reached Jalan Bahar and it was already 5.30pm. Before the start of the hunt, Ura and Simon matched their newly caught spiders. It seemed that Ura's newly caught fighting spider from Jurong West was a potential good fighter.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6h6QHHQqMc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uFok5S10ug

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA_NY5JPLNc

I've been to this spot at Jalan Bahar twice and today was my third time here. Some of the spider kakis had caught medium-large to large size males here and this spot was considered the best spots in the past. Since the kakis had came here frequently, the spot eventually lost its glory. It was not like in the past where male spiders were abundant and their sizes were big. Despites all frequent huntings here, I still pinned some hopes that there would be big males somewhere around.

As I walked along the concrete pavement, I saw there were many insects on the undergrowth. Ants, crickets, green flies, mosquitoes etc. The abundancy of these insects in this area was the main factor to contribute to the sizes of the spiders. Since it was near to evening, I knew that most of the spiders would wander out of their nests in search of food. I did not search much on closed leaves but preferred to stay still and observed the bushes for wandering spiders. My best record was spotted 4 wandering spiders from the same spot !  After two were caught, I made a U-turn back to the same spot again after 20mins and saw another two emerged. The closed leaves on that spot were earlier searched and there were no spiders hiding and where could these spiders came from ? So the method of 'wait and observe' worked  and I caught several males within an hour. Though there wasn't any large size spiders caught, I was quite happy with the result as there was one particular male which was near to medium large size !


*** Contributed by Trevally ***