The first group we had fishing with us in the new year was 3 anglers from France, we had unsettled weather over x-mas and the new year which saw Cyclone “Thane” pass over us at 0400 on x-mas day not the best for fishing!! Sleepless nights watching over the boats and other boats taking damage at their moorings are quite stressful, fortunately we took no damage but some others did…
The fishing started off slow as there were still strong winds which were forcing us to fish the lee sides of the Islands from Port Blair and preventing us from getting to the better spots. Fortunately the group was with us for 2 weeks so had the liberty to take free days while we waited for the weather and tides to pick up.
Needless to say that as the tides got better so did the fishing
We also got a lots of different species of popper and stick-bait
We had some really good days with the best days producing 28 and 18 fish, we also had 4 bust offs in one day on what may have been large doggies or big sharks.
We unfortunately lost what would have been the fish of the trip when a 50+kg dog tooth tuna came off the hook with the leader almost in reach and the fish completely spent, its was big disappointment to see it swim away when it was so close.
The jigging action was on the slow side due to the ripping currents and strong winds that picked up again later in the trip this time the wind was out of the north making it very hard to keep the jigs vertical even with heavy jigs.
We had some good action with smaller doggies on stick-bait and popper with one angler taking 3 showing there are plenty on them around.
All in all a good start to 2012 with some decent GTs and species to boot, here are the last fish of the trip taken from a bait school which are starting to come up now that the weather is easing off.
Team SFI
