November 2009

Early November saw us fishing with JP, a repeat client and good friend of ours who fished with us the previous season. JP had a great trip and returned for some more action here in the Andaman Islands. The first couple days of JP's trip saw the wind pick up and we had to frustratingly wait for the winds to die down. Once we were out again and conditions more favourable, we were soon into some good fish. It took a couple of days for the fish to wake up :-) but once they did the trip just kept getting better!


Above, JP fighting a fish off a shallow reef section we fish North of Port Blair. This network of reefs gives us countless fishing opportunities and holds an equal number of GT.

A feisty medium sized GT coming to the boat along the surface after a short and violent fight.

JP with a GT before it was released back to the sea.

Kantha with a nice GT taken on popper. This fish was a beautiful specimen and much lighter. Often specimens caught in shallower and coloured water tend to be lighter than their counterparts caught in deeper water.





JP fighting another GT and being supported so he could put more muscle into the fight. Another often overlooked part of one's kit is a decent fighting belt. Very often big fish are lost because an angler isn't comfortable with his fighting belt. Key points to note are a belt with sufficient padding, one that sits low enough to comfortably fight a fish and a belt that has a big enough slot to easily fit a rod butt on the first go. Often anglers strike and then fumble with their rod trying to get it into the belt, this loss of concentration leads to slack in line and we've seen many a big GT get away Scot free!

Another GT that could not resist a Orion Lures Cono Cono (150 gms). We like fishing this lure with a single large treble.

JP with his GT just before it was released.

Kantha again hooked into a very decent GT that headed straight down for the reef in deep water. We were quite impressed with the Shimano Kaibutsu Deep Monster which did very well for an off the shelf rod.

Again a thick GT just before release and one last photograph.

Early in the season the fringes of deeper reefs are often patrolled by gangs of Wahoo. Traditionally they're quite difficult to hook on surface lure as they're notorious when it comes to cutting leaders. But every now and again we get one that's hell bent on hammering a popper and stays hooked!





Since the fishing was so good we couldn't resist chucking a few poppers ourselves and we were quickly rewarded for our not so hard work! We had some truly spectacular fishing towards the end of the trip as the sea conditions got better and tides improved. As the trip came to it's end it was hard to stop fishing. JP left the Andaman Islands promising to return and we know we'll see him soon, but before he returns we're lucky enough to stay!

The latter half of November and early December saw us going out on exploratory trips with the sole aim of finding more potential GT spots. We've also had some great jigging for Doggies and discovered a long set of deep reefs that produce a wide variety of jig eating critters! More to come soon on our jigging ventures.

Darran & Akshay