Topwater Caranx Ignobilis: Giant Trevally (GT) > Tackle & Techniques
First GT trip
Nick Bowles:
Hi Brandon,
Socotra is an amazing place and I think the way to trying to plan the trip is a good one if you want to enjoy the island. Yes your GT gear is under gunned but if thats what you sticking with and not going to upgrade them make the most of it and give it a go but the chances of getting a beating are quite big! Just be aware not to leave loads of lures in fish with trailing line from being reefed, need to now when to call it quits if you are under gunned. But at least you will now for next time what is the score and will hopefully land some good fish. We have mainly focused on the GTs and these areas are very small in relation to the whole island. If you want to target the GTs then PE10 is a minimum and I was using 400lbs leaders which still got smashed. So take PE10, Owner ST76 5/0 hooks, 500lbs+ Crane swivels and as many GT lures lures as you can pack.
That all said this last trip I did a lot of light tackle fishing and it is awesome. You can walk along the beaches and have shots at bluefin trevally and off the boats over shallow reefs is really good fun. To be honest if you are only fishing 4 days I would most probably say leave the jigging gear as it is hit and miss and rather stock up on spinning, fly and surface gear so you have enough and can enjoy your time fishing rather than rushing around. The flyfishing prospects are excellent and there are monster bones mainly on crab and crazy charlie patterns. I unfortunately have never had the time to target the bones but a friend did a trip in March and had some great success. He reckons he lost some really big double digit bones.
Here a few pics of Rays trip:
Good luck!
Nick Bowles:
Classic! LOL, Luke just saw the end of your post! Yup totally fine to shed a tear or two, been close a few times and seen a few others on the border! Only in Socotra!! Basically nothing can prepare you for what you will experience if you get hooked up to a GT, even on the heaviest tackle you are 50/50 if you going to take a beating! Small boats, big currents, skippers that have never fished with rods before and have no understanding of english etc etc. All makes for a great adventure!
Cheers,
Nick
Brandon Pope:
I'm as likely to laugh as cry, but neither will embarrass me. I sincerely appreciate the information from everyone. I may take your advice and ask someone to hold one of my two speed outfits hostage for an 18000. I hate to ask such a thing knowing it would be punished. What may be a better option is to buy a SOM 16000 and punish the drag on this while preserving my original 10000 spool's drag.
Two other things I may consider is fishing inside the reef for lighter tackle bruisers, spend one day throwing poppers near the pods of dolphin around the island for tuna (I suspect tuna may be associating with the apparently numerous pods of dolphins) and then hit GTs on the last day. Being flexible in my schedule would allow me to continue to fish for GTs if I find myself particularly successful. I'll be sure to bring additional line, bring many twisted leaders and double to amount of poppers being brought.
I really appreciate the additional info, especially the fly patterns. I have crab imitations and I'll increase tippet size. I doubt fish are very spooky.
Brandon Khoo:
I'm going to be the elephant in the room. The fishing there can clearly be fantastic BUT I really don't want to see any of our members becoming a statistic.
Brandon - you sure you want to go there on a DIY basis? The US State Department is recommending US citizens evacuate the country.
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_6046.html
Brandon Pope:
I've been monitoring the tenuous developments the past few weeks. I really don't think it's more dangerous now than months ago, with the exception of an absent consultant in case of trouble. Yemen is inherently dangerous, but I won't be tracing around the mainland. I plan to hang around the Sanaa airport waiting for my connecting flight to Socotra.
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