Last season we had anglers from South Korea land some good fish with us and this year we have more groups from South Korea: Romeo, Momo, Professor Ko and Mr Kim were on this group, here to catch a big Andaman GT. They were fully rigged up with great tackle and ready to go.
On the first day we started off jigging the spot with markings of a lot of fish but the fish were not really active, so we decided to move to a deeper popping spot. This spot also did not provide much action so we moved closer inshore and immediately found action and feeding fish. We had 4 huge strikes, got the fish on, but all four of these came off.
Romeo got into a decent fish which stayed hooked and he landed a nice 26kg Andaman GT to finally get some consolation for the group on day 1. The guys were getting used to the casting and jigging and fishing for GTs after long breaks so a couple of fish missed is pretty common during the trip.
We left a bit earlier the next day to get out to a further fishing ground and again started the day with some jigging. Today the fish we biting on jig and immediately Professor Ko was into a large Dogtooth on his jig but the fish was too strong and got him into the reef and bust off even though he had his Omoto jigging reel on near full drag. We had continuous action with GT’s, small Dogtooth and some Long nosed Emperors landed.
After jigging for a while we decided to move round the back of an island and immediately had some nice GTs come up and start off on the popper action. We landed a few fish and moved over to another corner where Mr Kim had this huge strike close to the drop off. The fish pulled him around the boat and as we moved the boat into deeper water with Mr Kim putting on maximum pressure the line went limp. All that was left was the wire of his Carpenter Popper – the rest had been pulled off. This is the first time I have seen this with Carpenter Popper. As the tide was running good we had multiple hook-ups with a quadruple and triple hook ups of landed GT. The guys were exhausted from all their action on popper so decided to jig again. Again we got into the action but the big dogtooth could not be stopped and there were lost jigs and an exploded rod for Mr Kim. We finally called it a day and headed back to port with some exhausted but happy customers.
The next day we again headed out a bit earlier and got to the fishing grounds where we were soon into the action again. This time we started with popping and once the tide turned the action heated up with some big fish taking the lures very close to the boat. The fish all headed straight for the coral bommies and even after moving the boat and the anglers exerting maximum pressure the fish bust off. We lost 3 poppers during the morning session and landed 14 GT. We then moved to do some jigging and this resulted in immediate hook-ups. There were sharks and big Dogtooth in the same place and when the Dogtooth did not bust off the sharks got them, we lost 10 jigs on this jigging session with not one fish to the boat. We had a beaten lot of anglers returning to base that day.
The next day we decided to give the popping a go with the focus being on big GT. We raised plenty of GT with great action in the afternoon. One huge GT swam right to the boat but did not commit to the lure. We had 26 GTs landed on the boat with two over 20kg and one bust off on the bite. The guys were elated with the number of GTs landed and the top-water action they experienced.
The group was pretty exhausted by the last day and we decided to give jigging a shot after trying popping for a few hours. We had some decent jigging action with 10 GTs landed and a nice grouper. The wind had picked up towards late afternoon so we headed back to end to the fishing trip.
If you want to get in on the GT & Dogtooth action in the Andamans we’ve got some great trips for Single Anglers and a few dates for groups too.
Tight lines!
Species caught: GT, Yellowfin Tuna, Dogtooth Tuna, Coral Trout, Long Nose Emperor, Grouper, Green Jobfish, Twin- spot snapper, Bluefin trevally, Golden trevally
Equipment used:
Rods: Carpenter, Hots popping and jigging rods
Reels: Shimano Stella, Omoto, Jigging Master Reels
Poppers: Cubera, Craft Bait, Carpenter
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