From 19 July to 1 August this year, Monster Class Anglers ran its annual GT tournament for its members and friends. As in previous years, Nomad Sportfishing hosted our annual tournament and to cater for everyone, the two weeks comprised of two separate groups of anglers although two other anglers, Marcio Paes and Dominique Draux joined organisers Brandon Khoo and Malcolm Crane in staying for the two weeks.
For this year's trip, we had chosen to go to a new location, north of Bugatti Reef and in the region of Knuckle Reef with the intention of fishing the outer shoals. For this trip, Nomad Sportfishing were bringing out their second Contender for the first time giving us two Contenders and two dories for the trip.
Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great and we were unable to get to the outer shoals. The weather in week one was somewhat uncooperative limiting our options a little. The larger Contenders were still able to roam far and wide but the smaller dories were limited to the nearby reefs and blue holes. That is not to say that the dories didn't find fish. Nomad guide Glanville Heydenrych still managed a 20 GT day in tough conditions.
We had a break for one day on Hamilton Island as we waited for the guys in week two to arrive. Before we departed, Damon made a decision to go south to Bugatti instead, primarily because the forecast for week 2 made it impossible for us to get out to the outer shoals off Knuckle Reef.
The start of week 2 was magic though. We drove out from Hamilton Island in very comfortable conditions and this continued on the first day of the trip. We had dead flat conditions on the first day making the fusiliers highly visible. The next day though would have had anyone asking if they were in the same location! The morning saw conditions blow up to something like 35 knots which made life very interesting, to say the least! The wind was kind enough to drop off in the late afternoon and after that, we had conditions that ranged between 10 - 20 knots for the rest of the trip. The conditions were quite fishable overall and while the fishing wasn't red-hot due to the ever changing conditions, the quality of the average fish was impressive and larger than what we had found in week 1.
We had many memorable moments from the trip:
Marcio is never going to forget the escapee from Jurassic Park that casually swam up from behind a bommie in a blue hole, plucked his pencil from the surface and simply swam off with a minimum of fuss which Marcio grit his teeth trying to hold on. I was laughing because it was so clear he didn't have a chance and the only who thought that he did was Marcio! It didn't last long but it sure was exciting. Marcio then found himself staring down this fish's twin brother a week later. he didn't have any more luck with this fish either!
Yours truly found himself swimming after the rather ignominious experience of being pulled into the water by a GT. I then found myself being towed around by the GT while trying to swim around in a full rainsuit. We still ended up landing the fish though!
Shaun Raymond obviously felt sorry for me because the next day, he managed to find himself in the water after lunging for his rod after losing his grip on his rod. He did manage to recover his rod as we were in very shallow water. I will point out that unfortunately for Shaun, Steve Callus filmed him going in!
Cai Kaiyang (our baby Gamma specialist) managed to land his personal best GT on a 120 Gamma fighting the fish without a gimbal. Cai wanted to prove to everyone that you can land GTs without a gimbal (actually, he forgot his gimbal). The fish nearly killed him and he won a Gamma 250 for his efforts. We are all looking forward to seeing him use it next time!
Kasey Leong managed to land almost as many GTs off the mothership as he did from the fishing boats. That's a slight exaggeration but he I lost count of how many he caught from the mothership.
Arnold Joseph eating as much as about three people each night!
Results
Week 1 - congratulations to Patrick Coldwell for landing the largest fish in week 1 and to Marcio Paes for winning the most GTs prize.
Week 2 - congratulations to Marcio again for winning the largest GT prize in week 2 and to Dominique Draux for winning the most GTs prize.
Marcio had a great fortnight returning home to Brazil having won two Carpenter rods, one of which was a full custom model.
An absolutely enjoyable trip for all who attended. I can't finish this report without again thanking Damon Olsen, his guides and the crew on the Odyssey for a wonderful trip all round. The guides put in a tremendous effort every day and we returned to terrific food from Chef Rob each afternoon. Till our next trip, guys!
