The GT Tale !!!

[Nesim]

Hi Every one, here is a trip report of our last trip last weekend written by my brother Nadim, and posted on a free dive site: Sit back and ENJOY !!!!!!

Hi buddies. Sorry for being so inactive with the web site, I hope that will change from now on. I was scrolling through the list and the mails, and there was something like please send in your pics and stories because its been a period of silence, so I thought ill do my duties and give you guys something to keep you busy for a while, + my story is so damn long, I think it will make up for lost time. I hope you enjoy it, and if you guys want I can also post the story and pics of some of my other trips as well.

This is a pic of the GT I shot on my last diving trip to Musandam. 19-3-05

The day started off at 5:30 am, that’s when we woke up and got everything on the boat that is parked outside the house, and made a move at 6:00 am. The house is in Dubai, so we towed the boat 155 km to the east coast, Diba, which is on the boarders of Oman and UAE. We got there at 7:50 am, we had a look at the fish auction that takes place by the local fishermen, some nice fish, nothing extraordinary, at least there were a few king fish caught and that gets my hopes up on finding another one like the one I saw 2 weeks before (it was 1.8 m and my shaft never penetrated the fish and I lost it) we got everything ready on the boat, launch it and started heading for our first stop which was 90 km North up the coast. Keep in mind that the boat is a 15ft inflatable boat with an 115hp, so no luxury or comfort on these trips. We spent some time looking at the scenery, as this was the first time we ever drive this far up the coast, and looked for beaches we can camp on for our next trip, by now it was 10:30 and we still didn’t even have our wet suits on.

We finally put a plan together and decided which spots to hit, we saw many isolated islands ahead of us, but 6 of them were still another 12 - 18 km away, and planed to hit them on our camping trip to give us a full day of exploring. We started diving in shallow water in search of squid, our captain for the day wanted to fish from the boat as we dove and he had no bait. My brother and I tried to get some before the real action started. No luck with squid, just a few fish including emperor snappers, trevallies, permit, and a nice 8 kg grouper which are uncommon to this area, we saw a couple of reef sharks as well. We decided to go to our first spot which is a small island 1 km away.

The current moving on the side of the island was about 10-12 kph, the out going tide was strong enough to cause waves on a perfectly flat day. Just before jumping in, we saw a school of fish about 150 meters away work some bait on the surface, I’m still not sure what they were, it lasted for 10 seconds, and the fish were huge, we could see part of them out as they attacked the bait, I think they were yellow fin tuna, and must of been from 60 -100 kg, the splashes formed were at least 2 meters high, they disappeared before we could even think of diving among them, so went ahead with our plans, the adrenalin factor was boosted up by now. We jumped in the protected area, and my brother tells me GT's all over the place, I follow him down and see only small fish, water temp is 22 degrees and Viz is a green 5-6 meters... he lets me know that there was one GT that was very big, and he never got close enough for a good shot. The next 40 min go by with us looking for that one fish, I had another GT about 15 kg pass in front of my shaft, but I already landed one that maxed out my 25 kg scale 2 weeks ago, and found no satisfaction in 15kg, instead I shot a 3kg emperor snapper on that dive, at least for its species it was a nice specimen of a fully grown adult...

We landed a few nice fish in that spot, and lost hope of the big one coming back, decided to swim to the edge of the island and let the current move us into deep water where we would get picked up by the boat and taken to the next spot. I don’t like diving in murky water especially in conditions where you have no idea what’s under you, I mean on every dive we see 1.5 meter barracudas, big bat fish, trevally's snappers etc. and in my mind there has to be something big enough to eat them, and if it can eat a 1.5 meter fish, I’m sure it can do damage on a 1.8 meter diver... so as on this day I only follow my brother as he goes down. Now we are drifting like crazy, its about 20 meters to the bottom and we are on the edge of the drop that goes down to 45m, I’m swimming down looking at my brother, I look to my right and there I see it, its come back for another look, it feels comfortable as there isn’t much difference in size between me and it, and decides to keep about 4-5 meters distance between us, I gently swing my 160 cm gun in its direction and extend my arm, now its only 2 meters from the tip of my shaft and gives me the opportunity I’ve been waiting for, I squeeze the trigger, and see the shaft hit where I aimed, perfect shot!!! It takes about 1 meter of line out of the real and stops swimming, it’s out of sight at this point, and I know I had a big smile on my face as I though I stoned it and it is guaranteed to make it onto the boat, I started swimming up, and within 5 seconds the fish woke up !?!?! Unlike big fish that I have shot in the past, this one always swam in one direction, and it was straight for the bottom, GT’s are known to destroy dive gear and break shafts as they are extremely strong swimmers and do also swim in to caves as well, so now I had the job of making sure I didn’t give it enough line to make it to the bottom, in my head I knew that we were on the edge of the drop off and that I couldn’t give it any more than 30 meters of line, or else I would lose it, I was very lucky to have my brother close by, he uses a float line and knew I had shot a big GT, he immediately attached his float line to my gun, and that’s when I tightened my real and locked it, and that’s also when I got dragged down, I look back to see if my brother was around, and I saw him holding on to the handle of my gun, and he was also being pulled down as well, I could see the smile on his face even though he had a snorkel in his mouth,,, the adrenalin was pumping big time in both of us,,, I managed to make it up with the gun, but would get pulled down many times again,,, about 5 min into the battle I started to get exhausted, I’ve been kicking upwards this whole time and every time I wanted to take a mini break I got pulled under, my brother was trying to make it down to the fish to place a second shot, but it was too deep. At one point it got me by surprise, it took off with brutal force and ripped the gun out of my hand, lucky I had the bungee line and grabbed that or else I would of lost everything. I worked my way back to the gun, and again made it to the surface, by this point we had drifted more than a 100 meters away, and I started remembering my Florida trips, and every time I fought a fish for so long how it would end up being a meal for a shark or a Jew fish, I started to worry, 10 min had passed and we were still having a tug of war with the fish usually getting the upper hand,,, about 12 min into it, the fish eased off, and I started gaining some line, and all of a sudden it got much easier, I started to worry, this is a GT after all, and they are not known to give up a fight, I had pulled up more than 10 meters of line in one go, I asked Nasim to go down and see if he could reach it at this point, and down he went, about 30 sec’s later he came up, gun was unloaded and the line was pointing in the same direction as mine, he smiled and said its over,,, I was happy, but still wondering about the size of the fish, I had only seen it for 5 seconds in bad viz, I guess I was ready to have another L@@K, and pay my respects to such an amazingly powerful fish, I pull up the next 15 meters of line and as it came up it started to float on its Owen, the fish came up right beside me motionless, the second shaft was placed 2 cm above mine where the gill plate ends, looks like that’s where a shot should be placed from now on, even though I didn’t stone it, my shot defiantly took allot out of the fish, and never really gave it the chance to get its head in the direction it wanted to go in, making it possible to save my line from getting cut on the rocks...

