We started off this block of charters with glorious conditions apart from a little moisture which isn't the end of the world and on the first afternoon the guys got straight into it, there is nothing more exciting than being stuck on Odyssey waiting for the second seaplane flight of guys to arrive and hear the chats going on the radio of the carnage that was unfolding....when the new bunch of guys arrived we set out for it and I think we had only 1 hour to fish that afternoon after the guys assembled their battle gear, but that was all we needed the fish were on fire and we managed to get stuck into some quality bites and in the short while we managed to boat 5 quality GTs and a few other odds and ends, we returned back to the mothership that afternoon all fired up and ready to go for the days to come.
The weather wasn't too bad and we decided to fish an area which we don't fish very often, the calm weather meant that the fish there should be fairly stupid, the game was on and it seemed that everyone was getting stuck into the fish left right and centre, I had a boat full of 'new to the game' GT anglers and it didn't take them long to break that statement by the end of the day. One of the guys managed to put two 40kg fish into the boat, the first two GTs he had ever caught!!... That's what you call luck. There were stages during the week where the fish just got lock jaw no matter what we tried they just weren't going to play the game, as soon as the weather started to calm down the game was on and we had a couple of really good days in before we got chased away to the comfort of the hardline for the poor conditions and it didn't take the guys long to get stuck into a few of the blue holes where we immediately started to see some bigger fish. There is nothing like casting big lures into water that is only 1m deep at some stages and seeing a behemoth of a creature come and mow down the lure absolutely exciting stuff! One of the guys fishing with Pete managed to get hooked up a fish of a lifetime in one of these blue holes and after a struggle the fish ended up doing him over Pete said it was the biggest GT he had ever seen and believed it to be around the 60kg mark.
The second week for me however had to be a highlight. We welcomed the new guests onto the boat and got straight to it and again there were stories of joy, Damon spotted a piece of reef as they flew over that just spelled FISH and he wasted no time in getting there, it was on fire and they were seeing fish all over the place. They managed to put 12 GTs in the boat during the afternoon and that doesn't even include the biggest Spaniard that Damon has ever seen which he stated was nothing short of 40kg, after looking at the pictures we were just blown away, this thing was a creature, it just makes you think, how big do they actually get out there on the reef...??
The Forecast that night was quite a disappointing one as we had just been told that the wind was going to blow 25-35knts for the next few days, not ideal....that didn't trouble us too much and we woke up in the morning to howling winds which was accompanied by rain, but it didn't stop the fish biting which was extremely unbelievable, we had possibly the worst conditions available 30knts and just about zero current which made things a little harder but the guys still managed to find a few quality fish, we started our day off with a bang and the first blue hole we stopped in we were greeted by a quality fish of around 35kg which never hooked up but 10 mins later we had 2 fish in the boat both around the 25kg mark, the day continued on the same form and after a short bumpy drive we pulled up to the next point which wasn't exactly calm but the guys sent there lures out and instantly the explosions behind the lures indicated to us that it's game time, and we had 2 rods folded over, 1 x beast bust off in the reef and another in the boat...it didn't end there every spot we pulled up to was carnage and the little session after lunch proved to be the deadliest, we were fishing in conditions that you could barely stand but the fish were still on the chew, we somehow in those rough conditions traumatised by rain and wind managed to put 15 GTs in the boat. The next morning waking up to wind howling through the stay wires on the roof was somewhat demoralising and getting out of bed and looking out to the mess was enough make you really want to climb straight back in bed and take a sicky...no time for that and we soldiered on deciding that we would fish our way down wind and get the mothership to relocate to a new anchor to try and make the day as comfortable as possible it payed off and it seemed the new area had plenty of fish to go around for everyone, we stuck around this area for a while as it the most centrally located area for this weather giving everyone a wide variety of options, the weather just seemed to get worse and the fish just started to bite even more, I found this little point which was going off every single drift produced fish, I have no idea where all the fish were coming from, it was a tiny little point and would have been satisfied pulling one fish off it but by 11am we managed to pull 12Gts off this single point, which is just un heard of usually you stop on a point will have a few fish come up then second drift there it's like a ghost town...we would have drifted this point over 20 times and had fish come up on every occasion, the rest of the day seemed to pan out the same and was lucky enough to stumble on a similar looking shoal and once again there was carnage, it got that rough at times that you lures would disappear behind swells and you would see the takes, only feel the rod nearly get snatched from your hands, we ended up calling it quits early and decided to go back to the mothership on the way back the count took us to 21 GTs by far my best day fishing in those sort of conditions.
The next day was the same and I managed to get a half a chance to speak to Damon on the radio and it sounded like he had his work cut out for him. His score at the end of the day turned out at 26 and we were both a little blown away at the way the fish were feeding in these conditions, during the day I managed to get a wind reading from the mothership and at the timed it topped off at a little over 38knts and we were out on the reef system in 18ft dories not only catching fish but slaying them, there is not many places around the world that you can go fish in these sort of conditions and we seemed to be having a ball, the weather finally calmed down and the GTs just got angrier we had to make a fairly long run the following day to move for the seaplane and on the way we stopped and fished for no longer than 20mins and the carnage that was going on between the four boats was surreal, after being flogged for the whole week we were left fishing in glass out conditions smashing the fish and I tell you what it was not easy to drive away from fish that were doing everything they could to jump into the boat...the new lot of guest had no idea what they were in for.