Shrimp Fishing in Taiwan

In Shillin District they have a road with full of restaurant that offers Shrimp Fishing, the Zhi Shan Road. The temperature and the clean water in this area were factors that’s why Shrimp is very abundant in the area.

I included this in our Taiwan itinerary because Anthony Bourdain went here and I also saw this from the Amazing Race.

 

Quick Links

 

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

 

Getting Started

We went inside Spring City Shrimp Fishing. It says it is top 1 so we chose this one.

Top 1 Shrimp restaurant Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

The restaurant serves various dishes but of course we were here to catch Shrimps, cook it, and eat it.

The rates for Shrimp fishing were:

1 hour NT$ 350
2 hours NT$ 600
3 hours NT$ 850
4 hours NT$ 1,100

The rates includes shrimp fishing gears such as the fishing rod and the bait, and the cooking utensils. If you catch a lot of Shrimp there is no any charge, you just have to pay the fees mentioned above.

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

We were a group of five people but it’s just me who will try Shrimp Fishing. the boys just want to eat ?

I really do not know how to catch Shrimps, even though I really added this activity in our Taiwan Itinerary, I did not researched how to catch the Shrimp. Luckily one of the staff helped me. I will just call him Bob (not his real name).

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

He does not know how to speak in English but he was very enthusiastic in teaching me how to catch Shrimps.

First, he gave me bait.

Bait for the Shrimp in Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

There were two bait options, the liver and the small Shrimps, he picked the small Shrimp because it think he was telling me that those were better 🙂

He then instructed me to take a seat and gave me a demo how to catch a Shrimp, in Chinese. But I somehow understand it from his actions.

The Staff teaching me how to catch a shrimp in Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

 

Steps in Catching a Shrimp

Catching a Shrimp was easy… that’s what I thought. I had a very positive mindset that I can catch a lot of Shrimp.

Waiting for a shrimp Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

1) Dip the fishing rod in the fish pen

By dipping the fishing rod in the water, we know how deep was the water.

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

2) Use the rubber band as a mark

Adjust the rubber band so you can use it to indicate how deep was the water. Just leave it on the part of the rod where the water ends.

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

3) Adjust the Float

Using the rubber band as a mark, adjust the length of the fishing line. The float should be at the level of the rubber band, and the fishing line should be the length of the fishing rod from the bottom to the rubber band.

The float is the color yellow and orange in the picture. This will help you in indicating if a Shrimp was already caught.

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

4) Attach the Bait

Bait is important, the Shrimp will think that the Bait is just their regular food swimming around.

Just be careful in attaching the bait, the hook is very sharp. I used the tiny Shrimps as a bait because according to Bob these were  more effective than the liver.

After the bait is attached, drop the hook in the fish pen.

Shrimp Bait for Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

5) Sit back and wait

Just sit and wait until the float sinks. If the float sinks, it means a Shrimp was hooked.

Bob said don’t be excited and immediately pull the fishing rod, we just have to wait for the float to sink for a while before we pull the rod.

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

6) Pull the fishing rod

After a few minutes there were a lot of missed Shrimps. Some of the Shrimps just ate the bait, or they got away after I pulled the fishing rod. But we were lucky that we caught some Shrimps!

Caught shrimp Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

Yey a Shrimp! I shall call him Shrimpy ? He was a big blue Shrimp. Shrimpy was actually my second catch.

caught shrimp Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

7) Put all of the Shrimp in the net

We cooked the Shrimp at the end of our 2 hours so we placed our catch inside a net dipped in the water.

In this picture, I had 2 nets, this was because our seatmate in the pond gave us their Shrimp. Yay! Taiwanese were really nice! They left and they do not want to cook their Shrimp. We had a total of 4 Shrimps this time! I caught 2 Shrimps and the Taiwanese people gave us 2!

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

Bonus Step: Catch the Shrimp by your hand

Sometimes Shrimps were just everywhere. Just like this Shrimp, he just landed outside our net! So courageous! I think the Shrimp was just teasing us!

