Topwater Caranx Ignobilis: Giant Trevally (GT) > Tackle & Techniques

First GT Trip Andaman Islands February 2018 Advice Needed

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Chris Dennis:
We're all guilty of taking far too many lures on a trip 'just in case' and i am no exception. Many of them never leave the guest house let alone get wet !
Apart from one very expensive trip where i lost 6 lures for various reasons i have lost very few lures in the Andamans.

12 poppers and 8 - 10 stickbaits should be plenty. If only......

I don't do a lot of jigging but i would take 3 x 150, 4 x 200, 3 x 250 and 3 x 300g. You will lose jigs to biteoffs from doggies, sharks and occasional snags.

I have caught most of my fish in the Andamans on poppers, some on sinking stickbaits but very few on floating stickbaits. I have always found that opportunities for using floating stickbaits are limited due to currents / waves, fishing over deeper reefs etc. I always take the skipper's advice on lures and they very rarely seem to recommend them. Maybe they have seen me try to fish with a Gamma...

Oh, and if i remember correctly Jet Airways checked in luggage allowance is only 15kg + 7kg hand luggage so it's damage limitation !

Moncho Ferrer:
I was in the Andaman Islands early this year and pretty much caught all my fish on stickbaits. Furthermore, a lot of the GT I got was by skipping the stickbait on the surface nice and fast. The result was some wonderful explosive action.
Since I was not using any poppers on the trip I lent my popper setup (Reversal 80 with SS Glans) to my friend and he ended up with his best session of GT fishing. In one late evening session he landed five GT which included his personal best.
As far as my trip was concerned both poppers and stickbait worked. Good luck with your trip.

cheers

Padraic Clear:
Great info here guys. Sounds like we'll need to be armed with a selection of poppers and stickbaits as well as some jigs to cover all scenarios.
Has anyone any experience of fishing a lighter setup for other species in the Andamans? I was thinking about bringing a Stella 5000sw and suitable rod to try if the GTs weren't biting. Am I wasting my time bringing a lighter setup or could I get some use out of it?

Chris Dennis:
There doesn't seem to be any reason why you shouldn't take a PE3 outfit however I haven't personally bothered with one myself or indeed seen anyone else use one either. I do however take a PE5 outfit as there are a lot of smaller gts about and occasionally the odd yft.

Thr lighter jigging outfit could be a good call, i've seen 2 nice doggies caught over shallow reefs when trying to catch livebaits.

If you want a break from popping etc its worth putting out a livebait. Bunte is notorious for trying this and it resulted in a 400lb black marlin, a biiig sailfish and a shark on our last trip.

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