St Brandon’s Blog: 27 November – 6 December 2010

If the first day on the flats was anything to go by, we knew the week would be, at the very least, exceptional. There was plenty wild chatter on the mother ship that evening. Dave Moffet was still shaking as he told everyone about a 114cm GT that’d weaved his backing through a couple of corral bommies. He’s lucky he had Jako Lucas as his guide, Jako doesn’t like losing fish so swimming out and untangling the line is second nature. Result: Happy albeit wet guide, ecstatic and tired Dave, and a beautiful GT. Of course this wasn’t the only action for the day. A Permit and two monster GT’s were lost. Guides can testify that it is hard to spot fish when they have tears in their eyes.

The first day set a precedent, and the group continued to unleash pure untapped fishing talent on anything with a tail and two pectoral fins. The low tide was mostly in the late evenings which made fishing for tailing bones challenging, but an extremely rewarding end of day. Spending the morning hunting permit on a long pushing tide, GT’s when it was high and bones when it was rock bottom was a recipe for a great fishing day and we came close to a couple Grand Slams. It was our privilege to host Henry Gilbey, a renowned photographer and TV host, who captured all of the action on camera. We look forward to his subsequent publications on the trip.

The end of the week tally: 6GT’s- the largest at 114cm. 4 Permit. A host of Bluefin, Yellow-dot and Bigeye trevelly, and of course many many Bones. A good few between 60- 80cm. (7-10 lb)

Quote of the week: John Travis explaining how to catch Spangled Emperors after they’d foiled many of his attempts at Permit- “Don’t cast too close to the Permit, it might snatch the fly from the Emperor”