For keen anglers from Singapore, Sri Lanka has become a very popular destination for fishing. Many come to fish our saltwater lake Bolgoda just south of Colombo targeting the Barramundi, Mangrove Jacks and all the other species. There is also a considerable interest in our game fishing destinations, popping for GT and Jigging for Dogtooth Tuna.
This is what our group of 5 Singaporean anglers did in the middle of March. Fully geared up with Carpenter rods and Shimano Stella Reel & ready to pop & jig, they were in Kirinda to test their skills against the resident big GTs.
The anglers met us in the harbor on their first day at 8.00 am, ready for 6 days of hard work. To their delight, good activity greeted them and their Stellas started screaming. 2 GT over 35kg were landed with the biggest one weighing in at 38kg. Unfortunately for Ben, three big fish were lost due to line breaks on the rocky reef. Day 1 ended on a total of 19 bites on popping with 7 GT landed and one big Red bass.
As the week progressed, the activity slowed down on the popping spots and the attention turned to jigging. The Jigging spots showed what we always tell to clients coming to Kirinda, the Big surprises will come from these spots. We now have a lot of bonito, skip jack and yellowfin tuna in the area, creating an abundance of food for big fish like GT, dogtooth tuna and marlin.
Every day one of the guys had heavy bites on the jigs, almost ripping the rods out of their hands.
When the bonitos took their jigs, in mid water, it was almost expected that something bigger would take it and we were all too often served with raw evidence showing marks of GT, Marlin, Dogtooth tuna and Mako shark, taking a lot of line from the jigging master reels.
We also managed to try out some new spots, resembling sea mounts where we saw some big marks on the Garmin, and we know that these will provide us with big fish one day!
The week ended on a total of 69 bites, including species like, Giant Trevally, Red bass, Mallabar Trevally, Wahoo, King Mackerel and many others. At least 4 big GT were lost popping due to line breaks, so ALWAYS come well prepared for a big one!
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