Environmental issues and discussions.
Bazaruto Sailfish on the run
Captain Duarte Rato and clients targeting Bazaruto Sailfish for catch ‘n release thrills are beginning the season well. Bazaruto in winter time is famous for it’s proliferation of maddeningly hungry sailies and strikes often run into double figures. The sailfish are mainly taken dragging smaller plastics – making it easy to release the fish without damage. And it hardly could be called winter time – the water stays in the mid 20’s and the weather is sun filled island stuff.
Check out Duarte’s new website, fishbazaruto.com for more and more absolutely crazy entertaining fishing stories. The site features years of Duarte’s “Captain’s Logs” from all over the game-fishing planet. Excellent reading.
FishBazaruto’s latest entry featuring Mike Koch reads here…
The forward thinking folks over at IGFA (International Game Fishing Association), noted the decline in our fisheries over the decades. The official keepers of world record catch data saw it happening, and started to work towards a more conservation oriented organisation.
They embraced the internet and what it can do, and implemented a stream of measures and projects centred around conservation and education. And now this, their latest and rather fanciful exercise – a marlin race!
It’s been running since 2011 and it’s appeal has grown and grown. Sponsorship poured in and many satellite tags were deployed into hapless but free to swim marlin, caught and tagged by anglers around the world, including right here in South Africa.
So, the farthest swimming marlin wins the race. Or, the boat who tagged that far swimming fish get the honours. The marlin already won his prize – his life! The IGFA Great Marlin Race has been a huge success and data gathered from the project will be analysed and honed into solid recommendations by Stanford University, for the conservation of our billfish species.
The following links tell you the full story:
Top story leaderboard taken over by 5700nm swimming marlin…https://www.igfa.org/Conserve/Longest%20Track%20in%20History%20Pushes%20IGMR%20Over%20100,000%20Milestone
The overall leaderboard…https://www.igfa.org/Conserve/IGMR-Races.aspx
And to get involved, jump right in at…https://www.igfa.org/Conserve/Get-Involved-in-the-IGMR.aspx
Kudos to the people at IGFA. 75 Years in the gamefish conservation game!
On the search for sardines…May heralds colder conditions and more westerley winds – exactly what the sardines want. Offshore Africa in Port St. Johns are practically full but have had a few cancellations right in the prime sardine and marine life sighting weeks – head on over to http://www.offshoreportstjohns.com/ to make an enquiry.
It’s gonna be a good one!
Jean Tresfon on the button again as he logs another amazing shot from the air, this time of hundreds of dolphins making a show of strength in the clear waters off Long Beach and Noordhoek. More from Jean here
