Last year i was contacted by some of my friends from Singapore. They had a free spot for a Oman trip, as one had to cancel due to work. I had visited Oman once in 2013 and we had really shit fishing.. 2 gt for 6 guys in a week. Awesome AJ jigging, but we were after the GT.
March and April has always been the hot months for the fishing so i was very fast to confirm the trip.
Finally the 3rd of april came and i was off to Salalah, Oman.
On the way i met up with Zeck in the airport, and then we would join Chuan in the camp as he did a 2 weeks tour. The week prior to our arrival we had been getting texts from Chuan about hard conditions and not much wind :-S
We came 1,5 day prioer to fishing which turned out to be a good thing as my rods went missing. So the first days in the camp were used for relaxing, going on tour to a Wadi for a swim and some light casting from the beach. My rods arrived same evening as we came in the morning and Yassier from NB managed to get it in the airport.
First day on the water we went to the area that had been producing the majority of fish the week before, and within the first 15 minuts both Chuan and i hooked up. He had a brutal 45 kg on a Craftbait gt3 and i had a small 22 kg. It went for a Pin popper 150g. we kept throwing poppers and stick and i managed to land a 42 kg as well. after a longer periode with no action we stopped for lunch, and met a big group of dolphins. I jumped in and had a swim with them. It was so awesome.. 80-100 big bottlenose dolphins. We fished the next hours and had a big fish miss both my and Chuans lure. Same fish went for both poppers!
Then in the afternoon i hooked up a really nice fish again. 48 kg on the scales and a new PB! My trip was saved on the first day.
Day 2 we went to one of the classis spots.. BAGDAD!
The majority of the day were very silent, so i started throwing the pe1,5 and got a nice queenie around 10-12 kg. Then after lunch we stopped at Bagdad and everybody fished like there was no end of it, and suddently in the offshore direction a monster inhaled Zecks lure.. Everyboby was shouting STRIKE as we saw the monster and Zeck hooked up and them BOOM! The line exploded on the reel. It resulted in a completely bend rod flying back, hitting him in the face and breaking his sunglasses.. Blood covered his face and the eyebrow had a big cut. The situation got under controle and i took a cast and hooked up a small fish again. 25 kg and quickly released. Then we popped for some more time and i got another gt on 35 kg this time.
Day 3 we went inshore chasing Bream.
The sardines had not gathered so the fishing was not really on. We still managed to land some nice Bream, alot of small Bluefish and a few other things..
Sadly alot of the area we went to were covered with lobster traps, so these might have been the reason for the fish to be a bit shy.
Day 4 we went out for GT again. No gt landed but Zeck got a nice queenfish on PE 2. We saw a huge school of monster Permits under the boat, but they were not biting. Think they were getting in a spawningmode. On the way back we stopped to pop for Bream close to the harbour and had loads of wolfherring. Now the fish you want when chasing other things.. suddently i had a huge wave behind my small 30 g popper and the fish were on.. loads of lone went off super fast and after a very good fight i landed a very big queenfish in the 15-18 kg range on the PE 1,5.
Day 5 we went for the gt again. I landed a 35 kg that hooked up right next to the boat and then Chuan lost a big fish. After lunch i started playing around with the light tackle and hooked up something really good. It turned out to be a Maui sea perch on 11 kg.. again on the PE 1,5.
Later on i started popping again, and hooked up a nice fish, but sadly lost it right under the boat.
Rest of the day the fishing died out, and so did the wind. On the way back we met a group of small skipjacks on the hunt and had some lighttackle fun.
Day 6 started of really bad.. Chuan was down with the flue and Zecks foot was double the size of normal.. A old damage that had gotten infected, so he could not stand, so fishing were out of the question. So i went fishing alone. The wind had picked up a bit, but still super nice conditions. We went to the same spot as the first day, and after 9 minuts i had the first hookup. 37 kg. This time on a Heru skipjack. Shortly after i had another hookup. This time on a Adhek Penipen. A nice fish that put up a super fight. 35 kg. Shortly after i lost another fish on the penipen. The hook was completely straightened out. This was a GT recorder. We drifted on and i hooked up a fish again.. This time on a Orion GTX. I had no more action on the stickbait so i went back to the skipjack hooked up a decent fish that went of, and had straightened the hook (Decoy treble) and nothing more happend.. we went for lunch and right after lunch i hooked up a big fish in shallow water on the popper. We had to tow it to the deeper water and here i could fight and land a nice 45 kg fish. Nothing more happend, so we went back to the reef.. After some time the surface completely exploded right behind my popper and a huge fish just came flying out with my popper in the mouth. It put up a hell of a fight and finally came to the boat. A BIG BLACK BEAST. We got it into the boat and i could see this was big.. we quickly put it on the scales and it stopped at 52kg! Another new PB. When releasing the fish, it was a bit tired so i jumped in with it and made i go again. A was so happy and so tired, so Yassir asked if i wanted to go inshore and play around.. we agreed to stay. Next cast there was another fish on and it turned out to be 30 kg. This was an epic day and i had a blast in the boat with Yassir. A total of 8 hookups, 3 miss and a new pb. Could a trip end in a better way.
In total i landed 11 gt with 4 over 40 kg, so this trip was really my trip.
A big thanks to Ed and the wonderfull crew of NB Oman, for running a super professional company.
The tackle i used was
Carpenter Monster Hunter 80H + Shimano stella SW 18000 loaded with varivas avani gt max power PE10
Carpenter TBL 80/40 + Shimano stella SW 10000+16000 JM spool loaded with varivas avani gt max power PE8
200 LB ygk Castman
Lures that produced fish
Pin 150 g popper
Heru Skipjack 150 g
Orion GTX
Adhek Long Penipen
Orion Twister (small one)
Tacklehouse feed popper
Pintail
