[gutchucker]

I'm just back from Asia and had an incredible time fishing in India this year. We mainly popper fished with enormous 8" Dumbell Poppers and Halco's and had some great luck pulling up some big trevally's from the depths and also from the coral shelfs. We trolled between fishing locations and picked up a number of quality lottery fish, you could never guess what was going to bite next. We also tried jigging this year and had some good luck in a few places. Becauase this type of fishing was still new to our guide we were pulling up species he had never seen before after owning a guiding business there for 6 years. We had the boat booked every second day which turned out to be the perfect schedule. The days on the boat can be pretty hot when it's already 35 out and you start working a big popper till your arms ready to fall off. On our days off we hunted for lobster on long snorkels over the coral. Right infront of our bungalow was some great snorkling, and in the coral there we saw octopus, moray eel, numour groupers and coral trout, barracuda and the list goes on so many huge schools of bait fish... Our first lobster also came from infront of the bungalow. We caught a couple more aswell but it took us a while to get up to speed finding them and then actually getting down to where they are, holding on to the sharp coral bottom and then spearing the little bastarrds before they can squirt back into there little caves.

It's one of the last places in Asia left like this... The government has made most of the Islands around Havelock a protected park now which means know one is allowed on the surrounding Islands and no large scale commercial fishing, just guys with handlines in local boats. This should help in keeping things the way they are, natural and untouched.

It's not an easy place to get to but it's well worth the trip...See it while you can.

If you would like more details say hello,

Cheers,

 

[gutchucker]

The Link to the photo album from my trip.. - http://www.bcfishingreports.com/forums/album.php?albumid=146

 

[South Texas Salt]

What a fishing experience, such variety in the catch. Thanks for posting. Salt.

 

[arrgh!]

Looks totally incredible. Be great if you could label the pics with species names. If you don't mind, what was the cost (roughly) per person including flights etc from here?

Thanks for posting. Wasn't it the Andaman Islands? I remember you posting something about them a while ago.

 

[gutchucker]

I updated the photo album and wrote down the fish I knew. There were a few I wasn't sure of a put a ? with those..

We flew to Bangkok first and then to there. As of right now the only way to the Andaman Islands is flying out of Chennai or Kolkatta. We flew threw Kolkatta and then to port blair on the andaman Islands. From there it's a ferry ride to Havelock Island. The fast ferry only leaves from Port Blair in the morning but flights arive around noon. There is a slower local ferry in the afternoon. Flights from Bankok are around $500 for the 4 flights (bkk-ccu-ixz-ccu-bkk) depending on the time of year. It woud be cheper to fly directly to chennia or kolkatta from Hong Kong and not stopping in BKK.

The boat was $200/day split between me and my brother, lunch, drinks, fishing rods and tackle. We also tipped the crew and had excellent service on every trip.

Our bungalow was $25 / night, very simple with bathroom and fan on the beach. There's more exspesive there and much cheaper options that could see you sleeping in a chicken hut..lol

The Location:http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=12.024546,92.978668&spn=0.424437,0.724411&t=h&z=11

 

[Centerpin]

Hey Gutchucker

The pictures are awesome. Looks like you had a blast, so many different species. Just curious what kind of gear you primarily used.

Centerpin

 

[gutchucker]

Hi Centerpin, the trip was incridble !!! We fished 3 ways while we were there:

#1 Casting with an Avet lx and a heavy 11' river fenwick with 80 lb braid and 200lb leaders. My brother switched partway through due to his new avet making loud noises and being hard to wind. He switched to a 9' Heavy spinning rod with 10000 series okuma salina spinning real and enjoyed freedom from backlashes. My rod was too long and not stiff enough. We mainly casted Poppers for GT's but caught a number of other species while doing so. The favourite popper on big water was the 8" Dumbell and on inshore reefs the 8" Halco's. The stick bait was also very effective in the shallows but you don't get to see the take like you do with the poppers.

#2 Trolling to and from our fishing sites quite often with two deep divers ( Manns 30 ) and a couple of skirts ( jet heads ) or big plungers for marlin and sailfish. Quite often it was the small jet heads picking up the big fish.. no marlin this year


#3 Jigging and not as we no it. There we were using approx 200 g jigs with the hook attached to the top of the jig, dropping you line down a 150' and then jigging and reeling like mad at the same time for about 50' then dropping your line back to bottom and repeating the process over and over. On productive days it's fun and my quide is still dialing in the spots for this type of fishing. The depth sounder going off like a christamas tree on a steep drop off seems to be a good place to start. We used the shimano trevala's for this and the 6'6" rods turned out to be really strong. The eyes are not the best though.

 

[pgBilly]

Awesome report looks like some stellar fishing! Thanks for sharing.