St Brandon Blog: 16 – 26 April 2024

Our third week of the season saw us welcome our good friends from Austria for another back to back, 14 day fishing experience on St Brandon’s. The week started off with a lot of rain and high winds, making the fishing conditions a bit tough to start off with. however This did not deter the anglers as spirits were high and they were all looking forward to finding good numbers of bonefish, Indo-Pacific Permit and any trevally species the Atoll has to offer. This week saw us fishing the back end of the neaps as they head into spring tides. This meant the bulk of the fishing would be taking place around island flats and high spots moving back to the shallow areas later in the week.

The conditions meant that the bonefish were a bit shy during the first couple of days with the high winds and rain also making it tough to both see and present to fish. As soon as the weather cleared a bit and the wind calmed down we started seeing the fish doing their thing around the flats and the islands. The week saw a lot of the bone fishing happening in knee to mid thigh depth with the odd fish seen tailing in shallower water around higher lying areas. There were multiple Bones caught ranging between 5 lb – 7lb with the biggest fish caught the week by Michael weighing in at 8lb on the dot.

The higher water during the middle parts of the day meant that the islands, coral ridges and high lying flats and sand bars fished well for permit. As the light improved it made it somewhat easier to spot the fish, but the permit proved to stay step ahead of the anglers, proving to be very technical. There were many good casts made at happy fish but the guests could not convert as many as they would have liked. On the third day of the week however, Alex connected with a stunning Permit of 5lb during his afternoon session.

With the increase of water movement due to the stronger spring tide, there were more trevally species seen hunting around the coral ridges and islands. There were multiple Bluefin caught ranging from 40cm-70cm in length.This week also saw our first golden trevally landed for the season with Alex landing a strong 6lb fish. A few big GT’s were spotted around the atoll during the week and Klaus made the most of his opportunity, landing a 74cm GT on one of the western sand spits.

As this group’s first week draws to an end it sees the tides moving from springs into neaps. This will definitely excite the anglers because going forward we will have more time wading the flats in ankle deep water looking for tailing bones. The water temps were good throughout the week with all the rain and wind cooling down the flats. If the cold water sticks around we can expect an action packed week to come.

Our catch tally for the week: