We have been seeing a growing number of Japanese anglers over the last two years and have been actively talking with Yamada San, who has been visiting us at both at Kirinda and Bolgoda in Sri Lanka, to come over and give the Andaman Islands a try. We had our first experience with none other than Japanese fishing legend Kozo Okubo back in 2012 and know how anglers from Japan like to fish.
So when we heard that Yamada San was on his way with some members of Japan’s Bluefin Tuna Team we knew it was going to be a hardcore trip. Along with Yamada, we had Makoto, Takeuchi and Taruya and the best part was that they had the latest lures from the just completed Japan Tackle Show to use here, which looked very interesting, to say the least.
We had great action throughout the trip. Some of the new lures worked incredibly well and within the first hour of fishing one very expensive stickbait was lost to an unstoppable GT, with Makoto-San cheerfully saying, “There goes one day’s salary.” Pretty much every place we stopped to fish produced multiple strikes, hook ups and landed fish.
We came upon a GT feeding frenzy one morning in open water, where we could clearly see the GT’s breaching as they smashed some unfortunate bait. That made Captain Kantha’s work easy for a while as he just had to position the boat and let the anglers do the rest. With experienced anglers, who can read the water and cast and work the lures well, we had some pretty insane action in that session, getting strike after strike, with the biggest GT’s landed being around the 25 kg range.
Yamada, who had not been fishing and letting the others in on the action, joined in with his Hammer Head popper as we moved closer inshore. It was a good call, as it was smashed almost instantly. Luckily the fish did not go for shallow water but instead swam into deep water, which is classic big GT. Unluckily for Yamada though, the GT had no intention of stopping and even after gunning the boat after the fish it bit through the leader and was gone.
We did try a bit of jigging as well and were immediately on with many species on the light jigs – grouper, coronation trout, job fish – but with so much top-water action there was a small mutiny on the boat to get back to top-water. Captain Kantha did not protest much either and the GT tally keep adding up.
On their last fishing day we decided to push to a farther spot even though it was a bit choppy. The consensus was that the chop would produce a good bite and give us the option to get a few shots in at larger fish, since the other big boys we had hooked refused to be landed for the much needed trophy picture. Lady Luck did smile on us and we put three big Mamas on the boat in an action packed session which scaled out at 129 cm, 135 cm and 139 cm. Boy, did we have a tired four anglers return from fishing that day, but man, were they sated. With 90 GT boated in 5 fishing days it was an awesome trip. We even got some signed Carpenter Gammas for the lure board, in appreciation, which is a first.
Great fishing with you guys and tight lines.
Tackle Used
Popping Rods: Zenaq, Carpenter, Ripple Fisher, Souls
Jigging Rods: Zenaq, Carpenter, Ripple Fisher, Souls
Reels: Shimano Stella, Diana Salitga
Lures: Hammer Head, Carpenter, Daiwa, Alba, Xavier, Craftbait, CB One, Jigs – Japan Domestic Model
Species Caught: Golden Trevally, Giant Trevally, Barracuda, Coral Trout, Bohar Snapper, Bluefin Trevally, Green Jobfish, Grouper, Coronation Trout
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