S.Oman March/April round up @ No Boundaries Oman

[Ed Nicholas]

www.noboundariesoman.com                                                                     www.facebook.com/#!/NoBoundariesOman

[Ed Nicholas]

A couple more . .

[Mark Harris]

Some stupendous fish there Ed!

This year's reports from Southern Oman have been mind-blowing and it is great to see you adding to that.  Some familiar faces in the pictures there .

Good to hear that you have found some use for the sling donated by the Danish boys. 

And special congratulations on tagging over 200 GTs at 35 kgs or more.  That is both testament to the huge number of big fish you and your customers catch, and your own commitment to marine conservation.  Huge achievement which you should be proud of.

[chris caley]

Great report Ed, cant wait to get back there next season and tag some more bus geeeets.

Can you message me your free dates as i know you are booking up fast.

Cheers

Chris

[Luke Wyrsta]

Well done Ed. Some great catches.

[Ed Nicholas]

Thank you guys. Looks like you boys had a killer trip Luke, well done bro.

Mark - Hard to be on the Ocean every day and not try to make an effort to protect the reason why we are there. Wish i could add regular updates to the S.Oman catch reports but i cant log onto GTPopping there and my net is CR*P. Just invested in a new modem though that should keep me more in the game next season, now all i need is less time guiding to get on here!

Pm sent Chris. 

[Arnout Weber]

Hello Ed,

Wich Ripple Fisher Fanta stick did you use?

Best regards,

Arnout.

[Aaron Concord]

Ed,

Congratulations on the tagging milestone.

May I ask, have you had any recaptures, thus far?

Cheers,

Aaron.

[Ed Nicholas]

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for the interest in tagging mate, this is something i fund personally and is the only tagging scheme in operation in the Middle East which is a bit disappointing. We have not had 1 single recapture this season which leads me to believe that the fish once hooked off the surface change their feeding habits for a while, i cant imagine they leave as soon as they are returned to water.

I think that after the summer monsoons when the sea is very rough and FULL of bait the Geets will have forgotten about the dreaded Popper/Stickbait and we will have some recaptures, lets see. Main aim is to find out if these fish are resident to these Islands or if they migrate on the Somali current. We have the only species of resident Humpbacks and Blue Whale here such is the unique playground that the Hallaniyats offer. However I wouldnt be suprised if they made the shortish trip to Socotra.

Hopefully we either start getting some re-captures next season or the tags turn up somewhere else . . All the best mate, Ed

[braddrew]

Hi Ed,

Great pics mate - Oman is definitely on the list. Is that a massive Sebile Splasher in the pics there? Seems like you got a few fish on them - are you using them pretty frequently? I've had a good play with the smaller sizes, love the way that you can get them to wiggle as soon as they push sub-surface


Cheers,


Brad

[Aaron Concord]

Ed,

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Do you feel, that being the only tagger in your area, that recaptures may prove difficult if caught by non-sportfishing oriented anglers?
I'd agree that the GT's don't teleport to a distant galaxy once released. 
I have yet to see any evidence of a mass fleeing induced by angler effort.  They are too tough and mean to be put off by a bit of catch n release fishing!
Maybe the biomass is larger than thought and you keep finding fresh fish?
Who knows?  One thing is for sure: you will get a kick out of seeing a piece of plastic hanging out of a re-caught GT when it happens 
Keep up the good work and lets hope that if other fishers stumble across "your pets" that they alert you.

Cheers,

Aaron.

[Mark Harris]

Ed buddy, on the tagging and other conservation work you do, absolutely natural of course just as you say. GTPopping.com being bizarrely blacklisted by the Oman censors does make it hard for you to keep in touch here I know!

Aaron - an aside on tagging for you. Adhek has been tagging GTs for 3 years now in Bali and Lombok waters. I don't know his numbers but it will be a lot of fish for sure. I do know that there have been 3 re-captures - all small sub-20 kg fish and none by himself.  I know that his view on this is that the older fish are once caught and then very cautious.

[Andre van Wyk]

Insane stuff Ed, and a massive congrats on an epic season bro.... some truly world class fish in amongst that lot.... hope to get a taste of that action next season for sure!

Also a big congrats to you on your tagging efforts... I was up in Mozambique last week, and while our fishing for GT's was pretty slow ( only 2 landed and one bust off ) the smaller of the two landed, a 20 kilo model that was taken on jig in about 40 metres of water had a tag in it, most likely tagged by the guide at the lodge we were fishing at... as soon as we get the info back from ORI on the tag, I'll fill you in on the details as I'm sure it should prove interesting to see when it was tagged, and where.....

On another tagging note, a friend and I had a day chasing Yellowtail Kings last year and ended up tagging about 25 fish in the morning, all around 5 to 7 kilo class fish taken on surface irons and PE 1.5 gear.... we had a recapture 26 days later... the fish had travelled 1700 kilometres up the coast in those 26 days, and was caught in my hometown by a guy I went to school with!!!
Unbelievable distance for a fish to travel in such a short amount of time..average of 65 kilometres per day!!! I guess maybe we we bumped it on the head or something, because it must have had a firecracker lit under its ass to travel that sort of distance....

Congrats again my friend, epic stuff!

Dre

[Chris Dennis]

Some awesome fish there Ed, great photos so you can really appreciate the size of those donkey GTs.

We'll be back again next year to see if we can retrieve a few tags for you 

[Vincenzo Caccico]

Very good job, and nice fish!

Vincenzo