Fishing General!

Earlier in the season we were out fishing with General Chauhan and party, who visited the Andaman Islands to catch some GT on popper. There trip was a short and explosive trip with many a quality GT being landed on popper.

Darran and Akshay.

Season's Greeting!!

Wishing all our fans, followers and fellow fishermen a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We 're ending the year popping and jigging and will soon have many a trip report up on the blog for the new year. Wishing everyone a big GT and an even bigger Doggie in the new year.

Darran & Akshay.

Popper Pulling Pacitti.....

Late October 2010 saw us fishing with Colin Pacitti, Richard Foster and Michael Bailey. It was a pleasure to fish with the group and share many a laugh while going about the business of catching fish.

Our boys Kantha and Gafoor posing with a GT that couldn't resist hammering a popper chucked over a deep reef by Colin.

A jig caught Dog Tooth Tuna with Colin.

Above, Mike with a fantastic specimen! We often have Red Bass on popper. Considering they don't get to massive sizes they pull really hard especially over shallow reefs. Specimens like the one above are often caught and make for some awesome photographs.

A GT that couldn't resist a Yo Zuri Bull GT. It's a lure that still never fails to raise fish and one we don't see visiting anglers fishing with very often. It's a great fish raising lure and can be very effective when fish shy away from large slower chuggers. We find the darker shades work better on overcast days. It's worth having a couple of these lures in your tackle bag while fishing in the Andaman Islands.

Richard fighting a GT and making it look easy ;-)

A 'Rat' GT being released to grow up and fight hard another day!

Mike with a small GT caught close to Havelock. We spent half the trip fishing from Havelock Island in Ritchie's Archipelago. A great and very scenic area to fish from.

Above Mike with his GT and the after effects of fighting a large fish. This was Mike's first GT trip and we know for sure it won't be his last. Look forward to fishing again with Mike.

Another Red Bass for Mike!

Colin leaning into a GT tearing off towards the reef.

A quick shot of Colin's GT before it was released back to the reef.

Alas, all good times have to come to an end and we saw the group off from Port Blair. They then headed to Thailand for a couple of weeks of fishing, before heading back home.

For anglers, especially first time GT fishermen from the UK, it's worthwhile getting in touch with Richard who's traveled extensively and has a treasure of knowledge fishing exotic destinations. Richard can be contacted through his website:

http://www.fostersofbirmingham.co.uk/

A week after the departure of Colin and group saw a cyclone pass through. The last of the year, which heralded a change in the Monsoon winds here in the Andaman Islands. We now are well into the North East Monsoon and hope it'll be a good one this year. A good monsoon with rain resluts in a drop in Sea Temperatures and makes for a great later half of the season. We're now waiting for our next group of anglers to arrive, this time from France.

Darran & Akshay.

Wilson's Andaman Adventure II

The middle of October 2010 was spent fishing with a group out of Singapore, led by Wilson. It was our first group out of Singapore for the season and we have a whole lot on their way. This trip was a warm up trip for us as well as we were fishing most of our marks for the first time this season.

Wilson casting into a school of Fusilier that were being harassed on the edge of a deep reef.

Above, some of the jigging action on a sea mount we fish.

Ghani with his first decent sized Andaman GT.

Wilson with another good sized GT, not his first and definitely not his last fish.

Darran & Akshay.

C.F.O. Thompson and Party!

Our second group for the season was special as we had an old friend on board who was after some Andaman GT. We on our first trip to the Andaman Islands ever were accompanied by Gordon Thompson who at that time had vast experience and knowledge on fishing in Coastal waters of the Indian peninsular. Gordon, this time was accompanied by his buddies Anand and Praveen who were both keen on landing some decent fish.

The team on their way out of Port Blair harbour in Halcyon III.

Anand's weapon of choice was the Tailwalk Gunz that he fished very effectively. Above he tries to turn a GT hell bent on heading straight back to the reef.

Anand with his prize GT, the first of this size for him after a well fought battle. A quick couple of pictures later the fish was released to swim back to the reef it came from.

Praveen and Gordon both with nice GT.

Praveen casting to structure as we drift along a beautiful Island with lush tropical jungle growing on volcanic rock. The Andaman Islands are stunning to look at while fishing and are a balm for sore eyes.

A prize for hard work!

Gordon and group wanted to mix the action with a bit of popping and trolling. Above some of the fish caught trolling hard bodied swimming lures.

The trip was an enjoyable laid back one with some nice fish and as always it's a pleasure to fish with friends.

