Fantastic French Fishing!

 

We’re entering a brand new season and will soon have many a report hitting our blog as the photographs and stories of some wild fishing action begin to accumulate. Some of the most keen top water fishermen in the world are French and every year we have a dedicated following who come out to fish with us. We this year are also fishing with groups from France who have now realized the Andaman Islands have to figure on their list of must visit places.

We’ve randomly chosen some pictures of our French groups from our last season and will also have individual trip reports up as and when we complete our groups.

A Nice Barracuda that was caught on popper. They really are great fish to photograph. This one was released after a quick photograph!

 

Casting out a popper over endless reef under a cloudy sky!

The weapons of choice for any serious French popper fisherman…. A bright red Tenryu, a Stella and a Yo Zuri Surface Bull GT!

An angler getting pulled to the stern of the boat by a GT powering off into deep water.

The prize for not just holding on tight but fishing with a proper drag. A quick photograph of this fish as well before it was released to swim back down into the depths.

Coral Trout find it almost impossible to resist a slowly fished stick-bait over a patch of shallow reef.

Another nice GT photographed seconds before it was returned to the sea by a very tired fisherman.

Doublé!! We often have double hookups especially on popper and   stick-baits… we’ve even had them on rapalas!!

Triple hookups like this are fairly common as well… we’ve had up to 7 fish hooked consecutively…. no pictures of that though as it would take too long from the time the first fish was landed till the last. Some great days happen almost everyday!

 

A pair of great fish caught off the same reef during the same session. A light shower brought the GT on the feed and we had bait getting smashed all around us. Also saw a lot of GT that session.

Luck favours the brave! After a slow session on his last day, we were all finally rewarded.

Heading to a fish near a secluded Island… the waters are an immaculate blue and are pristine. We often spot manta ray and basking turtles off these reef systems.

We are fortunate enough to have a healthy population of popper smacking fish in our waters. One of our favourites amongst them is the Red Bass. These fish really are brutes.

A quality GT. Fish like the one above are truly spectacular specimens and we have them swimming about in out waters. On an average week we see quite a few fish like the one above, however they tend to get the better of most underprepared anglers.

Another great looking specimen of a grouper. These fish are not shy when it comes to taking a popper.

Another triple hookup!

Clients taking a much needed break after a full day of popping under a tropical sun.

More GT!

This GT came down hard on a Baby Runboh fished again off a very shallow reef. Luckily for the angler this GT powered off into deep water past the boat so we repositioned the boat off the reef and had no trouble getting this GT up.

It’s not often anglers meet the fish of their dreams twice on a trip like this lucky Frenchman! This Doggie came up and attacked a Komodo popper.

Another double hookup… one of countless last season.

Clients taking a break on our boat Rampage. There’s ample room to move about and shade when the sun is up high. Rampage is also the best popping and jigging platform in the Andaman Islands by far.

Another Red Bass that found it impossible to resist a lure.

Looking forward to a lot more action coming up soon.

Directors note for the month of October

The last month of September has been a busy month for us at Gamefishing India. We have been busy working on the servicing of our boats Rampage and Halcyon III in the Andaman Islands. The boats were hauled out, sanded down to the gel coat and given a new coat of anti foul paint and polished to make them look like they were brand new. The engines were overhauled and serviced which involved us ordering spares from across the globe and coordinating their arrival in the Andaman Islands so that all went as per a previously laid out plan. Electrical checks were run and all equipment like the Fish finders, GPS and radios were checked by technicians as well. They now are back in the water and ready for the new season of chasing after GT and Dog Tooth Tuna.

Our Guest-house has had maintenance jobs done so we will soon be open to welcome a long line of enthusiastic fishermen from around the world. We also have a new cook in place who is busy preparing our menus and getting acquainted with the local produce and ingredients available to keep us well fed after a long day out on the boat.

The monsoon winds have almost come to an finish which also spells the end of the wet season here. Over the last few months practically no smaller fishing boats had set out to sea and it’s been months since we’ve hit our favourite popping and jigging areas. This yearly break brought by the weather keeps the Andaman Islands always fishing like a brand new destination.

We had in the last few months run Loyalty Programs for our long list of repeating clients and we were happy it was a well-received initiative that’s resulted in us fishing with a lot of familiar faces again this season. We right through the season will have many attractive offers, polls, quizzes and deals to make fishing with us in the Andaman Islands an even more enjoyable experience.

Now that we’re almost at the start of the new season we are looking at our regular catch reports going up on our Blogs, Facebook and other forms of social media we use to showcase one of the hottest destinations in the Jigging and Popping world!

Many many miles to the West, across the Bay of Bengal and to the South of the Indian mainland things are a buzz with activity in our new destination Sri Lanka. Darran Davis was in Sri Lanka spearheading the initial preparation for the new season, which saw an induction of new staff with knowledge of local areas and conditions. The arrival of our new boat was followed by surveys and sea trials that saw some GT landed on the boat and also trying the boat in some very interesting sea conditions.

As our season began to fill up we explored many options for housing our groups of foreign anglers in comfort and also having them conveniently located close to the boats and fishing areas. With most of the spadework over we now are ready to welcome our first pioneering groups of popper and jig fishermen.

Hoping to see you at one of our exotic destinations and having the pleasure of hooking you into the fish of your lifetime!!

Till next time,

Tight lines!!