Sunday, December 19, 2010

Musandam, Oman Dec 2010

Musandam have always been a special place for me ever since I set foot on this place.
From the cliffs that meet the sea to the smugglers that are running along the coast,
I have to say that this place have a charm of its own,
Despite the good size GTs and the challenge that the terrain offers, I consider Musandam my holy city when it comes to GT fishing.
This is my 3rd trip to Musandam in 4 years.
The plan was to fish with Wahib and David as I had fished with them on my first trip to Musandam and since that time we became very close friends and mates,
Unfortunately David gets stuck in London with his plane due to a snow storm that hit Europe, so it ended up just Wahib and me,
Nick from Ocean Active picked me up to join Wahib for a quick bite and off to Musandam we went.
We fished for 3 days with rough conditions as the water temperature dropped and the water turned more greenish.
We managed to hook nice size fish but luck was not on our side,
Wahib landed a nice fish estimated between 38kg to 40kg according to the chart, he had the fish in less then 5 minutes and everybody thought it was a shark until it start moving the boat,
That was the highlight of the trip and the biggest fish landed on the first day, that was his biggest GT ever and what made him happy is, he caught it on his new Smith Komodo Dragon rod.
Unfortunately the lion jaw *a particular spot in the area* did not produce the same quality like before but we still jigged a couple of fishes here and there,
Our second day was really slow with 5 hits with no hook up, I was using barbless hook for the entire trip while targeting GT and that made me think for a second to change to barbed hooks but I kept on pushing my luck and I end up paying the price!
On our 3rd and last day Nick was pushing as fast as he could to catch the right tide, made it to the fishing ground as early as possible and it took less then 10 minutes to see Wahib getting smoked,
He landed an estimated 25kg GT followed by myself with 3 hook ups and 0 landed, the first hit was a black GT that literally cleared half of his body out of the water but unfortunately turn unbutton and so did the 2nd and the 3rd hit, we saw colors on my last fish to come unbutton 10 feet away from the boat,
We moved to a different area and Nick point to us where to cast,
It took Wahib 1 cast on his Orion Crazy Dog to disappear between the rocks with a singing reel; the GT fought like a beast and reefed Wahib.
Out of no where the long fin tuna start busting and we decided to give it a try, I cast my Moutoukenmaru only to see it going airborne with a missile attached to it,
The kingfish manage to leave a nice mark on the lure after catching our eyes with its spectacular aerial display.
To summarize the trip we had a great time and as always the service and effort that the guys from Ocean Active provided us is second to none,
I would like to thank Nick and Captain Keagan for the hospitality that they showered on us,
We will be back!
Tackle used
Rod: Smith komodo dragon
Race Point
Carpenter WV & SP78H-SHP
Sevenseas Big Pop
MC-Works
Hots
Lures: Craft bait, Hammerhead, Moutoukenmaru, Orion
Line: Jerry Brown, Sunline, Varivas
Tight lines
 Sami