Early April saw us fishing with Yow and friends from Singapore. We'd just finished a couple of groups with some great fish landed and expectations were high for the crew. April this year was uncharacteristically hot. We were experiencing water temperatures of over 30 degrees Celsius and the water was a pea green on a couple of days.
Thomas hooks into a good fish that pulls hard and gives him a good workout on his first day jigging close to Port Blair. The sea was mirror flat and the boat hardly drifting. The fish were marking on structure and the boat had to be on top of it to get any action.
A quick photograph with Thomas and his nice GT before its sent on its way.
Yow leaning into his GT and putting the brakes on it before it heads back to the reef it launched it's attack from.
Yow with his R2S Dumbbell popper caught GT. Another popper that's cheap, easy to work and effective in the Andaman Islands.
Zip and Alban with a popper caught GT.
Derrick hooking up with a Shark while jigging followed by a nice Barracuda.
Amber-jack for Zip on jig, fishing a 80 meter plateau.
Another nice Trevally for Zip on jig.
Some of the popping action the group had. We mostly fished the South Andaman Islands, weather conditions were great, making the fishing quite easy and comfortable. On days the popping action was slow we changed to stick-baits and they provided us with some GT action as well.
A Singapore Marlin bites back!
Derrick with a nice GT.
Zip putting the brakes on a decent sized GT that was hell bent on reefing him. A pity half way through the fight his line went slack and we thought he'd been reefed. But he still had his stick-bait so it was assumed that the hooks pulled. Once he had a good look, Zip was shocked to find the wire on the belly of his Tailwalk Gunz had been snapped off!
Stick-baits can be very effective in the Andaman Islands, they make all the difference on a day when the fishing is slow or fish are reluctant in taking poppers. We see most clients carry them, but they also use trebles that are far too large for these lures. Heavy trebles kill the action totally and one might as well reel in a stick with hooks on it. What works very well on stick-baits are the Decoy Sergeant Jigging hooks, since they are relatively light compared to trebles and don't interfere with the action of the lure.
Stick-baits can be very effective in the Andaman Islands, they make all the difference on a day when the fishing is slow or fish are reluctant in taking poppers. We see most clients carry them, but they also use trebles that are far too large for these lures. Heavy trebles kill the action totally and one might as well reel in a stick with hooks on it. What works very well on stick-baits are the Decoy Sergeant Jigging hooks, since they are relatively light compared to trebles and don't interfere with the action of the lure.
A good trip overall, but the large GT evaded us this time. What would drastically change conditions for the better would be some rain, which is what happened the following week. More reports to follow soon as we head out after GT and Doggies with more groups this season.
Darran & Akshay.
