LADY ANGLER GETS THE BIGGEST GT

Tessa had booked this trip a long time ago for the group of 4 from Singapore which included, Jacob, Neng and Shaikh, with unusually hot temperatures and almost no wind, October can be a great month to get the fish in the Andaman Islands and being the transition month between the SW and NE monsoon winds. Too calm conditions are also not good and with a bit of rain forecast it looked like we were going to get in a good few days of fishing as the tides progressively got stronger. The team was fishing off the Rampage with Kantha and Manoj in charge.

Taking the first day as a warm up session to get used to the boat and how they would coordinate with the casting we headed to a nearby spot, a mixed day that included session of both popping and jigging was the order of the day and we got a mixed bag of some small rat GT’s a stray yellowfin tuna and Green Jobfish to name a few.

The plan was to go over to Little Andaman the next days and see what the fishing was like as we have not covered the area there, this morning we had a heavy downpour which worked really well to bring the fish onto the feed as soon as it stopped.

We had a lot of action on topwater with lots of strikes and dropped fish, Tessa missed a few on popper but as soon as she switched over to a stick bait she started landing fish, light jigging also gave us a few fish including a small dogtooth, while on topwater we landed a grouper and a mid sized GT. Seeing that these areas we producing smaller fish we decided to change tactics for the next days.

On the third cast of the morning Tessa got a big strike but it did not hook up properly and the fish dropped, it was still a good session with 9 fish landed on topwater, then it got overcast and the rain came down so we made the call to change place and go jigging, it was good call as after the first two drifts we started to get multiple hits on bonito which is always a good sign as there is sure to be something bigger following them.

This was exactly the case as we were soon into one of the best jigging sessions we have had in a long time, multiple hook ups on GT’s and Dogtooth ensued and there was non-stop action where we landed well over 50 fish, with the biggest being a 20 kilo Dogtooth tuna on jig for Shaikh. Putting down a live bonito it was soon snatched and a huge hooked Marlin broke the surface in full aerial display, fortunately it spat out the bait otherwise it would have been a long tiring fight on the lighter live bait setup.

The action did not stop there as again when we went to another popping spot Tessa was lucky again to get a strike from a huge GT but unlucky again when this time round the main line burst and the fish got away.

Shifting to another area the next day we decided to try some shallow spots, again this time Tessa had the luck and hooked up to a great fish, with the fish putting on the pressure Tessa had to hold on and hold on she did, after a real battle we boated a beautiful 35 kilo GT (126cm length x 100 cm girth) for the happy lady angler. Soon enough Neng was again tight on a good fish when his Gamma 130 was nailed properly, this fish fought hard and when we saw it come up we knew why as it was beautiful Black GT, this fish again tipped the scales at 35 kilos. Shaikh was the next one to connect with another big GT but lost it as hooks pulled, however later in the day he would make amends for this by landing a 30 kilo dogtooth on a famous Amegari lure, that too in shallow water only 10 meters deep. This turned out to be another number wracking day with 37 fish boated in what seemed to be non-stop activity which we see so rarely each season.

The weather by now needed to be monitored as it had all the inclinations of a looming cyclone. This day Jacob was the lucky man and hooked a sailfish on his stickbait, it was a large sailfish estimated at around 60 kilos and it took off on a searing run which nearly spooled him, we followed with the boat and after a 20 minute fight we brought it on board a few quick pictures and then released it. More action on topwater followed and after the insanely good activity of the last two fishing days the team decided to call the day and headed back to the resort after lunch.

The weather gods had been kind to us so far a the weather forecast showed an intensifying low pressure (which later turned into Cyclone Bulbul) so we decided on an early start to enable us to be in Port early afternoon, we fished the Sister Islands and had a lot of strikes from small GT’s upto 15 kg. After landing another 18 GTs Tessa and gang dediced to call time on their Andaman fishing trip for 2019 and we headed home.

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Till then enjoy the pictures and keep casting
Team GFA