Breakfast was at 6 a.m. and at 7 o’clock we all boarded a catamaran which took us over to St. Francois, the crossing taking about 45 minutes. This island is blessed with flats containing schools of up to several hundred bonefish. We began our first day targeting these bones and by an hour and three quarters we had all caught 20 bonefish each – what a start.

To make sure things didn’t get “boring” we then steamed out to outer reef on our skiff for some GT fishing. We tried our luck with numerous blind casts along the underwater structures and the reef itself using so-called popper flies. Then two GTs appeared from nowhere, the first a “smaller” specimen” about 110 cm long and then a genuine trophy fish of about 130 cm in length, and they both went straight for the lure. The big GT literally inhaled the popper and took off at high speed into deeper water – hook-up! After a couple of runs it gradually began to tire and came slowly but surely to the boat. Everything was going very well indeed. Our guide was getting prepared to bring the fish on board when the moment came which all of us anglers fear. The line was tight and the fish about 10 meters under the boat when we lost contact. At first we thought the 100 lb. leader or the fly line had snapped. But no, everything was retrieved intact, including the popper – the hook had pulled…

Nobody had made a mistake and after a long discussion we came to the conclusion that the “smaller” GT that had been following the action for the whole time also tried to take the popper fly which led to the hook pulling. This is only a guess but our guides said it had happened before – bad luck and particularly annoying with a trophy fish. None of us is ever likely to forget that strike.