February 26th 2011 - GTs gone quiet but a very good Amberjack

18-20kg Amberjack - a very good fish for Bali

The GT action had died right down in the middle of the moon cycle and it was clearly a weekend for jigging and not top water fishing. Star fish of the weekend was an 18-20 kg Amberjack landed by my friend Ben. Amberjacks bigger than the 12-15 kg range are very notable in Bali these days. Excellent job done by Ben with custom Calstar rod, Stella SW20000 and pink LJ 520 gram jig. Immediately before this fish was landed we had a bust off and a big miss with similarly large

fish, so we had certainly found a strike zone. Notably all the strikes were on Taiwanese LJ jigs which are designed for Amberjack and other seriolas. Unfortunately, after this fish was landed the current picked up a lot and we were unable to reach the fish with any precision.

The other good jigged fish was a 9kg Ruby Snapper caught by myself using a Smith AMJ 52EXS paired with

a Stella SW20000 and a 500 gram pink Ton Hui Bali jig.  The Batu Abah waters are full of Ruby Snappers but they have not been easy so far this season - perhaps that is now changing.

We tried everything on the casting front from 200 gram chuggers to 100 gram sinking sticks and not a single strike from a GT. It just was not happening. The only fish from our popping exploits was a real surprise

- a little 4 kg YellowFin Tuna which took a 150 gram Craftbait GT3 close in to the rocks at Batu Abah.

An attempt to jig a usually excellent Amberjack spot on the way home well to the south was fruitless as 500 gram jigs were flying away horizontally. I am not sure that even 1 kg lumps of lead would have made any difference!