Southern Oman Fishing Report March 2014

[Jussi Saarinen]

[Gerhard Delport]

Brilliant trip report...

Congrats on some monster GT's 

[John Cahill]

Awesome report Jussi - you guys certainly had some great fishing an numbers of shots at monsters!

[chris caley]

Great report Jussi.

Looks like you guys had a blast

[Dan Konig]

Nice one Jussi. Has got me counting down the months to my trip!

[Mark Harris]

Very well done Jussi and Henrik. Definitely a very successful trip in terms of the number of big fish you raised.

Good to see objective GT weights and lengths being taken and posted rather than guesses.

[Luke Wyrsta]

Good to see objective GT weights and lengths being taken and posted rather than guesses.

GT stats are more conclusive Mark although I want to point out to members that we welcome all members reports no matter whether they know the fish weight or not. If a member wants to ask a question and open the forum up for opinion - then that is also a positive thing to enabling anglers to estimate fish better and handle the fish less, if not at all. Guesses/Estimations are fine and will receive feedback accordingly...

[Luke Wyrsta]

Great report Jussi! No turning back now!

[Ed Nicholas]

Nice report Jussi, thank you for sharing it. Loved the tackle show while you were here bro. I fished hard 2 full days before your first without even a raise then over night the switch was hit and you enjoyed some amazing fishing, congrats and well done.

I think the only way to handle GTs less would be to release it in the water, slings are awesome . The weight of the fish is essential info for our tagging project but also helps contain mass exaggeration. No doubt many fish i would have previously called 50+ are actually mid 40's. Im not quite sure how anyone estimates accurately if they have had no experience weighing GTs?

[Luke Wyrsta]

No doubt many fish i would have previously called 50+ are actually mid 40's. Im not quite sure how anyone estimates accurately if they have had no experience weighing GTs?

Your last line question pretty much answers itself. Ballpark estimations aren't always accurate but that is their nature, estimating. I think it is great members can post here and open up the forum for an aspect they have obviously never had any experience in.

Some are always going to be off as we know GTs don't all come in the same shape, girth and length ratios - this is where experience comes into play.

Two facts widely known for years and that is...

1. Weighing is accurate, factually.
2. 2 GT will most likely never be the same exact weight even if they share the exact same forklength. They could be similar however girths and other profiles / conditioning will have a part to play.

[Dan Hanon]

I contend that a remarkably accurate weight estimate could be obtained IF there is a large database of length and girth measurements.  For instance, take 1000 caught GT and measure fork length, girth and sling weigh on a certified scale.  (I understand the discrepancy between actual linear length and the length over body contour).  Given this data, a very accurate chart for length/girth measurements could be generated.  Such data exists for northern pike and musky, which are very long, narrow fish with a wide range of body types.  Some are very skinny, others fat bellied hogs.  The Northern pike chart gives an estimate very close to actual weight.  It's easy to test the chart-just weigh and measure your fish and see if it jives with the chart.  If the data set is large enough, the estimations should be almost spot on.

[Ed Nicholas]

Yeah i agree Dan, it would be awesome to have some sort of reference of actual measured/weighed fish. As Luke mentions though it would be hard to keep it accurate but it certainly would be a a better guideline than the current 'formula' etc. If the data pool was large enough a rough guideline -/+ 3-4kg would be awesome.

Charters using slings/weighing fish are still a minority so there is a lot of negativity surrounding the process including the misconception that the fish is handled more when actually it is less.

It would be much easier to guestimate and undoubtedly we would then be posting reports of many 60kg+ fish but the true 50's and rare giant 60's really are not as common as guestimations/anglers like to suggest & post.

I am not an advocate for everyone to start weighing their fish, as mentioned before we run a tagging program so it is essential info for us that is sometimes shared by our customers and NB's when we land a beast. Length and realistic guestimations are great but a wide angle lens & claims of 60kg+ are just too common.

I would like to add that I shoot with a wide angle lens and i am all for some sick photography shared with the actual size of the fish instead of misleading info based on a giant looking picture.