Glanville report;- Man today was an absolutely awesome day, besides the 25-30knts of wind my guys had probably the best fishing day ever, we started the day with no real plan as such and my guys were just game to catch some fish with the hope of finding a GT in between somewhere, we fished in some blue holes and drains on the deep edge of the reef and were relatively successful in seeing fish but they were still coming to the lures with lock jaw, we ended up returning to the boat with 2 GTs that we extracted from the blue holes. After a very tasty lasagne dish for lunch it was back on the water at around 2pm and fishing down the edge of a reef, with not much current around the change of the tide I suggested to the guys that some light tackle lure fishing might be our best bet, we headed for a patch of birds and on arriving the bludgers, goldspots, longtail tuna and mackerel were going off their nuts it was game on and fish were being hooked left, right and centre excitement was in the air. I noticed that the fish were all feeding in a little bay so I put the anchor down on the point so we had a downwind cast directly into the crazy feeding frenzy, "it was game time" I barely had a chance to look up as I was perpetually tying on new lures after mackerel took their fair share, we even had a GT come in and join the party which engulfed the little 114 Stick Shad on the young 40lb tackle and completely spooled us too with the drag on the twin power 5000SW cranked up to the max, more rigging!!! I gave Damon a call and it wasn't long before he was getting into a bit of the action. I pulled up the anchor to go pursue a shoal of big long tail tuna and instantly double bending after getting both the fish in for a quick photo session we followed some birds into a blue hole on the edge of the reef and the guys weren't shy on getting their lures in. What I saw next nearly blew me away as a GT of no less than 40kg devoured a 40g metal slug...a popper was deployed instantly and it barely hit the water before another beast launched onto the lure 45kg plus fish which managed to shake the hook, very next cast and a pack of 40kg plus fish punched each other out of the way in an attempt to eat the popper and frustratingly they were extremely competitive and we never managed to get a solid hook up. Today was probably the first time ever in 6 years of guiding for Gts that I have seen a pack of such monster fish 40-55kg, possibly bigger and the best part of the experience was that it was in only 2-3m of water within a blue hole so everthing was seen close to the boat, something that will be embroided in my memory for a very long time...in all an unbelievable 3 hours of fishing in such terrible weather conditions.
Nick Report:- I geared up this morning with the French Connection boys and Graham the machine on a quest to find some GT's. We headed south into a rather depressing horizon with 30 knots and rain but that's not enough to put us indoors. We charged for our first spot with perfect looking water and structure but no fish. Next I looked over out to sea and saw the big Wednesday happening on the outer shoals and I couldn't resist going out to have a look. First stop and we had a pack of GT's with there propellers cavitating to get the popper first but then all did a handbrake turn right before the lure. Working those shoals were not easy at one stage I thought we had taken a wrong turn and ended up in the 40's only thing missing were ice bergs. When the tide swung we headed off to fish some blue holes, we managed to raise another fish hooked and peeling line, only to spit the hooks. Fustration mounting we persevered in the blue holes just before lunch we went tight with barry - the cuda, but he too didn't like the taste of a 10/0 jobu and spat the hooks. With lunch on the go I made a plan for the latter half of the day to head south with lots of casting at awesome water we didn't manage to see another fish. We still had a good day despite the hard work for no pay.
Chris report. Started the day on a high. Battling through some pretty atrocious weather. Finally arrived at a bay that the current was pushing into I got the guys to have a pop to see what was about. After 15 minutes of the guys trying to stand up and throw their poppers I thought that this might not work. I gave the guys the option of having a little troll on the some of the edges of the reef. After 5 minutes of having the lures in the water 'bang' it was game time. We were hooked up to something big, very big a bus might be the appropriate word to use. After a gruelling hour fight we got the beast up to the boat to find a monster 40kg GT. Possible the best fight I have seen. I give a big congrats to the boys and Sorin for this tremendous effort on 30lb line. It looked like the odds were with us after all. Literally 10 minutes after this we were hooked up again to something a little smaller and turned out to be another GT of about 25kg. The boys after a very good morning decided it was time to finish on a high and head back to the mothership for a well earned lunch before heading back out in the afternoon. The afternoon slowed up a little but still managed to get them into some nice gold spot travalley and some longtail tuna. Today was a very eventful day...... I will remember this day for a very long time.
Damon report. Started the day with a solid 30kg GT casting in the shallows. This was Mat's biggest GT and he was extremely excited about the catch. We spent the rest of the morning fishing in the shallows and it seemed that the GTs in the shallow reef areas were at least feeding. We only landed one other GT of around 18kg, but we had another 50kg fish come and nail a big skipping popper, but failed to hookup. We are at least seeing a lot of big fish at the moment, despite the bad weather and masses of small whitebait. We had another 30kg GT come up in the shallows and eat the skipping lure, but it also failed to hookup. Lunch was back on the mothership, and again Brett had prepared a wonderful lunch. The afternoon was spent chasing longtail tuna, shark mackerel and bludger trevally on the light gear, excellent fun. There are just so many small trevally, mackerel and longtail tuna around at the moment it is simply amazing. All up, another great day in windy conditions. The beauty of this area is that even with 30kn of wind, you can still fish calm areas and catch plenty of fish.
