Our Club held its Annual General Meeting a couple of Sundays ago in London. Our trophies were awarded to an incredible selection of fish – the biggest Tuna, a 988lb Bluefin, from Nova Scotia and biggest Marlin an estimated 1100lb released Blue from Ascension Island. And, in addition, there was a 10 to 1 Blue Marlin, an 850 on 80 stand-up gear, again from Ascension Island and a released 1000lb Tiger Shark from the Florida Keys. Plus of course there were awards for the two World Records our members established in the year – the All Tackle 28lb 8oz North African Tigerfish from Ghana and 16lb 6oz Rainbow Runner from the shore on Ascension Island on a 16lb tippet. There was also of course that huge 190lb Yellowfin Tuna taken off Cape Town, South Africa on a fly rod - a 5 1/2 hour battle but, unfortunately, he wasn't using a class tippet otherwise it would have exceeded the existing (20lb tippet) record by over 80lbs!
But also at the meeting one of our Club members, Dave Huckle, who has been working in Germany, mentioned that he also has submitted a line class claim for a Guinean Barracuda. His brief report is below.
ZitatAlles anzeigenI spent 10 days at Richard’s – Richard Sheard of http://www.Worldsportfishing.com - new camp on Orango Island in mid-November. The lodge on Orango is larger and more comfortable than the old camp on Acunda and benefits from being within the National Park (Richard has exclusive fishing rights within the Park). The new boats are well equipped and Richard has brought a lot of the best crews with him.
We were unlucky with the sea conditions as unusually late rains inland had coloured the water and made lure fishing difficult. Popper and jig fishing was not as productive as usual and predators seemed to be targeting much smaller prey. In spite of this we managed to hook up some decent sized barracuda (in the mid to high teens) on the first day, unfortunately I was fishing heavier tackle to get in the swing of things and we didn’t qualify for any records. I regretted the decision to start heavy as the fishing deteriorated over the next couple of days.
The crew were keen to see some decent fish in the boat and really went the extra mile to make up for the bad conditions and towards the end of the trip we experimented with some night fishing. We caught some nice fish, including a suspected line class record for African Red Snapper (which turned out to be a Guinean Snapper….). The highlight of the night fishing session came at around 1am when my 16lb braid outfit was hit by a very large fish. After an hour of being dragged around the boat, desperately trying to keep the braid intact, a Nurse Shark estimated at 175lbs came to the side of the boat. We decided to release the fish without bringing it on board, so no pictures I’m afraid but Richard and the skipper agreed on the weight. My first 10 to 1!
The last few days were still difficult conditions but a change in tactics, smaller and shallower lures plus a fresh batch of mono, resulted in a brace of Guinean Barracuda (18lb 4oz and 18lb 8oz) which broke the existing 6lb line class by 3lbs. The larger fish has been submitted to IGFA after the scales were certified. I was frustrated to not have beaten the existing record by a much larger margin but the bigger fish just weren’t biting.
A difficult trip but the crews worked hard to make sure things came together in the end.
