Topwater Caranx Ignobilis: Giant Trevally (GT) > Reports & Expeditions

New Caledonia with LPB - July 2009

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Damien Phillip:
Nice! Love those pics! Which lures would you suggest for trout Brandon?

Jeen Raj:
Great report Brandon. We had similar experience of big fish pulling the hooks in June when me and my son where there. I think when you hook a really big fish and the boys up the speed of the boat to pull you off the shallows you practically tear the hook out with the fish going one way and the boat the other. David opened a SW 18000 with faulty drag and we found the drag washers compleatly disinegrated ..black powder!!. I persume thats cause the guys lock the drag compleatly if they suspect a real big one at the other end. Any thoughts?

Jeen

David Noble:
Hi Brandon, 

Looks like you made the most of it despite the weather conditions. Some great shots in there and a good description of having to make your companions take some photo's at times.  The fullscale poppers look the biz...
I experienced similar variety a few weeks before you, no flutefish though!

Cheers Dave

Mick Cunningham:
nice report thank,s for sharing .. ;) :)

tell damon hi for me ya .
when you go back with nomad
hey brandon when is your next trip  :-X.

i can,t wait to fish there one day . a
As it ,s on my list  ::)

Brandon Khoo:

we weren't even pulling the hooks on them, Jeenraj - we just weren't hooking up. In terms of tearing the hooks out, I have to say that I haven't experienced this before. I think over the years I've been fishing, I've had a couple of occasions where the hooks have pulled when we're towing the fish but I think this is more then fish turning and the hook coming out from a poor hook-
set rather than tearing out. GTs have pretty strong jaws. The approach used by LPB is the same as any other guide when you hook up in the shallows. On most occasions, the GT will allow itself to be towed out but on a few rare occasions, I've had the fish decide it is not coming out.

In terms of the drag desintegrating, I'd suggest that reel had a faulty washer or two than simply fell apart under pressure. Shimano drags are excellent out of the box and the new Daiwa drags which they started using this year are excellent as well. Personally, I believe all pre 2009 Dogfights needed a change of drag washers to carbontex but that appears to be no longer necessary.

It's not the first time I have heard of this happening but thankfully, never to me. The reels are designed to operate under maximum drag and if you wound the drag to absolute maximum with a Stella or Saltiga, I'm not sure you could hold onto it for very long if a big fish decided to make a run for it. My drag setting is only about 12kg as I much prefer to exert additional pressure by winding it up after the fish is hooked or by simply applying more pressure using my palm. Over the years, I've just seen too many snap-offs on strike from excessive drag pressure so now I prefer to start off with a lower drag setting. This of course varies from location to location. If I was fishing somewhere like Shoalwater, the initial setting would still be about fifteen kg.

I actually spoke with David about the drag washers falling apart and he said that it was just a standard drag setting so it can only be a faulty washer or two. The other thing that could cause this to happen would be if the steel washer(s) were not perfectly flat. With the amount of pressure being applied, a warped steel washer would cause havoc and it would concentrate the pressure onto a small part of the carbon washer. This would almost certainly result in the carbon washer desintegrating.


--- Quote from: Jeenraj on August 07, 2009, 03:52:41 AM ---Great report Brandon. We had similar experience of big fish pulling the hooks in June when me and my son where there. I think when you hook a really big fish and the boys up the speed of the boat to pull you off the shallows you practically tear the hook out with the fish going one way and the boat the other. David opened a SW 18000 with faulty drag and we found the drag washers compleatly disinegrated ..black powder!!. I persume thats cause the guys lock the drag compleatly if they suspect a real big one at the other end. Any thoughts?

Jeen

--- End quote ---

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