Tarpons and Grouper

the first tarpon

a better view of the same tarpon

the biggest tarpon of the day. put up quite a good fight. quite an acrobat

6" was the average size of the tarpons there

the surprise of the day. a Grade A Grouper from the upstream of the barrage

as memory serves me right, every time i go fishing with Chen at the barrage or any place near that area, my result would always be lousier than his. however, that was the past and this is now. last sunday (18 may) i went fishing with Chen. we set off mighty early. i woke up at 5.45am. reached Chen's by 6.30am and we proceeded to our destination, the bako causeway. a quick detour to get some live prawns ended up in our dissapointment and the next best thing was to get some fish from the market at pending to be used as baits for our prawn trap. upon reaching the coastway, we found a suitable location and started casting away. splashes can be seen here and there and some were so tentalizingly close, within casting distance. i had used a bakau shad lure and my first was was met with a tap on the lure, however there was no hook-up.

an hour had passed and still no prawns were caught in Chen's trap. casting also yielded nothing even after several types of lures were used. after loosing my bakau shad, i decided to switch to 7 eyes lures aka appollo. within no time i had landed a 6" tarpon. i asked Chen to switch to 7 eyes also but he kept on using hard bodied lures. soon i was landing tarpon after tarpon. eventually chen got tired of taking the photos, but i counted the number of tarpon landed at 8. they varied in sizes... from as small as 4" to 8". not bad for a couple of hour's haul.

when the tarpon's bite tapered off, we decided to move to the barrage. over there, Chen was able to catch some live shrimp with his shrimp trap. i used one of the shrimp and tried bottom fishing. while waiting for the fish to bite, we talked and i even had a chance to play some game on Chen's PSP. quite a nifty device, the PSP.

there was hardly any action when i decided to reel in my line to check if the bait was still there. when i pulled, i felt a weight at the end of the line. when i started to pump the rod, i felt a tug. fish ON. over at the barrage, when one gets a reaction like that, it usually means a marble goby is at the end of the line. when the fish broke surface, Chen and I were surprised that it was a grouper... a Grade "A" grouper!!! woohoo! this must be my lucky day. to get a Grade "A" grouper at the upstream of the barrage is simply unheard of... (at least to me).

About an hour passed, before we called it a day. The day was getting hotter and I had some errands to run.