St Brandon Blog: 14 – 24 May 2024

Our 7th week of the season is here and we greet our new guests arriving from Zimbabwe and Germany with Terry entering his second of three weeks with us. The week started off with very high winds blowing out of the south east accompanied with heavy rain. The tidal cycle moves from neaps into springs as we expect to spend more time around the islands, ridges and higher lying areas.

The Bonefishing proved to be slightly tougher than the previous week, with not as many fish seen on the flats and more fish schooled up in the deeper sections. The rough, choppy weather due to the high winds resulted in the Bones being a bit more spooky and reluctant to move up into shallower water making it challenging for the anglers to get close to them to make a good presentation. This did not deter the guests however as they made the best of the conditions still landing some good fish throughout the week. The average Bonefish landed for the week was between 5lb and 7lb with some fish reaching the 8lb mark.

The wild conditions also had an impact on our Permit fishing. There were fish seen around the islands and ridges as we moved into the spring tides but they were on high alert and were acting similar to the bonefish often staying just out of reach. As the week proceeded and the weather improved there were more opportunities to cast at happy, tailing fish. Some guests did have a couple of great shots at fish resulting in follows and even the odd eat from a Permit but unfortunately there were no conversions.

The GT and Bluefin fishing was again tough this week with only a couple of trevallies seen around the Atoll. The fish that were seen during the week were big but unfortunately the opportunities to make a good presentation to them were very few and far between. Even though the fishing was tough for the GT’s and Bluefin it is still exciting to watch as they crash into baitfish and terrorise the bonefish schools on the flats.

The conditions this week proved to be very challenging due to the unsettled weather. On a positive note this has kept the flats cool and once the weather settles down a bit we expect the fish to be hungry and moving back up onto the flats,ridges and around the islands. The prevailing south easter is in full swing as is standard for this time of year increasing the chances of finding some larger bonefish. Let’s see what’s to come…

Our catch tally for the week: