GFA STARTS 2019-20 SEASON WITH A 48KG BANG !

This season we have had a monsoon that started later and has persisted into September. The first group of the season that we had was the Just Fishing Group from the UAE led by Ahmed Afify, who along with Hatim, Karim and Hari a.k.a Adam formed the angling team that set off on the Rampage with Kantha and Dilip at the helm. It’s always exciting to get out on the first trip, as each new season teaches us something new.

Putting together what we have learned from last season, we set out in search of the Andaman surprises that lay ahead. The guys had made two earlier trips to Southern Oman, which meant they were no slouches at throwing big lures all day long.

Checking out the fishing areas over the first two days the action on jig turned out to be red-hot, with 15 dogtooth tuna landed on days one and two, including a 20 kg on light tackle with a 100 gm jig. Sure, we had much bigger ones on the line, but they did manage to bust off like most of the bigger ones do. Afify did manage to land a big grey reef shark as well, estimated at 70-80 kilos and a nice start to the season, with an African Pompano to add to the species list.

The popping was a bit slow with only a few rats showing up. It’s not a bad sign though – it just means the fish are not in these areas just yet.

Moving to different areas we soon go into the Giant Trevallies that the guys had wanted to sample and had a great day of topwater warm-up action, with 30 plus GTs in one day, the biggest being in the 25-kilo range. Once you know the kind of area that the fish are holding in most times it becomes a little easier to find them.

The jigging action was also continuing and so was the live bait, every time we put down an unfortunate. However, we missed out on opportunities, with hook pulls and busted main lines and even exploded jigging rods. Karim was most disappointed when, after fighting a big dogtooth, it changed direction and ran under the boat, only for the hooks to pull under the increased pressure.

Now onto the topwater action; once it started it was a fantastic start to the new season. To summarise, we had 3 GT’s over the 40-kilo mark, and 6 between 30-40 kilos, with the largest one just under the 50 kg mark at 48 kilos.

As you can imagine, with fish this size guys were being yanked about on the boat but they did hold on and, as the pictures will show, landed some awesome Giant Trevally. On the last cast of the penultimate day Adam got his Andaman monster – a 42 kilo beast – just as we were about to start engines and head back to port. Hatim, who was using his Van Stall reel, hooked up on the first cast of the last day and landed the biggest fish of the trip at 48 kg.

With three guys all hooked into GT’s on the boat, a school of bait that they were harassing passed under the boat only, for it to be followed by the entre school of marauding GT’s. What an awesome sight! Karim also landed a GT that weighed in at 41 kilos. As well as these beasts there were some really nice GT’s over the 30 kilo mark that all the guys had on board.

There were also numerous double and triple hooks-ups that kept the guys busy with the action that the Andaman Islands is best known for. We could not have asked for a better start to the new season and we hope it just keeps getting better from here.

Keep tuning in for more action from the Andamans at www.gamefishingasia.com and on Instagram @Gamefishing_asia

Till then enjoy the pictures and keep casting!
Team GFA