The season in Kirinda has begun and on the 13 October Yamada San arrived with two of his clients from Japan; Shinji and his friend Kana. Experienced anglers, fishing for GT on Popper and deep jigging for amberjack they’d had plenty of practice in Southern Japan.

During this 4 day trip the weather was perfect: blue skies, sunny, light winds and calm seas. We started popping for GT. Some bait was on the reef and we could see them on the surface. When the poppers landed close to the bait school, they were immediately attacked but the GT didn’t bite properly and Yamada, Kana and Shinji missed most of the fish. Only Kana had a proper bite from a very nice fish. Fishing for GT in Kirinda with PE4/6 tackle is very risky. This GT took a lot of line and Kana could do nothing to stop it. Her rod was fully banded and the drag was ramped up to the maximum strength of the line. A slight increase in the drag snapped the braided line and the fish was gone.

On the last two days we concentrated our efforts on the deep jigging spots we had discovered last season. So far these spots have been excellent, holding some really nice fish. Kana who had fished a lot for Amberjack in Japan showed us her very good technique with a conventional rod and reel. She caught some nice Amberjack weighing in at about 10kg. During this deep jigging session Yamada caught the biggest GT of the trip, a very nice 30kg GT that fought like hell!!!

On a new spot, discovered on this trip, we saw some big marks on the Sonar and Yamada immediately had a big bite but the hook didn’t set properly and the fish was gone. They also caught some big Mangrove Jack (Lutjanus Argentimaculatus), Grouper, Snapper, Skipjack and King Mackerel.  Every day our Poppers had acrobatic bites from King Mackerel but unfortunately we never managed to land one of these.

We fishing the trip with a nice afternoon popping session catching a dozen GT between 10kg and 20kg. They were all caught on floating stickbaits like Hammerhead Cherry Asymmetry 200, Fish Trippers Village Le Grand Tango 210 and the indispensable Carpenter Gamma Diablo GT-Y 200.

Now that the season in Kirinda is underway we’re looking forward to another lot of the monster GT’s and the savage Dogtooth Tuna that were caught here last year. We still have a few dates available from mid-November to the end of December with great tides and the potential to catch trophy fish so get in touch via email to make 2015 the year you catch a monster.

Nico

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