Good morning Krinda we are are back again to have another round in the south of Sri Lanka
This time we are armed with 2 boats, the new 31 ft Rampageous is in and ready to go, all decked out for her first foray in Sri Lankan waters, custom built she is specially designed for popping and jigging and the conditions in Sri Lanka.
First up is the BKK team
http://www.bkk.hk/e_index.php with Tester Yang Yang the group has been organized by Micheal Meng of Fisherzone Tackle Malaysia. The weather is not up to the mark as there are unseasonal strong winds blowing all over the Indian Ocean and we were quite concerned that the conditions would not improve sufficiently to allow good fishing and allow us to get to the spots we know well.
Day one found us fishing in tough conditions and we got into a few smaller GTs quite soon to liven up the session.
Tester Yang Yang of BKK tackle in Hong Kong opened his account shortly after with a small GT
Shortly after the reel really started to scream and we had Yang Yang holding on. Boy, we were all surprised as ever to see this huge Spanish Mackerel come up, it weighed in at 22 kg
Morning breakfast on the boats before we had to leave for the day because the weather picked up, it became uncomfortable and a very wet ride home.
To make up for the lost fishing time with the windy weather we tried out fishing in the local estuary to be rewarded with some nice Mangrove Jacks, a hook up with something that felt a lot like a large Barramundi and some Giant herring, allowed us to have another option close by to get some fishing done.
The next day saw us leaving very early so we could get the most fishing in with the wind expected to pick up by around before mid-day, it was a good move as the weather unexpectedly stayed with fishable conditions and we immediately hooked into some good fish
We landed some nice GTs that morning with the average size being in the 15-18 kg range and this big guy below came up first between 2 bait schools in open water.
With a bit of lull in the GT fishing we decided to give some jigging a go most of the team had medium to light set ups and wanted to do light jigging which is the new way of jigging being promoted, rather than using the heavy, physically demanding big fish setups.
We had a wide species on the jig which ranged from Jobfish to varieties of groupers, spanish mackerel and doggies. The doggies got us all excited as they left their characteristic indentations on the jigs but we landed none unfortunately.
The wide range of jigging species is impressive here, there is another story to be written here I am sure.
Don play with big fish on light tackle and try to bully the fish, you cant as the picture tells the story.
Loads of grouper around
Multiple hook ups are frequent that shows the abundance and variety of of the species available here.
Food at the restaurant was that best thing to look forward to once you got back from a tiring wet day on the boat, this is the first time we used this resort and the food and service was very good, they gave us a good time. Krinda Beach Resort.
Rain the previous night and a clear or overcast day the next is good, this is what happened and in the morning session we are soon again into good fish, that pull hard and refuse to give up.
Is this going to be the average size, where are those monsters we were looking for and know are here?
Can you believe that like in the Andaman Islands in India we found places you can pop and light jig at the same time.
Yana Yang's persistence of keeping at the casting proved rewarding time and time again, he would keep going when the action slowed down never taking a break, this is my suggestion to all GT anglers to keep going, you have to make the action happen.
All of a sudden there is a big hook up by Mr Perseverance himself and.......
Look at what we have here it is the 'Big Mama' we have been waiting for just look at the girth and size of this fish especially the tail thickness and you will know that this is the pinnacle of all GT fishing.
More jigging action in between the popping
And GTs when we popped again
The light jigging was great action with fish coming up almost each drop.
Mike Meng putting the pressure on a GT close to the boat
After guiding his team for the trip Mike decided to have a go on the last day and came up with nice GT which stretched the ribbon to 135 cm
Happy faces, plenty of food and good laugh on the last day makes a fishing trip an experience to remember for a long time.
Happy times for Mike Meng and his crew, they had a good time, we made new friends and enjoyed a fun and excitement filled fishing trip.
Till the next one,
Tight lines.
