Grouper Streak

I had a whole day of company teambuilding event, and coming back from Sentosa, Andrew messaged me to ask if I was fishing. In fact, I had not been doing it for the past few days, although it was a long weekend. Definitely some fishing had to be done, the only question being where.

Since Andrew had not tried out the boardwalk place, I suggested for him to pay that area a visit. However, being a weekend, I was expecting it to be crowded.

Reaching there, it was truely quite crowded at the main boardwalk area. But walking in, the crowd became lesser, but the place was occupied by 3 chinese students. Andrew politely asked if they could spare a spot. They friendily agreed, even though in their heart, they should be telling us to get lost. Still, there wasn't much casting place, and AD and I had to stand side by side to share what little space we had. The 3 young fellow were doing distance fishing, and was using live prawns and worms.

Instant grouper. Drop bait, wait 3 mins, and it is ready


I had gotten a pack of prawn meat from CV before coming here. I had not yet tried baiting here, and was curious what baiting could achieve. I rigged an apollo with size 4 hooks on half a prawn meat. AD tried out using his small hooks. Fishing just in front of the walkway, my first drop had a strong tap barely just 2 minutes into the fishing. Instinctively, I jerked the rod and felt a strong vibration at the other end. Lifting it up, it was a nice grouper. That was like my quickest catch ever.

I want to eat it!


The students were impressed that I had almost instantenously gotten a catch. After that, they became quite friendly with us. I was hoping that my grouper catch would continue, but it seemed that it was the one and only one. Andrew got a couple of glass fish, and landed 2 cats. Baiting here, taps were plentiful, but mostly due to the glass fish.

Seeing that the prawn meat was limited, I left AD to do the baiting and did some luring and trying out with the grubs. But stupid me had left my bigger size white grubs at home, and all I had were the smaller ones. The chartreuse colored grub was bigger, but the color was not effective in the cover of the night.

The students apparently had been here quite a while. We were told that they lost 2 good bites. During the time while we were there, they landed some cats, 1 eel and finally when they were leaving, a good Gelama.

Finally, they packed to leave, to my delight. Tide at that time was just about the peak and on the way down. After the students left, I brought AD to try out for groupers at the place deeper in.

First we tried out the chartreuse grubs. But after many cast, I felt that it was not working. I decided to change to a white grub albit smaller one. True enough, I started feeling some bites.

That boosted my confidence, and I kept trying until I landed a small grouper finally. It was a relief to me, and proved that this spot was still quite unspoilt. I too change the grub for AD into a white one. AD being the first time using a grub, was hoping to land a grouper for himself.

However, that again seemed to be the one and only one tonight on grub. There were many taps for AD and I, and I actually dropped 2 groupers on the way up. For some unknown reasons, the fish just couldn't connect with the hooks. My thinking was that the small grubs were too light and didn't have the momentum to drive the hook into the mouth. Furthermore, AD was using a light rod, not enough fast action to react instantly.

At 1am, we gave up as it was getting late. By now, another group of 5-6 malays came to settle at our place. Given the action tonight, I would say it was still a very good spot. We just needed to think about using the correct tools. Tonight was quite a learning point.