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Nick Bowles

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Old School Oman wins!
October 05, 2011, 05:14:51 PM
Richard one of our good clients and friend has been fishing the Musandam for the last few days and managed to catch his first GT followed by another 5 GTs which was awesome after a few trips with bad weather and no fish.
 
Wim from ART Marine and myself joined Richard yesterday for a day trip up to the Musandam. The weather has been a bit up and down with a strong south easter blowing which is about the only wind that we don't want as it causes us a few problems!
 
We had a great evening with one of Anuras chicken curries and a few splashes of happiness at GT House. We prepared all of the equipment and got a good nights sleep. We woke up still dark and Richard cooked an awesome breakfast which lifted the spirits and excitement and we headed up into the Musandam.
 
The weather was perfect with glassy seas much to our relief! We headed for the first spot and the water was green but we threw a few light poppers and stickbaits with nothing much around. Capt Kegan was helping Richard get set up on the jigging rig and on Richards very first drop ever the rod bent over double and the game was on. After much laughing and comments been thrown around a bus queenfish came to the surface! not bad for the first drop ever on jig! A few pictures and the fish was released. After a few more casts we headed to the top of the Musandam.
 
On the first drift Richard was on fire andgot hit and smoked on his light gear. Second drift Richard was in the hot seat again and hooked another decent GT on light gear and after a good fight landed a nice GT, we took a few pictures and released. Another couple of drifts and Wim hooked up on his first GT and had a great fight and his new rig. He landed the fish to much excitement and got a few pictures and released.
 
While we were lining up for another drift we noticed birds diving and went to investigate, we found a huge shoal of enormous longtail tuna (northern bluefin). We see them often but only usually have a couple of casts at them before they disappear. This shoal stayed up for a long time but did not want to take any lures. I finally managed to get two huge strikes on my 30lbs light spinning rig with a needlenose plug! I hit the fish a couple times but the hooks pulled, I think the rod did not have enough backbone to set the hook in a 40kg longtail!
 
After this the place came alive with baitfish and tuna, they were rolling all over the surface eating tiny baitfish, as much as we tried we could not get another strike, very stressful to see so many big fish that are World Record class and not be able to hook them up. The fish ranged from about 30kg-60kg. After a while Hassan our Omani captain arrived on his local fishing boat with his cousin and started fishing with handlines! The competition was on! After a while we noticed Hassan following something and we went to investigaite and to our amazement Hassan was fighting a bus tuna on 80lbs handline!! After about half an hour Hassan brought a donkey of a longtail to the boat! The fish must have been around the 40kg mark. They gaffed the tuna as this is a highly prized catch and would bring in good money for his family! So old school handline and USD1 lure kick all of the fancy Stella, Orions, Bomber, Smith etc ass! Quite a humbling experience especially when Richard asked if we had any of the local Omani USD1 lures!! But it was an experience watching Hassan in action catching such an amazing fish on handline!
 
We tried for tuna for a while longer and I managed to hook up a sailfish on the light gear but again luck was not with me and the fish came off. We moved back to try for some GTs with the current pushing nicely and on the first drift I hooked up a nice fish which ran straight into the rocks and reefed me!!! Aftet that there was quite a few quite laughs around the boat followed by a few louder ones!! Just shows anyone can get their pipes cleaned by a GT no matter what level of experience! So far I was having a shocker of a day, a bit rusty after to much office work!!
 
We tried a few more places and I finally managed to pick up my game after not having much luck in the morning and landed 3 GTs, 2 on popper and one on jig. I was using the Race Point 200 with a Stella 18000 with 100lbs Tufline braid. Amazing outfit and I had one fish hooked in the side in big current. I had the fish under the boat and I put on as much pressure as I could and the rod handled like a dream! Really excited to get the rod stuck in to the Southern Oman GTs this weekend.
 
We will be leaving tomorrow for Southern Oman to start our season down there. there is still a bit of weather from the monsoon but hopefully we will be able to get out to the islands and get a few good fish. We have a few new plans and ideas for this seasons trips to offer a bit more diversity down there so will hopefully keep you updated as we go.
 
Cheers,
Nick
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Aaron Concord

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
October 05, 2011, 09:19:14 PM
Nick,

Very nice images!
It looks like you had a great trip.

BTW, those longtail tuna are IGFA record class fish.......Bluewater Fishing & Boats Editor Tim Simpson holds the record for longtails at 39.9kg (from memory) and has stood for several decades.
I don't know if you are into that sort of thing, though seeing the longie the boys got on the handline sparked my interest more than the GT's!!!!!!!!
It would appear, that you have record breaking tuna there, that's for sure, let alone mega queenfish and big GT's!

