The Beast

[Gary Prerost]

I live on the north coast of Nsw and have seen some truelly enourmous Gts caught here Im not sure but I think the all tackle record for Australia or nsw was from a guy I sold the lure to of a smidge over 65kilos caught of the nine mile reef.It may have been bigger to me it was just a death certificate and a big bunch of prawns and beer for the guy who black marketed it .
I spent many years in the gulf of carpentaria where I saw everything from schooling GTs to small packs to big loan individuals.
My observations were that where ever you have strong current the GT thrives BUT that from an early age they learn to foray into areas that are quiet calm to hunt.This might be the back of surf breaks .
Its easy to go to great untouched locations in the coral sea , new Caledonia, Oman , Japan ,Indonesia , Hawaii and Im sure there are many more locations .What I am looking for in this question is where what and how .I would like opinions and observations of where the truelly big fish come from.I guess Oman ,NC, Japan will all offer opinions but obscure places like the Tweed can have a  really big fish show up .From my understanding quiet often the more southern reaches in our hemisphere can more likely produce the largest of a species.
Please dont be obvious having fished remote locations I can offer plenty on that , but rather where are you likely to find the Beast Thanks to all in advance Im sure I will get a bit of flack over this but hey Im throwing out there

[Andre van Wyk]

Gary,

Interesting topic.... I think alot of areas can deliver truly monster fish, but often the terrain limits how many one can actually get a shot at, or extract from their homes due to foul ground... another factor also being the level of skill and the tackle that is often required to land these fish, is not always used widely in these areas...

I believe the Mozambique coastline holds some truly mammoth GT's... while not there in perhaps the same numbers as places like Seychelles, New Cal, Oman etc, the number of truly massive fish that have been taken along this coastline by land based anglers on livebaits proves there are some massive fish here.... also these areas are often long sandy points, which means that landing a 50 kilo plus fish on a 12ft rod is actually achievable, rather than a pipe dream.... your mention of surf lines in your post is along the lines of these beaches/conditions... Mozambique has alot of estuaries, very large ones, that drain hard on the drop, and fill hard on the push, and create perfect feeding areas for GT's and other gamefish, with very little in the way of structure for them to bust you off...

Further this range up into Tanzania and Kenya, and you have areas that deliver some MONSTER fish....

Case in point, this estimated 65 kilo fish was taken about a month ago on a Halco Roosta Popper, and CTS popping rod off the coast of Tanzania....



I think right now, as is evidenced by the reports from Nick and the Ocean Actrive Crew, and Ed and the No Boundries Oman crew, Southern Oman is delivering the highest number average of giant fish... their recent reports show more 50 kilo plus fish than I've ever read about.... Oman I feel would surely be THE place right now to target giant fish... the fish are there, and more importantly, the knowledge and skill of the guiding outfits to put you onto those fish is there too....

[Mark Harris]

Southern Oman is the flavour of the day,  totally agree with Dre there. And it is easy to see why. A quick check of the two operators that Dre mentioned is all that is required. There is one specific spot for example that Ed from No Boundaries fishes where he has never caught a GT smaller than 45 kgs, and a number over 60. The fact  that there are two professional operators who attract anglers who are capable of catching monster fish has a lot to do with it as well.

I suspect that there are more monster GT spots to be discovered in that region, especially off Yemen, Djibouti and Somalia, where safety considerations prevent too many expeditions at the moment.  Socotra for example has already been fished a few times with stunning results.

The obvious and very well known ones ones are Tokara and environs in Japan, and New Caledonia.

Again as Dre eloquently points out, East Africa is still relatively underfished and there is great potential for more and more monsters off Tanzania and Mozambique.

I have a special interest in Indonesia having lived there for the best part of the last 20 years.  I truly believe there are sites in the east of this vast archipelago that hold real monsters and have yet to be fished at all. The Banda Sea is the most obvious spot but there are others as well. A couple of boats are now offering charters in limited areas of the Banda Sea, but by-and-large, the problem is logistics - an absolute nightmare.  For the past year I have been trying to organise an expedition to a very remote shoal which has GT legends attached to it. Even when finding a boat that might be able to make the expedition, the costs and logistics are truly, truly scary.   

Critical when finding a world class spot in this part of the world, is keeping it as secret as possible.  Otherwise the idiots who have the temerity to call themselves anglers swarm in killing every single fish they catch and the site is degraded - precisely what happened to Komodo and Alor for example. I have no issues with the financially disadvantaged killing fish to support their families and friends. But numb-heads who can afford to fish recreationally doing the same, deserve and get zero respect.

The only point in your post I would take issue with is that it easy to drop in and fish remote, untouched spots. It definitely is not and takes months, often years of planning.  More power to those who do figure out how to do it.

Very good topic by the way, and I hope some left-field suggestions are forthcoming.

[Graham Blackmore]

I have seen several GTs as big as a diver in Philippines - but you never see them unless the current is virtually unmanageable ...  Many dive guides in Puerto Galera (very popular dive spot) haven't seen the big boys - but then its not a good idea taking divers out in the worst current.

[Brandon Khoo]

Personally, I think there are giant GTs in all areas which the species are found and I sincerely doubt that any area has more of them that the Great Barrier Reef. It is the largest coral reel in the world by far and the number of GTs there are mind-boggling. Anyone who has fished Shoalwater and seen the quantity of juvenile fish there at certain times of the year would know the fishery in the GBR is in very good shape indeed. The disadvantage of the GBR though is the sheer quantity of smaller fish makes it extremely difficult to specifically target big fish.

I have seen giant GTs in every part of the GBR I have fished or dived.

I had a discussion with Pat Victorino on this topic a number of years back as to where the big fish reside and we both believe that many of the bigger fish move into deep water to live. We have lone big fish in deep water regularly. Interestingly enough, this was how LPB in New Caledonia used to target them. I do believe there is enormous potential on the GBR in various spots on the outside edge of the reef where there are deep drop-offs. The little bit of experience I had at some of the reefs in the vicinity of Lizard Island showed there is huge potential there as one morning on the outside edge with Nomad guide Jason Preece saw us raise a couple of absolute dinosaurs.

The interesting thing with locations such as Tokara and Oman is the percentage of big fish versus juvenile fish caught. Tokara sees enormous GTs but it does raise the question of what happens in a fishery whe there are so few juveniles caught as a percentage. On the other hand, are they migratory fish that travel through that area in the summer months? Tokara is a bleak place in winter and I wonder if the water temperature at that time sees either the fish retreat into really deep water or migrate to more temperate zones.

Who knows? I think the one thing we do know though is that as far as the species is concerned, a 65kg fish still has significant growth potential in front of it. The other issue for anglers such as us is that a really big fish probably needs a popper to appear right in front of it for it to snaffle it. The effort required to chase such a small target has to be balanced off against the meal. A big fish is probably eating large reefies such as a 5kg red bass instead of fusiliers.

[Mark Harris]

I had a discussion with Pat Victorino on this topic a number of years back as to where the big fish reside and we both believe that many of the bigger fish move into deep water to live. We have lone big fish in deep water regularly. Interestingly enough, this was how LPB in New Caledonia used to target them. I do believe there is enormous potential on the GBR in various spots on the outside edge of the reef where there are deep drop-offs. The little bit of experience I had at some of the reefs in the vicinity of Lizard Island showed there is huge potential there as one morning on the outside edge with Nomad guide Jason Preece saw us raise a couple of absolute dinosaurs.

That is very interesting Brandon.  I have long thought that the big fish at various Indonesian sites I know well spend most of their lives down deep and rarely come into shallower waters.  The LPB New Caledonia evidence is along those lines I guess with the big fish being targeted in deeper water using massive chuggers.  Also it would be no great surprise if the bigger GTs get, the more territorial and lonesome they become.

To counter that though, I know that an number of true monsters  have been caught in Oman by sight casting at fish in very shallow water, often so shallow that the fish are literally lying on their sides.

[Gary Prerost]

Great replys as expected.Mark my reference to it getting easier to fish remote locations was about operations already existing and catering to clients, such as oman and many other great locations.Where it can be a case of fly in fly out.Given enough money and a desire to explore naturaly the world is a smaller place to get around and it does get easier .Better boats helicopters planes there is nowhere that cannot be reached.
Brandon I would consider the GBR to be right up there but as you say the vast size is the first issue.As with all top predator current and upwellings are perfect for providing food with a delivery service so my thoughts are that bigger specimens are more likely to prefer these locations.The ribbons reef complex a case in point .
The existence of true giants in shallow water I have witnessed first hand , mostly individuals they will charge into shallow areas obviously looking for a specific food or maybe its that it is such a good tactic for them.Whether they are an oceanic wanderer provides food for thought I tend to think this has a great deal of merit following  certain  migrations of other species in and out of temperate waters.
All really great answers though for what I thought may have been considered a dumb question by many thanks and regards

[Mark Harris]

On the contrary Gary, I think this is one of the more interesting posts here for some time. Well done.

[Brandon Khoo]

There is no doubt whatsoever that you find big fish is very shallow water as well. We've hooked monsters at Shoalwater in very shallow water and a few years back, a group that went to Marion Reef saw massive GTs doing crazy things to get across the shallow areas of the reef. Malcolm Crane and I also had a double hook-up on two very big fish when we encountered a whole school of big fish in a very shallow area.

It does seem that deep water though is one area where we can specifically try to target bigger fish without being plagued by the smaller GTs.

I had a discussion with Pat Victorino on this topic a number of years back as to where the big fish reside and we both believe that many of the bigger fish move into deep water to live. We have lone big fish in deep water regularly. Interestingly enough, this was how LPB in New Caledonia used to target them. I do believe there is enormous potential on the GBR in various spots on the outside edge of the reef where there are deep drop-offs. The little bit of experience I had at some of the reefs in the vicinity of Lizard Island showed there is huge potential there as one morning on the outside edge with Nomad guide Jason Preece saw us raise a couple of absolute dinosaurs.

That is very interesting Brandon.  I have long thought that the big fish at various Indonesian sites I know well spend most of their lives down deep and rarely come into shallower waters.  The LPB New Caledonia evidence is along those lines I guess with the big fish being targeted in deeper water using massive chuggers.  Also it would be no great surprise if the bigger GTs get, the more territorial and lonesome they become.

To counter that though, I know that an number of true monsters  have been caught in Oman by sight casting at fish in very shallow water, often so shallow that the fish are literally lying on their sides.

[Rob Langridge]

Sorry i cant contribute to the post as i don't have any experience with GT fishing but its a very interesting read.

Cheers Rob

[Duncan O'Connell]

Hi Gary

Like Brandon and others have said, you can find big GT's turning up anywhere within their range. My observations are that big GTs appear more prevalent in deep water, at the extreme ends of their distribution and in places where recruitment is minimal.

As an examples for deep water, you can use place such as New Cal or the outer edge of the Ribbons to illustrate. The deeper waters probably have easier access to larger prey which would be needed to sustain the big fish. It also thins out the numbers of smaller schooling fish which are racing around in the shallows chasing smaller prey, making it easier for the angler to target them specifically.

As far as their distribution goes, spots like Tokara or Southeast QLD seem to produce a high proportion of large fish. Not neccesarily big numbers of fish (in fact more the opposite!) but the average size is pretty good. A 149cm GT was caught down the Tweed recently and another at 139cm was popped off Moreton Island a few weeks ago. The Japanese obviously have a long history of targetting big fish in their local waters, but if the same kind of fishing pressure were applied to SE QLD, I think a lot more big fish would be encountered (not that I would wish for that kind of fishing pressure).
The main theory on this is that the larger fish can cope with the changes in water temperatures better than the smaller fish can so they survive in these areas year round. It may also have to do with lower water temperatures affecting spawning recruitment in these areas.

