Andaman Islands...

[MuskieBait]

I thought I would make it relatively short and sweet...but since you mentioned...

We got to the spot and started jigging at about 9am. With the smaller boat size and fast running fish, the 14 anglers were divided into 2 groups. Each rotation would have 7 guys jigging at a time for a drift. On the 4th drift (2nd rotation), I hooked into a big fish. At the time, the fish kept taking line and I couldn't gain much. After 5 minutes, people started to gather around and some commented that it was just a small fish. They said I'm just a small guy and too weak to whip the fish up quickly.

Another 10 minutes later, I was exhausted and slowed down on my pumping and reeling. So the captain of the boat came to fight the fish for me. He lasted maybe 10 minutes, tired and had to pass the do to another person. This was after I had already taken the blunt of the first and second run the fish made and gained back some line in the initial 15 minutes. Then other two guys spent about 5 minutes each on the fish but both tired out after 5 minutes.

I really want to beat this fish and finish the fight so I went back on the rod and fought it up to the boat after another 5 minutes. Total fight time on this fish was 30 minutes between the 4 of us.

We brought up a 5' Bronze Whaler Shark from 130m of water. The hook line cut right at the surface...and I only got a picture of the shark swimming back to the depths by the time I had the camera ready.



We went back to drifting and jigging. After the 4th rotation, some guys were too tired to jig anymore. Rods were available to use so I took one of the rods to the front of the boat and kept jigging. Another 2 drifts later, I finally hooked and landed the samsonfish at about 1pm. I remember the boat was serving lunch at around noon during the 5th rotation. I didn't want to have my lunch at the time because I wanted to keep jigging.

After releasing the samsonfish, I had my lunch and called it a day. I could have kept jigging after the lunch break, but I wanted to let the other guys have their chance at a fish. The more lines in the water, the less each line has a chance to get hit.

After I landed the fish, the captain said "Well, the smallest guy on the boat landed the biggest fish of the day!" After that, no one made a comment about my physical weakness.

Not trying to brag, but this day of fishing came just 2 days AFTER these catches on a full day of fishing at a Thailand fishing venue. All the following fish were caught on the same day.









I may be small...but I'm not even remotely close to being weak when it comes to pulling up big catches.