I was extremely happy (indeed honoured) to receive an invite from Ed Nicholas to join him for a week of "mates fishing" during this month. And even happier when I heard that Kil Song was joining us - a man who I had wanted to meet in person for quite some time. Ed does not get to fish too often, leaving the boat space to his clients, so he too was looking forward to a week of fishing hard. And boy did we fish hard!
As other reports will have identified, this March has been much tougher on the GT front than in 2012. Lots of theories as to why that might be and I think it is climate-related. The water temperatures stayed low longer than usual as indicated by the huge numbers of monster milkfish around the islands right up until yesterday. Last year they had largely cleared out by early March. And one morning it even rained with thunder and lightning... almost unheard of!
Nonetheless, this was a truly great trip on many levels and one which will forever remain at the forefront of my my memory.
Finding GTs was tough and we only caught one in 6 days at what might be regarded as a "normal" mark. However, due to tireless work from Ed's excellent guides Yasir and Mohammed, we found a number of trophy sized GTs in different spots. Both Ed and myself managed to get monsters to the boat as well as taking a total beating from others. Next time it will be your turn to get lucky Kil
.
The popping by-catch deserves a large mention. At one stage we were hitting VERY big queenfish one per cast. These fish had to be 15-16 kgs (no joke!) and it got to the stage where we were madly trying to dislodge the hooks rather than expend energy getting them to the boat. A yellow-spotted trevally which I caught is the biggest example of the species I have ever seen - I had no idea they could get that big and fat. For two days we experienced pack attacks from good-sized wahoo and Kil got a YFT to the boat, while Ed managed a long-tailed tuna.
It had always been our intention to spend a fair bit of the time fishing light and concentrating on the world class inshore fishery around Shuwaymiyah. I can safely say that the the light (PE2-PE3) top water fishing was the best I have ever experienced. Monster golden trevally, ridiculous permit, trophy-sized queenfish, bluefish in plague-like proportions, hard running diamond trevally, and as ever, the fantastic bream, made for a truly wonderful light tackle experience.
I firmly believe that a visit to Southern Oman is worth it for the light top-water fishing alone. We tallied an incredible 27 species for the trip - all on topwater lures.It was great to finally meet Kil in person and he was a true gentleman and absolute pleasure to fish with.
My sincere thanks to Ed and Angela Nicholas for their kind invite and superb hospitality, and to the excellent No Boundaries guides Yasir and Mohammed for working tirelessly to get us onto fish, and for some top-class boat work when we were hooked up to monster GTs. I will be back in October and can't wait to see you all again.
Let the pictures tell the rest of the story. I hope you enjoy.
GT tackle notesCarpenter MH80H, MH79XH and TBL 80/40 all accounted for GTs.
I was extremely impressed to see Black Hole Cape Cod Special popping rods in action for the first time (both graphite and nano versions) - very nice rods indeed at an attractive price tag. Ed caught the biggest GT of the trip of the graphite version and it handled the fish most impressively.
Successful GT lures:
Carpenter Sea Frog 120 twinhook
Heru Cubera 150
ASWB SS185
Carpenter Kattobi 145.
The vast majority of GT strikes came to chuggers.
GTsTruly giant slab of a GT taken on a Heru Cubera 150:
Monster GT on a Carpenter Sea Frog 120:
Two very solid GTs both on Heru Cubera 150:
Very big and solid fish on an ASWB SS185:
And just to prove there are some smaller ones - a GT on Carpenter Kattobi 145:
