We had an awesome trip despite NE blowing 17-21 knots non stop.
1st morning Christo opened the account on our boat with a GT of 25-27kg.
Mark went on shortly afterwords with another 20kg GT.
I had to wait till the afternoon session to get connected to my 1st GT, Mark went on immediately and we had to do a bit of ducking and weaving ...
Finally broke the GT monkey
Day 2
Caught a nice Amberjack on jig
Day 3
Wind is still pumping from the NE making for wet and bumpy fishing conditions...
Started the morning session with a GT
Followed by a Bluefin Trevelly
Shortly after this we were popping in 6-7m of water and a big old grouper decided he wanted the GT Mania and before I could stop him he ran me into the reef.
The afternoon session we started slow pitch jigging but not a lot of action.
Late afternoon we started popping again and it was not long before the 1st GT smashed the hammerhead popper
Mark went on just as I landed the GT.
As he moved to the back to land the fish I moved forward make another cast and got nailed again...
Just before sunset we were working the reefs around mushroom rock and as I placed the hammerhead on the sweet spot it got nailed on the 2nd pop...
The skipper "Wes" said lock the drag we need to pull him off the reef into deeper water.
This we did but now the GT was in the pushing tide current and he was fighting way above his weight class...
But he is my PB GT.
Day 4
Christo again started the morning with a quality GT.
After moving to do some jigging we decided to have lunch on a low tide sand bank.
Here the steering cable broke on repositioning the boat.
This meant the end of the day's fishing but while we waited for a boat from the lodge to come and do the recovery we fished light tackle for bluefin trevelly and Christo almost landed a good size Garfish but it came off at the boat.
A long and wet two hour trip back to the lodge just in time for a cold Safari lager.
They guys on the other boat had a ripper of a day and we decided that despite the soar bodies we will go for a full day on day 5
Day 5
Started popping but the GT's were not keen.
Moved deeper and started jigging at around 130m
Soon we connected on one drop to Rosy Jobfish.
We redid the drift as the Doggies must be around.
Mark then started his Amberjack epic jigging day finally boating 10 AJ's for the day.
I decided to drop a 150g slow jig down to 130m and see if I can not hook up on a AJ.
It did not take long and I got hit and what turned out to be and epic and most enjoyable fight...
The PE2 29lb slow jigging setup got tested to the max....
But had more than enough backbone for the fight.
When the AJ got to the boat there was huge bite marks on the tail where big Dogs to bites on the fighting fish...
I later got hit on jig by what I believe to have been a Dog but he did not get pinned and after the 2nd run he came off.
We jigged till around 17:00 and then moved to the shallow reefs for the last popping session.
Now those who have done these type of trips will know that the body has been taking a hammering for 5 days but you know you want that last GT of the trip so you dig deep and start launching the 150g Cuberra bombs.
Did get the hit but the fish did not get pinned...
We kept at it till sun set 18:30
Last cast
Next morning we did a group photo at the Mafia Airport Open Air Lounge ...
Awesome group of guys from Cape Town that is not afraid to fish hard.
I am going back in October....
