Another Great surface action week in Kirinda

 

I had returning clients Claude and David Beaufils along with Jean Pierre and their friend Frank coming to fish with us in Sri Lanka, Claude had been fishing in Sri Lanka about 4 years ago with good results and when he met me in Port Blair 2 years ago he told me about Sri Lanka and that if we ever decided to organize charters in Sri Lanka he would be game to fish with us again. To cut a long story short Claude, David and Jean Pierre were back to fish with us in a new destination, this is an achievement for us to have have returning clients in different destinations and I would like to congratulate our crews for their professionalism that makes this possible.

First up on day 1 after explaining to them that the fish are not here in quantity but quality, David gets a nice fish in the 30 kg range to start his trip, I must comment here that again Sri Lanka is a more technical destination and you can have great results, however for beginners or first timers big GT can be a bit of a challenge…. This is a heavy tackle ZONE!!!! Amigos. Period.

And then follows things up with a nice leaping Cobia on Popper.

More nice fish are landed, we had a lot of line bursts as well on the first 2 days, one rod had a cracked guide and the a Shimano Stella had a worn line roller, not particularly useful when chasing big GT’s.

 

We found some spots that had a lot of GT’s of the smaller variety, with big fish coming up on the lures in-between, there were average sized GT’s as well like the one pictured above. Lots of tackle testing line bursts as well.

Would you believe this nice Golden trevally on popper as well!!

Jean Pierre was fishing light lures and finally managed a mid size one on his lighter gear.

Check out this jet black GT, good size too for a black GT, David is all smiles after it pulled hard!!!!

The above size fish is the regular each day with one or two really big fish coming up, we had more bust offs in shallow water, again today.

We thought this huge Spanish mackerel was a dogtooth the way it smacked the lure and took off, one look at the size of it and you will know that this is one Spaniard and a half!!!

 

Another view to give you an idea of the size of this fish. MONSTER

More nice GT’s for David, he was with the right gear and had the dedication to keep going for big results.

Claude too get into the act after he this 25kg GT was caught on a light setup and took nearly 25 minutes to land

Another huge Spanish although a bit smaller than the first one again came up and smashed the popper.

Claude with a nice GT caught on the Racepoint 200 which he had to switch too as he has a cracked line guide on his other rod.

Franck posed with a normal sized GT when the bite is on we are getting a good number of bites from fish like this each day.

David again end the trip very nicely with another great GT, so all in all a great trip for returning clients to one of destinations.

More news coming soon as we are having really good fishing while the weather lasts before the start of the SW monsoon, but then we are moving East so the reports will follow.

Tight lines.

Fishing hard for BIG fish in Kirinda

 

Upto the middle of March the wind was blowing here in the deep South of Lanka and we were concerned when Guillaume and co arrived if the weather would hold up or not, we had a frank discussion with group and advised them that as usual we would do our best but given the prevailing conditions if they persisted fishing would be hard. The forecast showed good weather for the last few days of the trip, but now a days we hardly get accurate forecasts that last beyond 2 days.

Day one saw us out jigging as the seas we still too choppy for the poppers to work and as we had some jigging machine anglers with us on the group who were prepared to jig hard and fast all day they had some great doggy hits the first day of which one resulted in this nice doggy landed the others either dropped the hooks or busted off.

The next day the conditions started to clear out and we made a run to some of our farther fishing spots that now became accessible, immediate hook ups with big fish resulted, the first day we lost 3 big fish including one real monster, but landed some nice ones as above.

Days 3 & 4 and with conditions stabilizing, we started to have continuous action on lures both on surface and on jig, small fish interspersed with big fish, exciting fishing you do not know when the big mama is going to up and nail the lure big time.

Above and below are the types of fish we now start hitting regularly, quality solid fish with big girths and tremendous fight. On day 4 we have fish that breaks off 200 lb leader after a 6 minute fight, the angler is really disappointed as he knows he has probably lost the fish of a lifetime… but thats fishing and why we keep coming back.

Guillaume below with a really nice fish again taken on day 5 you can see that the conditions and water are perfect for hard fishing and chasing big GT, this day also produced an incredible evening session on popper with a huge number of fish boated both small and medium.

More nice sized GT’s follow

And more…

Bluefin below were out in voracious little packs hunting in 3 and 4’s with one finally nailing the big lure or getting snagged.