Some of the more isolated atolls in the Pacific have amazing GTs living on them - as examples off the GBR think of Marion Reef, Ken Reef, Diamond Islets. Not many fish but big ones. This is most likely due to their isolated nature and lack of habitat for juvenile recuitment. The larval fish that settle there are much reduced in number, but they can live a long time with little competition for resources.

An interesting counterpoint is Christmas Island (Kiribati). While it is very isolated, there is a massive shallow lagoon that acts like a GT factory. This means there are stacks of small and medium sized GTs around. The big fish are there but they have to compete with smaller faster fish for your lures. If you ask the guides to take you to a big GT spot, they will move away from the shallows, out to 30-60m of water and tell you to fish big bloopers in order to call the fish up. On a giant scale the Great Barrier Reef acts in the same way as a massive GT production line.

Changing the subject slightly, there are implications for conservation in this: places with lots of small and medium GT's with fewer large fish = healthy robust populations, while places with fewer larger fish = more fragile populations.

All up Gary I reckon you have just about as much chance at catching a giant in your backyard in the Tweed as just about anywhere in the world, it just takes plenty of persistance hanging out for that one big fish!

Cheers

Duncan

[Andre van Wyk]

The other issue for anglers such as us is that a really big fish probably needs a popper to appear right in front of it for it to snaffle it. The effort required to chase such a small target has to be balanced off against the meal. A big fish is probably eating large reefies such as a 5kg red bass instead of fusiliers.

This is a great point Brandon... The guys who slide livebaits off the beaches on our north coast and the Mozambique coastline regularly us 3 Spot Pompano and even smaller Travelly such as Brassies or Greenspots up to 5 kilos as live bait.... the most soughyt after bait of course being a big Bonefish in the 4 to 5 kilo range.... these baits regularly get engulfed by GT's in the 25 kilo range, right up to the 50 kilo plus models.... so when one looks at even the biggest stickbaits, like Crusty's Sidewinder, compared with a 5 kilo Bonefish, its still pretty tiny....

[Gary Prerost]

Duncan that was a great reply.It would seem certainly in our part of the hemisphere that the further south we go in some species range the bigger they are .As you say perhaps fewer in number but bigger in size. I have seen some very large fish in schools in the river here during summer.I witnessed some pro netters haul a catch of trevally I never dreamt would live in the system up to 15kg.
But as you say if we keep casting the big fish will eventually show thanks to all who replied some top replys

[Brandon Khoo]

Hey Andre, what you write below about using a live bonefish would be sacrilege to many!! 

The other issue for anglers such as us is that a really big fish probably needs a popper to appear right in front of it for it to snaffle it. The effort required to chase such a small target has to be balanced off against the meal. A big fish is probably eating large reefies such as a 5kg red bass instead of fusiliers.

This is a great point Brandon... The guys who slide livebaits off the beaches on our north coast and the Mozambique coastline regularly us 3 Spot Pompano and even smaller Travelly such as Brassies or Greenspots up to 5 kilos as live bait.... the most soughyt after bait of course being a big Bonefish in the 4 to 5 kilo range.... these baits regularly get engulfed by GT's in the 25 kilo range, right up to the 50 kilo plus models.... so when one looks at even the biggest stickbaits, like Crusty's Sidewinder, compared with a 5 kilo Bonefish, its still pretty tiny....

[Sachin Chaudhry]

I find that 2 to 3 days before the full moon and especially at the crack of dawn the biggest boys come out to play. Very aggressive and in a different size of big.
Current is important but big fish get big by eating lots which is why I feel the shore side of reef passages tend to deliver so many big fish in my experience. The currents wash the bait out and the GTs have an easy time of picking them out.
However irrespective of the location I feel the moon phase is key.