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
- Getting Started
- Steps in Catching a Shrimp
- How to Cook the Shrimp
- Eating the Shrimps
- Other Information
- Happy and Busy’s Smileys
Getting Started
We went inside Spring City Shrimp Fishing. It says it is top 1 so we chose this one.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
1) Dip the fishing rod in the fish pen
By dipping the fishing rod in the water, we know how deep was the water.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Yey a Shrimp! I shall call him Shrimpy ? He was a big blue Shrimp. Shrimpy was actually my second catch.
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!
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!
Zooming in…. It was just outside!
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.
1. Wash the Shrimps
We placed the Shrimp on the sink to be washed.
I am just sharing this bucket from one of the guests in the restaurant. They caught a lot of Shrimps!
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,
This is how they looked like after placing the sticks.
These shrimps were ready for some seasoning
3. Add seasoning
There were two choices for seasoning.
Fish Sauce
Salt
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.
4. Grill the Shrimps
Get the help of the staff of the restaurant to open the griller. Then place the Shrimps inside.
After a while, use the tongs to flip the Shrimps.
You will know that the Shrimps are cooked if their color turned to orange.
Eating the Shrimps!
Yiiiiii!!! Can’t wait to eat the Shrimps that we caught! plus the Shrimps that were given to us haha.
Ooops! The skin is still on! hahaha We removed the skin and we all enjoyed our Shrimp.
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.
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
I would like to say thank you to Michael for some of the pictures above.
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