Hi guys - a quick report from the Reef Raiders trip. I was delighted beyond words to get the invitation to join the Reef Raiders crew to fish the season opener at No Boundaries Oman. The crew this year consisted of Andre Van Wyk from JigStar South Africa, Sam Colvin from Temple Reef Australia, Stewart Newnham from the UK, myself and Ed Nicholas the owner / operator of No Boundaries Oman. We were joined for a few days at the end by Ed?s good mate from Dubai Chris Caley.
We were pleased to be met with excellent stable weather, perhaps almost too stable as several days were glass out conditions and incredibly hot on the water, I am always in favour of at least some small wave movement on the surface of the water for top water fishing.
The trip was not devoted to GT fishing but a cross section of fishing styles, locations and species. This called for an extensive array of rods, reels, lures and jigs, yes I ended up being hopelessly overweight again even with more refined camera equipment. Arriving at the No Boundaries lodges in Shuwaymiyah it was again great to catch up with the super friendly and accommodating crew Mo, Yassir, Boy and Saiful I feel incredibly welcome at this place and it was so refreshing to see how these guys were keen as us to kick the season off as well.
5 am starts were the order of the day and we were on the water by 6 heading to either the inshore grounds or the hallowed waters around the Al Hallaniyat Islands usually with both boats on a similar agenda. I and the others were incredibly keen to tick off a large list of species, many I had missed out on last visit because of a single minded desire to tangle with big GT?s. Day one saw 11 different species boated and hundreds of them, the light tackle casting and jigging was simply off-tap. As the trip grew on the tally only rose in terms of species encountered and tackle busted off, my return tackle was a little bit lighter for sure!. I had simple objectives surrounding this trip; have a great time with friends, test some new tackle, catch a monster bream (they eluded me last time), catch a top water amberjack and of course find more monster GT?s. All I can say on all that is was mission accomplished.
Southern Oman has a massive reputation as THE global location for oversized GT?s. What is not understood so much is the vast array of other incredible options, seriously in the same day you can experience 4 or 5 different styles of fishing and more than 10 species of record sizes ? marlin on stick baits? Yes Ed and Andre managed several hook ups on billfish on the last day however could not stay connected. The day we departed back home Ed got his redemption on striped marlin however but that is another story.
It was interesting that on my first visit it was big chuggers that scored most of the fish, on this trip stickbaits won out by a considerable margin with the Strategic Angler Walker being the start of the trip. I think I had 22 GT lures with me on this trip and used most of them at some stage for a while. It was nice to put a few prototypes through their paces, more on that in the future including some new Temple Reef rods soon to be introduced to the market. I will add a few photos
Bring on March when I will be back!
