It is a privilege for me to announce that one of the very big GT’s landed on the Socotra Island archipelago trip in October 2014 was caught on a fly from the shore. In my previous post I mentioned that there were opportunities to catch very large GT’s (30 – 60 kg) and bonefish (9 kg and larger) from the beaches in the Socotra Island archipelago. Not long after I left the Yemen, Hilary Robinson proved my point after he landed a 132 cm/46 kg GT on a semper fly (a dream-catch for me) from the rocky outcrops of one of the islands we fished. It was the same island where I had come into close contact with enormous bonefish that made an 8 kg king mackerel look like an average catch.

The bones were on the sandy stretches of the island and gave chase to Tailer’s Delight flies and small chartreuse and white Clouser minnows. Smaller bonefish, just over 4 kg in weight, were committed to eating the flies; the larger specimens I saw followed my fly offerings aggressively, but turned away at a rod-length distance from my feet.

Although we spotted numerous large GT’s from the beaches, strangely these fish were not interested in our flies. Edward Truter also mentioned that several outings to the same beaches with spinning tackle turned out fruitless and the large GT’s spotted along the sandy stretches seemed more docile and not interested in feeding. Similarly, large bluefin kingfish that were spotted from the sandy shores were very skittish and rushed in the opposite direction of a fly, rather than coming to the fly and eating it.

The mood of the kingfishes along the steep rocky shores was very different and both bluefin and GT’s actively hunted in these areas and ate lures and flies. Numerous large bluefin kingfish and large GT’s were landed from the rocky dropoffs on lure and fly, including Hilary’s GT of 132 cm. This may likely be the largest GT taken from the shore by a fly angler.