Fish with Confidence!

We'd waited for over a year for this trip to happen.... It was almost like a travel in time, fishing with our past, but fishing today, with all the knowledge we'd gained through trial and error, through exploration and advise given to us from various friends and fellow anglers. We were out to prove we'd come a long way since those early start up days. The judge of this trip was to be Nicola Zingarelli, an old friend and the first guy that gave us a taste of jigging.

Nicola was out with a Spanish crew this trip after sending out a group of Italians who fished with us earlier in the season. The Italians had a great trip, so stakes were high for the Spanish!

We fished from both Halcyon 1 and Halcyon 2 for this trip. Halcyon 1 focused more on popping while the bigger boat was used more as a platform to jig from.

The first day of the trip started with a bang! We were fishing off one of our favourite spots in the south, when Bang, it happened!! The picture above show Iker hooking into the fish of the trip for him. Estimated at well over 40 kilos, he fought this fish hard and kept it from reefing him. Using PE 10 and PE 12 lines make the difference in situations like this.

Above a picture of Iker with a GT he truly deserved, his smile says it all!!

Kantha and Iker with the GT before it was released back to the reef it came from.

A GT pulling Jose Angel's rod into the water as it steamed down to the bottom of the Sea. GT heading under are practically unstoppable on their first rush. Survive this one and usually the fish is yours!

Hose Angel with his hard won GT.

Hose Luis above with a nice GT!

Nicola Zingarelli photographing a GT caught by Hose Angel.

The day trip to Invisible Bank provided many fish like most trips do. This time it was an exclusively jigging trip, except for the tuna popping outfits just in case we saw some YFT along the way. We had 70+ fish on jig, though most were small GT some decent fish were landed. We were blessed with a mirror flat sea making the run there and back a fast and comfortable one.

Iker poses with a popper caught Barra that was wrecking havoc in bait school.

Miguel Straining as he put the brakes on a GT heading for the reef far under the boat. The GT was followed up by a shark hoping to get an easy meal!

Alban posing with a popper caught Spanish Mackerel!

A few pictures of some of Miguel's jig caught fish.

Another screaming Stella 10000!!

Nicola posing with a Coronation Trout or Moon Lyretail Grouper (Variola louti) caught on soft plastic. These fish hungrily devour soft plastics fished off the bottom.

Dilip posing with a couple of his fish.

Halcyon Coming up to Halcyon II after a day of hard fishing.

The group takes a lunch break at the Italian restaurant on Havelock half way through their last day of fishing. We spent the afternoon swimming at Beach No.7 at Havelock and returned to Port Blair. Over all an enjoyable trip for both us and the clients and we already know we're seeing Nicola back with us next season. We're already looking forward to that trip!

More regarding this trip can be found at the links below, written by Nicola Zingeralli.

http://caranx.net/wp/?p=53

http://nicolazingarelli.blogspot.com/2010/03/jigging-andaman.html

Darran & Akshay.