[Nesim]

The boat was next to us and the captain once again looked amazed, (this is the third time he captains for me and on the first trip I pull out a 40.5kg grouper, 2 weeks ago I get the 27-30kg GT and now this monster). We got on to the boat and put our gear back together, before starting a photo session. I looked at the fish and looked back at my brother who was staring at me and the fish as well, at this point we were both wondering if I broke his record that he set 5 years ago with a GT that weighed 42kg (note: he landed that fish using a Cressi Sub 90 cm gun with one 20 mm band and a 6.5 mm shaft with NO real or bungee line in about 15 meters of water, he was lucky to get a stone shot in the head with the flopper not even making it into the fish). At that point I felt like I’ve got it. I am so soar in my legs and shoulders that there is no way this fish can be less than 40, I decided to pick it up for the photo shoot and wow, it feels even heavier than my 40.5 kg grouper, my aching body doesn’t help the situation neither does my bad back, but I proceed with the photos, this is after all a dream fish, and pictures last forever. For the first time in many years I end up taking pictures with my brother, it’s been a while since we’ve helped one another with a fish, and feel like his efforts helped make the battle shorter and guaranteed. We lost half an hour with the pics, and moved on to our next spot, I didn’t feel like diving much any more, I was very tiered, but Nasim was ready for a come back. He finally decides to use his wooden gun, it’s a 130 cm with 4 16mm bands, we had lots of problems with that gun, even snapping the handle off after shooting it with 3 18mm bands, but now with some modifications a new handle and a set of wings it appears to be great, it shoots accurately, and with a range of 8 meters it’s a CANON.

I got in the water for 2 reasons, one is to be a buddy for my brother, and two, I still had the thoughts of landing a huge king fish. The next few hours went by with no monsters showing up, and we spent the last hour of the day looking for a sandy beach to camp on and wonder what the other 6 islands, 1 wreck and 1 underwater pinnacle hold in store for us. Finally we mark one beach on the GPS as it looked to be a good enough camping spot, at this point we have just over 100 km to make it back to the boat ramp, and also a long drive home. We are both fulfilled with the way the day turned out, a big king fish would of been nice, but no complaints this time, we found a new respect for GT’s and are fortunate enough to experience such brutal force and power, and end up with very memorable moments…

[Nesim]

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[Nesim]

And the grouper mentioned in the story !!!

[Huan]

Great story , shouldn't it be GT Tail?

[Murat]

superb story and beautiful fishes

[takeshi]

Nice catch, impressive. Seems like a nice place you were at.

[miles]

Hiya

AWESOME fish!!!

Those GT's are real brutes, destroying most spears easily!!!

Keep the reports coming!!!!

Regards
miles

[Amphibious]

oh my that is one helluva fish!!!!

if I'm in KSA this summer (most likely) we should really hook-up for a dive

[Nesim]

Any time mate!!! just give me a ring when you are down here!!!
and that goes to all the deeper blue members as well..... :-)

[ivan]

hi

Far out mate thats a monster Gt

cheers

[Memo]

AWESOME!!! and wonderfull story! congratualtions Nesim!

[Jay S]

man that is one big fish congrats bro

[czspearfisher]

awesome fish!! truly a trophy so what whas the final weight?

[Oldsarge]

Damn! With Sara, Gavin and my safari friend Saeed all living in Dubai, you've just given me another reason for being in the Gulf. I'm simply going to have to figure out a way to get there when it isn't so deadly hot.