ROUGH WEATHER GEETS

Continuing into the last week of January, we saw the windy conditions still prevailing. Again, this week we were fishing on 2 boats – The Rampage and The Reef Raider. On the Reef Raider we had the Japanese group from D-Claw Hooks and Lures led by Yamamoto San. The Rampage carried Mikko Rehtila who had fished with us two seasons ago, and was returning with friends Henri and Sami to see if they could land a bigger one than Mikko’s last 47 kilo GT.

With the windy conditions the GT’s looked sure to be on the feed, only it was going to be a wet rough ride getting to the fishing spots. Mikko and group were mixing up topwater popping, heavy and light jigging, while also throwing in some light tackle casting. Our Japanese friends were only out for topwater GT game, which is of near cult status for Japanese anglers.

As predicted, there was a good topwater bite with the GT’s playing ball on most days. There were lots of hits and bites on both the boats, and we had our share of funny moments on this trip, which goes without saying. Sami had the handle of his Dogfight come off mid fight with a GT, causing much confusion. By the time we managed to switch the handle to the other side of the reel to continue the fight, the GT managed to find its freedom. Mikko dropped a jig in shallow water when we saw lots of marks on the fish finder. It was immediately taken by a big fish that took off. We gave chase using the boat to help pull the fish off the reef. A good 20 minutes later we were disappointed to see it was a big reef shark, which fortunately freed itself by biting through the leader.

Last time round the guys had tried to get dogtooth but were not successful. This time though on one of the jigging marks we had a lot of dogtooth. Not big ones, but fun sized ones on light tackle – so that was another species ticked off their list. Henri also used his light lures for casting to good effect and had lots of fun with GT’s in the 8-12 kilo range on light gear, meant for pike fishing in fresh water. This being only the second popping trip for the guys they did well to land plenty of GT’s on topwater. They had lots of fun with the light jigging, landing several reef species. The normal annihilations followed with the bigger fish, till the group ran out of the smaller jigs. Mikko was unlucky not to land a really good fish that took his lure off a deep reef and went down deep. He fought it for a good while, and the battle was still at stalemate when the hooks pulled, and the fish was gone.

Meanwhile our Japanese group of Yamamoto San, Shimizu San, Kohira San and Imaide San were at their usual best, using both stick-baits and poppers for topwater GT fishing action. These guys landed so many GT’s in the week with multiple hook ups of two three, with all four anglers hooking and landing fish at the same time in a total of 5 times over the trip. Kohira San had double hook-up on one lure of an estimated 20 kilo Grouper and a 12 kilo GT at the same time – what a catch!

The guys were also testing new lures and a prototype Zenaq rod, so it was really interesting to discuss how topwater popping tackle is evolving with a manufacturer directly. Even though the guys were mainly after GT’s, they also managed to land Dogtooth on topwater, giving us a good variety of species for the week.

One especially windy day Shimizu San using a Rapala Xplode popper hooked a big fish which took off on a long run. He held on, and then expertly began to pump the fish in exerting the maximum of pressure most delicately, not to over stress the line. Fighting a big fish in windy conditions on a rocking boat is a difficult task, but we did land this fish – an awesome GT that is our seasons best till date. At a whopping 140 cm length by 117 cm girth, the fish weighed in at 52 kilos.

Now we are waiting for the angler who can top this mark during the remainder of the season.

Till our next trip report enjoy the pictures

Tight Lines!