The sound that is so welcome to the GT angler the big explosion, like that grenade going off below the water and the fight is on, we get on a super bus GT, one that has eluded us for a while now, some have been missed, some bust off, some hooks pulled but now once it is on board there is nothing like a monster GT for sheer tough guy looks and personality!!!

The jigging action continues, with continuous hook ups

Multiple hook-ups

GT’s barging their way in on jig as well

and medium sized fish being the most common

Stay tuned for more news from the island as we know there is more to come.

Tight lines.

Micheal Meng round 2 in Kirinda

 

To say that this year has been uncharacteristic in terms of weather is an understatement, the northeast monsoon failed and because of no rains as we have seen earlier the winds are a lot stronger, which means choppy seas all the time, messy yes but we do not have any control over continually changing weather patters that now predominate in the tropics.

We had Micheal Meng back with another group and you will remember from our October report that were into some great fish, this story is the same however this time the fish won and that is what makes this such a fascinating sport for us to keep coming back to.

On day one the weather was holding up and we decided on an early start to get to the spots we knew where fish were holding.

The session begins in fantastic conditions

Jigging is soon rewarded with screaming drags and some nice fish being boated.

Take a look at the size of this golden trevally

Another great take and a screaming run…… but it runs out of steam soon after

And the angler is rewarded with a nice Spaniard that for once did not bite clean through the leader

Relaxing after the days fishing by the beach with a bunch of friends, this is what makes a holiday!!!

Local musicians at the resort will sing to tune and can impress you with their repertoire

What everyone come to the tropics for seafood

and more seafood.

More jigging action, this day we had a huge fish hit at jig, it screamed off line, stopped and then screamed off again, when we got the jig back a 10/0 jigging hook was opened, can you believe this!!!

Hookup as the GT’s start to play in the right conditions

And happiness once a fish is boated

After this fish we had two amazing hook ups and almost immediately after line breaks, those were possibly the fish of the trip lost.

A large twin spot snapper also on popper, in the midst of all the GT action we had a nice Doggie estimated 40kg come up and crashed a popper on the current line with its full body out of the water, as it took off on its screaming run the angler lost his balance and it was all over in a flash.

Final stages of a fight with a GT near the boat is where you have to be most attentive.

In the hoop, a quick picture and then release.

Multiple strikes with reef jigging action

Lots of species as well

A very nice sized long nosed emperor as well

If you have the right jigs and techniques the action is non stop……

As we went into the later part of the trip the weather again picked up with strong wind blowing again from the North East and this definitely put the fish down however we still managed to  land and boat some nice fish.

What is does mean is that when conditions get worse you have to persevere longer to get the results you want and this is just what the crew did.

Each angler had a shot at some decent fish on the trip.

And were all smiles when the one they were after finally came on board.

The last GT taken on the trip

The crew at the end of the trip, see you again soon guys.

Till next time tight lines.

Gamefishing Asia ™ is coming to Sri Lanka’s East Coast 01st May 2014

News Update January 2014

 

The new year has come and gone and we are into the thick of the fishing season in both the Andaman Islands and Sri Lanka, its looks like the last of the North East monsoon is past and it has been quite bumpy in patches. We have for all our customers new adventures and exciting options along with some very good promotions available to angling traveller looking for something new.

We started off 2014 with a great inshore trip for Barramundi in Sri Lanka and we have been exploring for new jigging spots which has paid off with large dog-tooth being hooked regularly and a good variety of bottom species, big fish are coming up regularly on the reefs as well to popper when conditions are right, it is our view that a prolonged wind from a fixed direction actually puts the bigger fish down into deeper water.

The Andaman season is on in full swing and our new jigging marks have been put to the test with groups from Russia, Poland and our friend Sami Ghandour from Saltywater Tackle all having visited us for great results so stay tuned for the blog posts and pictures.

We are now ready to host Barramundi trips full time now and have 3 boats available for charter to fish groups of up to 6 anglers and we can assure clients of the same service and quality standards associated with any of our fishing products.

Our latest destination in Sri Lanka Trincomalee is now open for bookings and slots are filling up fast, our exploratory trips have shown the presence of large fish in numbers given the canyon like structure of the place. So do drop us an email for the latest information and schedule.

For our Chinese customers there is a very good promotion going on with Sri Lankan Airlines see the link http://www.srilankan.com/en_uk/special-offers/china-triple-bonanza-offer and consider making your booking asap.

Till next month

Tight lines.