We just got off the back end of a great trip with Zed and Kurt from South Africa and Kenny and George from Singapore. The sea conditions have been very stable over the last month or so with a good mix of clean and murky water over both the reefs and a strong ocean current pushing in from the west. The wind has slowly started falling to more pleasant levels but we still get blasted every now and then!
We had a fairly slow start the first day as everyone got into the groove of fishing Sri Lankan waters. I helped out where I could with tips and advice on casting and working lures and the guys were soon up to speed and fishing well, putting in big casts and banging the poppers hard to draw the fish in. Kurt was on the board first with great Bluefin Trevally and Zed followed up with a nice GT not long after. We raised more fish but failed to land them.
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On the second day we headed to a section of reef that had been producing well in the previous days Zed kicked of the proceedings with a nice Bohar on the first drift and from there on out we had a nice consistent bite for most of the day. Kurt landed a cracker in the 30 kilo range which turned out to be the best fish of the trip although we had many more that came close.
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The morning of day 3 saw us heading to the Jigging spots to try our luck. Jigging has been a bit hit and miss recently and proved to be the same that day. We had some solid hits on the jigs that left some big teeth marks but no hook ups. The sonar readings looked amazing and the drift was great but the fish had lock jaw. We persevered for as long as our arms held out then headed inshore for more topwater action. I was afraid we may have missed the morning bite we had the previous day but that didn’t prove to be the case and we had solid action from the first drift and for the next few hours with everyone getting on the board with fish in the 15 to 25 kilo range.
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The action continued steadily over the next 3 days. Some days had a morning bite others worked better in the afternoon, but there was more than enough action to keep us entertained all day. As usual when someone needed a break they dropped a small jig and had fun with the myriad of species that roam the reefs here in Sri Lanka. Kurt hit the jackpot hooking into a big Coral Trout on PE 2 which kept him bent over his little rod for a while. He also landed a great little Golden Trevally on Micro Jig which was something on his wish list when we spoke about the fishing at the beginning of the trip.
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By the last day the spirit was willing but the bodies were tired. We missed some very good fish that would have hit the deck on previous days and the guys where in need of some inspiration. I grabbed Zeds rod with a Hammer Head G-Cup and banged out a cast from the nose of the boat and had a solid hit and pretty soon a nice GT was on the deck. This did the trick and suddenly everyone was up and fishing like it was day one! We managed a few more fish before calling the trip to an end with a round of beers on the Foredeck.
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