Fishing Where Few Have Been Before … Part 1

Yacht ‘Sarah’, owned by Craig Garratt, had come from Pemba back to Vilanculos to do a very interesting charter to Bassas da India with a film crew doing a documentary on the wreck of the Santiago. When Craig contacted me and said he was sailing back to Pemba to do some charter work on Lazarus Banks and had a few extra days to possibly do a bit of scouting around and fishing on the way up, it was an opportunity too good to be missed! Craig had also invited some friends from Vilanculos who are very able seamen and fanatical anglers. Morgan O’Kennedy hails from the Western Cape and runs Ocean Blue, a company that houses and maintains boats and runs charters from the Vilanculos area, and Duarte Rato is a well-known big-game charter operator in and around Bazaruto. The team that we put together for this trip was Craig, our skipper, his trusty chef/deckhand Paulo (who cooks the most amazing peri-peri chicken), our cameraman Dustin Weber, Morgan, Duarte, my youngest son, Blayne, and I. This was to be Blayne’s first extended trip to sea on a yacht and no doubt an experience that he would never forget. Bazaruto to Pantaloon route. Part 1: The Beginning A lot of research later and the prospects were looking a little daunting as I started to realise exactly how critically important the weather would be. The only people who I could find that had been to some of the places that we were looking to go to was Craig Thommassen of Inside Angling fame, Duarte and Roy Skea from Jigstar Africa, who had also spent considerable time at the second island in the Primeiras group (Portuguese for “primary”), called Fogo. All three of these guys spoke of un-believable fishing. Sailing from Vilanculos to Pemba is pretty much like sailing from Durban to Cape Town; at least a six-day trip in adverse conditions and a four-day trip in good conditions. We suspected that some really good fishing was to be had from the Pantaloon Shoal northwards as this area has hardly ever been fished purely because of its remoteness. After that, you get to the beginning of the five islands that make up the Primeiras. Then there is a bit of a gap before you get to the Segundas (Portuguese for “secondary”). As one proceeds northward, their proximity to shore gets closer and therefore the effect of human presence was probably going to be more noticeable. Further north of that we had very little knowledge and could not gather much at all. We flew into Vilanculos and were met at the airport by a very excited Duarte. We stopped off for some last-minute provisions on the way down to Morgan’s spot where we met Craig and then boarded the yacht. Craig meanwhile had been very patiently waiting for an inspector from the Mozambique government to give his yacht the all clear. After a very frustrating and long morning, we eventually set sail at around midday. Craig set a course to cut across the huge bay, extending northward past Beira and made our first stop when we hit Pantaloon One, about 260 nautical miles north of Bazaruto. The sea was a little on the rough side and we were constantly on the alert for shipping, especially during the night. We sailed the whole of the next day and night in pretty bumpy and unpleasant conditions, which made the tackling up a lot more difficult. There was some serious banter about “Team Mozambique” giving “Team Durban” a hiding on everything from billfish to the dropshot species. Team Mozambique were even more excited when they heard we didn’t have a single soft plastic or dropshot with us, due in part to the airline weight limitations. We, in turn, were eagerly anticipating the many billfish that were going to be landed by team Mozambique. The morning of day four saw some bleary-eyed, frantic preparation of teasers, konas and all sorts of other fish-attracting lures to brighten up the day as we were getting closer to our destination. The first hint of problems came when Morgan opened his bait box. It had some of us running to the side of the boat, not from seasickness, but simply from the overpowering smell of the obviously ripe bait! Morgan proceeded to not so confidently inform us that it shouldn’t be a problem. Somehow he managed to rig the decomposing halfbeaks as skipbaits. He then went through a very thorough demonstration on pitching skipbaits at billfish that were going to be raised by the teasers. The fact that the water was fairly green did not bode well for the billfish angling but we left the teasers to do their job. There was a mad scramble when the ratchet on a teaser rig let out the alert and a sailie’s beak could be seen tantalisingly close behind the teaser. After a small burst of confusion Morgan got into his stride and did exactly as preached. Sure enough, with his rod pointing straight at the quarry and his fingers gently controlling the lever drag, he let the fish take the bait and run to his prescribed count whereupon he slowly tightened up the lever drag to set the circle hook in the corner of the fish’s mouth. It was at this point I think that the sailfish might have sniffed or taken a taste of the bait. Morgan, I am sure, felt the fish spit it out. The look on his face told the whole story. The first fish of the trip – gone! A lot of banter, a lot of debate, more theory about hooks, timing and so on and the boat was readied for the next billfish episode. There is a saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result – I won’t mention it, but the above happened seven times! You can imagine the comments, shrieks and banter that greeted the seventh occasion! I think this is when Morgan gave up. It was interesting to note that nobody else wanted to touch the rod either! Tuna on GT Ice Cream. By now it was very late in the morning, our gear and kit were all ready and we could not wait to hit the first bits of reef at Pantaloon One. All of a sudden there was a mad shriek from the teaser rod. The one trolling stick with a big Rapala X-Rap went tight and screamed off and there were tuna busting up all over the teasers. I had been waiting for an opportunity to throw the brand-new 1½ oz GT Ice Creams on a spinning rod that we had just developed and by the time I got this lot into my hands the busting was over. Blayne had grabbed the rod that was tight and it looked like I had missed the boat. I took a guess as to where I thought the shoal might be and let go in that direction. Halfway back a yellowfin smashed the plug and both of us were tight. Once we had landed the fish and made sure we had some sashimi for lunch and dinner we pushed on. Even sharks ate the Candy. The author and his son Blayne with rockcod. The next time we saw fish busting it was big bonnies and, sure enough, they fell for the Ice Cream instantly. After that we ignored anything that did not look very exciting and pushed on to Pantaloon. Blayne Wareham with his second decent GT. At last there it was on the finder – the reef in all its glory, showing fish all over. For Blayne, this was like heaven. He had never experienced what happened the rest of that afternoon - almost every down was an on. Team Durban were using Iron Candies, rigged as vertical jigs, with a squid skirt pulled over the jig assist hook. It was absolute mayhem! Team Mozambique had frontrow seats at the movies as dropshot was no match for the Candy jigs. However, Morgan managed to sneak a dropshot speckled snapper, Duarte some kingies and then he went onto the big stuff, using a big Williamson Cup-head Popper. He got a really good couta and a little bit later, got a big klap from a serious GT. The species list looked something like this: lots of bluefin kingies, GTs, barracuda, couta, giant garfish, swallowtail rockcod, humpback snapper, emperor snapper, speckled snapper, Bohar snapper and five other rockcod species, two of which we couldn’t identify. Duarte with his couta. Iron Candy jig. Another species caught that really blew my socks off, bearing in mind we were 35 nautical miles from land straight out to sea, was Natal snoek (queen mackerel) and as if to reinforce this, both the single- and doublespotted needle-scaled queenfish and huge torpedo scads. All four of these fish do tend to hang together, so finding one always means the other will be in close proximity. Blayne was having a wonderful time and on the relatively light jigging tackle managed to get a rockcod that must have been well over 30 kg. Rockcod. We had had not seen a whale until we got to Pantaloon One. I don’t know what it is that attracts them to this area, but I have never seen as many whales as we saw that day, and over the next few days there were even more. To be honest, I was a little nervous when we started sounding around to find a good place to anchor for the night that was secure. I had visions of the whales becoming entangled in our anchor rope or breaching and landing on the yacht during the night. Hardly had we put the anchor down when Blayne was at it again jigging up a storm, and after I had been punished by a really good fish that turned out to be a reef shark, we decided to get ready for the next morning and enjoy a few sundowners and snacks before dinner. The adventure continues ...