Shrimp on the net Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

Zooming in…. It was just outside!

Shrimp on the net Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

Another Shrimp did this and landed just at the side of the fish pen, so Bob just got it by his hand hahaha now we know we can do that. So our friend, Viz, tried to catch this Shrimp outside the net. However the Shrimp just swam away haha I think Viz was hesitant that’s why it kinda stopped him. The Shrimp has 2 tiny claws which can pinch you haha I think Viz was afraid of this… or he is afraid to fell down the fishing pen ???

 

How to Cook the Shrimp

After two hours, we gave up, we already have 5 pieces of Shrimp, one for each of us.

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

1. Wash the Shrimps

We placed the Shrimp on the sink to be washed.

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

I am just sharing this bucket from one of the guests in the restaurant. They caught a lot of Shrimps!

shrimp in the bucket Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan
Photo courtesy of Michael Sarabia

I am not great in cooking so I left Viz do the cooking part. He was the only person who knows how to cook in our group.

2. Place the Shrimps on a stick

After washing the Shrimps, sticks were placed in the Shrimp. Uhmm yes it was a cruel to stick the Shrimps while they were alive, but this is how cooking was done in the restaurant,

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

This is how they looked like after placing the sticks.

blue shrimp Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

These shrimps were ready for some seasoning

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

3. Add seasoning

There were two choices for seasoning.

Fish Sauce

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

Salt

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

According to Bob, our salt was few, so he smothered our Shrimps with Salt ??? I hope this was just okay and it won’t be too salty.

salt on the shrimp Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

4. Grill the Shrimps

Get the help of the staff of the restaurant to open the griller. Then place the Shrimps inside.

cooking the shrimp in Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

After a while, use the tongs to flip the Shrimps.

cooking the shrimp in Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

You will know that the Shrimps are cooked if their color turned to orange.

cooked shrimp Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

 

Eating the Shrimps!

cooked shrimp Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

Yiiiiii!!! Can’t wait to eat the Shrimps that we caught! plus the Shrimps that were given to us haha.

cooked shrimp Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

Ooops! The skin is still on! hahaha We removed the skin and we all enjoyed our Shrimp.

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

I just do not have a picture of us eating the Shrimp hahaha. We were all busy eating and our hands were all dirty ?

After eating, we cleaned our table. Taiwanese people are diligent, they always clean their table after eating. So that’s what we also did 🙂

 

Other Info

As shown in the screenshot from Google Maps below, there are several Shrimp Fishing Restaurants. But we choose to go to Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant, just beside the bus stop.

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

Operating Hours: 24 hours open

Address: No. 471, Sec 2, Zhi Shan Rd, Shilin District, Taipei City, Taiwan

Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/EgbEVm3cYuz

How to get here:

From Taipei Main Station, ride the Red line going to Tamsui.

Walk to the Shilin Station (Zhongzheng) bus stop.

Ride bus number 255

If you were from other parts of Taiwan, you can ride other buses with the following number: 255, BR13, M1, S18, and S19

 

 

Happy and Busy’s Smileys

Location

The area was a bit far from the city, but it was alright. Buses were available in the area.

 

Ambiance

I will just give it three smileys. The smileys were there because of the people (staff and guests) and the Shrimp activity. The Shrimp Fishing Restaurants in the area were all not that clean and the water in the pond was a bit murky. The cooking station was also a bit messy. Smoking is also allowed in the restaurant.

 

Value for money 

If luck strikes you, you will have the chance to eat a lot of Shrimps. There is no additional cost for catching a lot of Shrimps. The staff also kept on putting large shrimps in the pond so everybody can catch Shrimps.

 

Fun

If we just have a video on how did we catch the Shrimps, you will laugh with us because we were hilarious. We were very excited every time our hook caught a Shrimp.

We were also wowed by some people who caught a lot! I think they were experts haha

 

Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan Spring City Shrimp Fishing Restaurant of Happy and Busy Travels to Taiwan

I would like to say thank you to Michael for some of the pictures above.

 

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