Cheers,

Aaron.

Nick Bowles

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
October 05, 2011, 11:45:03 PM
Hi Aaron,

The longtail are really big but hard to catch we have caught two over the 40kg mark last year and then a couple of years once around 45kgs. Yesterday there were fish I recon up to 60kg but again hooking them is another story. We said yesterday if we caught one of the big fish we would bring back to weigh. We don;t chase records but I think having a tuna record would not be to bad!

They have been around for about a week, but fortunately or unfortunately whichever way you look at it we are heading for Southern Oman so hopefully when we get back the fish will still be around. They normally come in every year from Sept through to February.

Cheers,
Nick

Aaron Concord

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
October 06, 2011, 08:38:23 PM
Nick,

Those are mega longtails!!!!!!!!
Most of the records I have held or hold have mainly occurred due to using the IGFA regulation tackle and having a larger than normal fish hop on.
Some I've targeted on purpose, though most are happy coincidences!
So yeah, if you have larger-than-record size fish that come through regularly, it can be nice to knock off an old and well established record!
Not only that, it helps with the science too.  Max length's and weights are always useful in finding biomasses that are breeding stock and adds credibility to the size of the fish encountered too.
How many times I have heard of a mega X or Y fish to never see a proper measurement is annoying at best!!!!!
Hmmmmmm, I chase smaller versions here in Brisbane, Australia on spin gear and fly......one of those on fly gear would be epic!

Cheers

Aaron.

George Relf

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
October 09, 2011, 11:52:34 AM
Nice report Nick and well done on the catches.

That is one long longtail. If anything, it looks a bit weird as I have never seen any that big or long.

If that record has been around for decades then you may as well let it be  :P (not) Go for it!

Nick Bowles

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
October 10, 2011, 05:22:28 PM
Hi Aaron, Totally agree on capturing the fish details, lengths, weights etc. For us it would be great to catch a record specimen as it would be a new location for the species and they are in record sizes up here. We had a client fight one for 30 minutes yesterday only for the hook to pull! We don;t normally go after record and will release most of our big fish but this might be worth trying for!! I have attached two pictures of big longtails we have caught in the past.

Hi George, it is a strange shape especially after being used to YFT! We will give it a crack and see if we can get close to the record!

Cheers,
Nick


Nick Bowles

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
October 12, 2011, 03:24:51 PM
Hi Amr, Many thanks! The boat for our conditions and fishing is fantastic. Our new boat in Southern Oman is the 37ft version of our Musandam boat. It arrives today! Very excited to have a good boat down South, will make a world of difference and hopefully help catch a few more fish.......

Cheers,
Nick

Narc

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
October 12, 2011, 04:52:55 PM
Wonderful catches.
The fishing ground is beautiful!
Envious....

Dustin Foo

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
February 08, 2012, 02:27:48 AM
Great report and amazing photos, especially those huge longtails.  Fantastic fish and as was mentioned so different in shape to the other tunas.  Built like a drag racer!

Sam Walker

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
February 08, 2012, 09:10:41 AM
Wow Nick awesome looking location, I'm another who's stunned by the size of those Longtails ! I catch them on light gear, most fish around 6kg with an 8kg being a thumper. One freak catch of 16kg which really gave me a workout on 15kg mono, shallow water. At 40kg the body shape is a bit different, I can see where the Longtail name comes from !
something clever and witty !

Gavin Chau

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
February 08, 2012, 10:28:39 AM
WOW MASSIVE LONGTAILS!!!

we get them around 25kgs late season in NSW but 40-60kgs is something else! I didn't know they got that big....!

Nick Bowles

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
February 09, 2012, 12:46:17 AM
Hi Gavin, The big longtails show up here on and of throughout the season, this season we have seen some massive fish but to hook them up is another story!! Still waiting for that donkey on stickbait, been 5 years hopefully it will be coming soon!!

Cheers,
Nick

Nathan Cefai

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
February 15, 2012, 12:38:35 PM
Our ones show up soon off Port Stephans,cant wait for another handful of trips out once again,our yearly LT missions around the corner..

Peter Morris

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
February 15, 2012, 12:42:22 PM
Are they the same species of Longtail we encounter of the Australian Coast..?

Pete

Mark Harris

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Re: Old School Oman wins!
February 15, 2012, 01:03:05 PM
Yep, same species, found throughout Asia, northern part of Australia, the Middle East and East Africa - Thunnus tonggol. Also known as Northern Bluefin Tuna.