After 20 odd years of chasing GT’s with a fly rod, I thought I better get serious with this GT thing and just put a fish on the board. Fast forward to Boneheads October 2019. I was fishing with Jason for the week. We also had Morsie on board for a few days. I upped the ante to land that first GT. I set up a rod specifically for shots at a big GT. The rod was rigged and ready at all times ready for that one shot. In fact, I picked up that rod whenever I felt we were in with a chance to cross paths with a GT. The outfit was a Sage One 12 weight with a Tibor Gulfstream. Line was a Rio Flats Pro Stealth. This line has 6 feet of slow sink. I fished a take no prisioners approach. A short 70lb leader, straight to the fly. Fly of choice was a ghost fly. Time to land one of these things and worry about class tippets later.
Well, half way through the trip, that meter long fish finally came along. There were a couple of nervous moments. The fly line somehow looped around my ring finger. Could have very easily resulted in losing a finger. Luckily, I managed to flick the line off my finger before the fish took off. I did however end up with a knot in the line going through the guides. Thankfully, it managed to clear the guides, and we managed to pick the knot out of the line half way through the fight.
This fish was in water shallower than it was thick. It was swimming sideways at certain times. We were worried as the electric was bumping along the bottom, and fish would spook from the disturbance. The GT absolutely charged the fly and didn’t hesitate to eat. Because it was so shallow, it thrashed the water into foam after the hit, but couldn’t get any traction. Looked like someone had just dropped a bomb in the water. With all the thrashing, the GT pretty much wore itself out. Didn’t even get to backing. I took the fight reasonably softly. Just wanted to make sure that I landed my first big GT. There might have been a holler or two of joy. This fish measured exactly 1 meter.
Well, the monkey was finally off my back. Like the east coast of Australia, when the drought breaks, it buckets down. A group of us were back up in Exmouth over Christmas, a couple of months later. I was back fishing with Steve. Day one of the trip, and the weather was perfect. Low winds, cloud cover was light. Where to go. Well, straight back to the GT flat of course. Result was fish number 2 at 1.08 meters. Again, this fish was in shallow water. Take was the same and this fish took a little more line.
Fish number 3 was a New Year’s Day present. We headed to Murion Island, as weather forecast said conditions were favourable. Well, it turned out a tad lumpy. Arnold and Eric picked one island, and Steve and I fish the other. The area that we fished regularly in the past was quiet. We continued further along into some areas that we had not fished much in the past. Maybe the tide turned, or for whatever reason, we started seeing fish. Schools of permit, spangled emperor, meter long queenfish, then came along the GT’s. At this stage, we had permit flies in hand. Didn’t take long to change out to the GT rods. We had a pod of 4 GT’s come streaming within casting range. I got a lucky cast into the right spot, and it was fish on. This one taped out at 1.07m. This was a smaller fish, however, this one had more water to play with, fresh oceanic flow water, and a minefield of bommies. Boy did it go hard. A little bit of careful driving, and fighting tough saw the fish in the net.
Note. Murphy’s law. Two of the three 1 meter + GT’s, I would have landed on 10kg IGFA class leader. Low tide, open shallow flats, with no structure as far as the eye can see. For me, the next challenge is to land that meter plus GT on 10kg tippet.
There’s quite a few guys that have landed some great GT’s. Post your pic up here and add to the story.