I have just come back from the Andaman and I must say that it has been a very surprising trip. I knew that Akshay and Darran had been working hard on the jigging side, but until I could figure out myself I didn’t know what to really expect.
I must admit that the results have been quite spectacular, not only in term of fish landed or size, but in the map that these two guys have been able to design in the last two years. During our week we fished areas that are probably untouched as far as jigging is concerned, and the long trip to Invisible Bank, once the Mecca for the vertical style, is no longer necessary.
In fact we visited the Bank on a beautiful day, blessed with a flat calm sea and fast run, and we landed a massive amount of fish. Thus, the majority was GT and apart from one decent animal, most of them were medium to small size. It was also more difficult to find the right places, the area is indeed very big and scouting the places is not something that can be done on a daily basis, and we hopped on the biggest school of fish by chance, moving from one place to another.
So the right places are not too far away from the dock, well at least as far as Andaman is concerned, and the marks on the plotter are growing by the day. We landed a very interesting variety of fish, from GT to Doggies, Snappers, Ajs, you name it. And the funny thing is that in certain areas you can have two guys tossing poppers and one jigging and they all will catch fish.
I have to say bravo to my Indian friends, they worked hard to develop a brand new fishery, and it will sure payback in then future giving more opportunities to their costumers. Check their web at:
Game Fishing India
Check this other photo, a wrecked house in Port Blair again. I took it from the van while driving around the city, and edited in duotone because it looked better to me. Things like this are all over the place, on every corner, some are fully colored some are grey and dusty. I'll be back to the Andaman in one month, and I wonder what i will shoot this time. I'm a tad shy to steal people's images but I will probably make good use of the 70-200 to do a bit of portraiture
During my last trip to the Andamans I met this young talented Indian photojournalist named Ryan Lobo. He was there to shoot a week of fishing in a different way, far different from what people like myself, who do this for specialist fishing mags, do. 
The images he took of myself with the Yellowfin Tuna where so radical that he said to me: " I don't think you will have these photos featured in a specialist magazine." In fact, the director of an Italian monthly confirmed that:"Nicola, I'm a photographer myself and I love these shots but I don't think our audience will understand them." Thus, I have learnt from Ryan many things: how to use the foreground, how to be more creative and escape the rules, how to zoom the flash, how to blur. Blur is cool :-) 