Darran & Akshay.

Start of a New Season (2010/2011)!!

We ended last season with a Epic Fishing trip with a Singaporean group and then carried on to welcome our new center console power catamaran! She turned out to be better than we imagined and is a perfect jigging and popping machine. By June the monsoons lashed the Andaman Islands and the fishing season came to a complete halt. We all got a much needed break after a hectic season, had time to spend with family and friends and eagerly planned our next season.

Our arrival in the Andaman Islands in early September 2010 saw us with a month of getting the show back on the road. All our boats were taken out of the water one at a time and it was time for our yearly maintainence of boats and engines. It's easy enough to do in a place with sufficient infrastructure but here in the Andaman Islands where you can't buy a spark-plug for an outboard, it's quite a challenge ordering spares from around the world, seeing they all arrive in time and finding reliable technicians to do the job. Three weeks later we had the boats back and taken out for trials before we were happy with their performance.

Our first clients for the season were Suprio Mukherjee and his angling buddy Vinay Badola who fished with us in early October 2010 for 4 days. Traditionally October has always been a great month as no one's been out fishing for the last 4 months and all our spots are well rested. However this year we had some strong winds with accompanying rain as there was a depression in the Bay of Bengal heading towards the mainland. The guys fished on Halcyon, had some difficult conditions and came away with some great fish for their hard work.

Suprio above with his first Andaman GT and we hope it won't be his last!

Vinay was soon into his own GT that took a popper and put up quite a scrap. After a quick couple of pictures we soon had the GT back in the water heading off to its favourite reef!

The boys hooked into a very respectable Giant Barracuda that smashed a well positioned popper. they'd noticed a bait school being harassed and were rewarded with this super fish!

Suprio with nice Big Eye Tuna caught while trolling between Islands.

Vinay above with the fish of the trip!! What a GT! Anglers travel half way across the world for a specimen like the one caught by Vinay and are almost always rewarded for their journey. A fish like the one above is what fishing in the Andaman Islands is about.

We wish Suprio and Vinay all the best and look forward to finding and getting them in to some quality fish here in the Andaman Islands.

Darran & Akshay.

Day out with the Cat.

With the departure of Wilson and his group we brought the season to a close a week earlier than expected. A Volcano of all things in Iceland robbed our next group of some great fishing in the Andaman Islands. We were happy with the results of our 2009/10 season. We'd caught bigger and better fish than expected, sharpened our skills a little more, found some great areas especially for jigging in places we hadn't looked at and had gained a season's worth of new friends from across the world.

After a week of much needed rest we decided to try out our new Cat to practically see how good a platform she was to pop and jig from. We waited a couple of days for Pat to join us from Singapore and headed out for a day of fishing with our staff.

A small grouper, one of many caught by Dilip light jigging off some shallow reefs, while the rest of us popped. Light jigging has really opened up many avenues here with continuous action and a wide variety of species being landed.

Shambhu and Kantha posing with a nice grouper that came up and smashed a popper. Grouper here readily come up to take large poppers fished slowly off a reef. They're often one strike fish and seldom come for a popper twice if they miss on the first attempt.

Another small yet greedy GT that hammered a popper right beside the boat.

Pat having a laugh watching the boys groan and sweat while fighting their fish. They're normally the ones watching and giving advise, so it was great to see them doing some actual work for once!

Pat was into his own fish soon after and was in for a long fight. As luck would have it the strike was on the lightest outfit we had. After what seemed like half an hour (a long time by popping and jigging standards), the fight turned in Pat's favour and it seemed like he started gaining on the fish. The fish then made a second unstoppable run and won it's freedom. A pity and we're guessing it was a really large GT.

Dilip with a nice popper caught GT!

Shambhu with a GT he fought up to the surface on jig.

We were now on the drop and we had schools of mid water fish marking on our fish-finder. Some of the arcs showed there were some beasts under us and we chose to drop jigs for the remainder of the day. On one of our first drifts in an area we were exploring Dilip's rod bent over and reel began to scream. After a quick and hard fight he brought up this super GT.

Shambhu posing with a jig caught GT from a double hookup, while Dilip struggles with his Doggie in the back ground.

Dilip's Doggie was smashed by a bigger one on its way up and what a fish that was. His 10+ kilo Doggies was smashed by a bigger one. We were in awe looking at the size of the bite marks on the fish. Proof we have some monsters waiting for us. After a couple of hours of jigging we decided to call it a day and head back to Port Blair.

Darran & Akshay.