Cosmoledo Atoll - Return to the Land of Giants

When I managed to get to Cosmoledo in November 2014 I thought that it was a tick off the bucket list trip. Unfortunately it was more a "scratch the itch" that just got worse and worse, so I have been trying to get back there ever since for another round of GT battles. The planets aligned in March this year and I managed to book a return trip.

Setup was the same as last time, the flight from Mahe to Alphonse and then on to Assumption, where we jumped onto the Maya's Dugong for the overnight crossing to Cosmoledo. On board for the week were 3 South Africans, 6 Americans and 2 Aussies and a frenchwoman. The plan was to fish Cosmoledo for 6 days, as there is now a small lodge on Astove so the boat doesn't head over there for one day. I fished with 2 American dentists (Rod and Pete) and our guides for the week were Cameron Musgrave, Joaquin Arocena, David Marshall and Scot De Bruyn, all Seychelles veterans.

The weather wasn't as glam as when I last went, which very much limited the fishing outside the atoll, but the reason you go to Cosmo is to catch GTs on the flats and around the islands wading, and that's what we did. Tides for the week were leading into neaps, with high tide around midday the first day and progressively later, not ideal as it's better to have a good push earlier in the morning, but the fish were still there, and in numbers.

I spent the vast majority of the time wading on my own either near the boat with the 2 dentists on board, or much further out - I had a couple of sessions where I walked a flat or a surfline quite a distance away from the boat and the guide, spotting, casting to and landing the GTs on my own, and I absolutely loved it. Cosmo is really quite unique with the number of GTs that cruise the flats, and the general rule of thumb was to wade in knee to mid thigh deep water as that is where the GTs like to cruise.

All up I landed 34 GTs up to just over 90cm, I hooked two big fish over a metre (anything over a metre is classed a trophy), one bricked me in the coral when it made a dash for a gap between two small islands, another spat the hook. All up I had shots at 6 fish that were over a metre, with 2 of those fish in the 120cm+ class. The vast majority of the fish were on the flats, spotted and cast to, and the takes were all insane. We found plenty of fish on rays which is also what Cosmo is well known for, and lurking along the edges of the rocky islands, holding up in eddies and waiting to kill something.

I also finally managed to land some triggers, they like to hang in very calm water behind the surf and are very spooky, but every now and then one stuck, and I was rewarded with a Flats Slam one of the days which is a GT, a bonefish and a trigger. We caught lots of bones too, the average size was around the 4lb mark and they all fought hard, plus assorted other beasties. The after dinner sessions from the back of the boat were epic, with big GTs and bigeyes crushing our flies. One exciting moment was having a 10lb bigeye swallowed by a 100lb GT right at the transom, hell of an upgrade. The big GT finally spat out the dead shredded bigeye but still lurked at the back. I must have caught another dozen or so GTs from the back of the boat.

Stats for the week were 172 GTs, the biggest a 123cm, 108cm and a 107cm. There were 7 triggers caught and a lovely permit too.

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking:

Last but not least, a couple of comments on tackle and setups:

• 9 weight for the bones and the triggers (Orvis Helios 2) with an Abel Super 9 and a WF9F line. 20lb tippet for the bones, 30lb for the triggers as they still eat with 30lb but you can horse them more.
• 10 weight for the milkies that didn't get used as we didn't find any as it was too blowy.
• 11 weight X12/Abel S11/12N with Rio GT line for the GTs. 120lb Sufix Zippy mono as leader, about a rod's length.
• 12 weight Xi2/Mako 9550 with Rio GT line for the GTs - this was my preferred outfit, the Mako is the best GT reel IMO as you can go to full lockup with 1 turn, plus it's sealed so you can toss the outfit into the water when you need to land the fish. 120lb Sufix Zippy mono as leader, about a rod's length.
• 13 weight Xi2/Pacific for dredging - I managed to lose 3 shooting heads from the back of the boat on unstoppables, found an old Rio Deepsea that held up better and I started landing GTs at night.

No welded loops on the front of the GT lines, replaced with braided loops and no failures. Perfection loop on one end, perfection loop or 2 turn Lefty's on the other - no failures and I had to grab a wrap a few times. KISS is the way to go.

Flies were my usual Duck on a Hook flies, on 8/0 SL12S with crushed barbs, in black or tan. Tan worked better on the sandy flats, black around the islands, but refusals were rare - you need to lead the GTs by a fair bit, their vision is so good they would charge the fly from a fair distance and smash it. We found quite a few GTs on rays, they needed a cast 5m in front and then it was on like Donkey Kong!