Featuring the Bazaruto, Inhaca…fishing report by Duarte Rato, this end April 2017.
And another fantastico instalment by Captain Duarte Rato as he rounds up the last few incredible months fishing Southern Mozambique.
Duarte starts in Vilankulos, fishing Bazaruto, and moves down to Maputo, where he recently hosted a billfish catching school lesson…to assist the guys fishing out off Inhaca – capitalise on the amazing marlin bite being experienced out in those water lately.
Moving into May, the sailfish have made a light appearance with a few being reported between Margaruque and north to Inhassoro. It’s about to go saily mad and shortly the Vilankulos Sailfish competition will be staged in these waters.
Another great catch off Margaruque this time by Captain Gallop (aka Robin Beatty), deep off the islands on an amazing pinnacle full of these angry fish. They destroyed 6 of our live skipjack before we wised up and targeted one or two ‘Hoo. Captain Paul Saayman skippering his boat Shades of Blue got us onto the fish.
Wahoo are reputed to get 75kmh, and their strike is legendary. But once you get the toothy monster aboard, that’s when things get even more crazy.
Trying to get a photo of the wahoo whilst it still had it’s lights on, I hoisted the fish and got whacked in the arm by it’s tiny front teeth, never mind the lashers further back, where my other hand was – trying to control the angry animal.
Get in touch on umzimkulu@gmail.com if you want a fish like this!
And it’s time for the Vilankulos Sailfish Competition 2017, in May this year!
And again, the guys at Big Blue and Vila Do Paraiso will be hosting the Big Blue Vilankulo Sailfish Competition between the 22 and 26 May 2017.
The annual tournament is a great get together for 5 days of great sailfishing fun. May is a great month to be targeting sailfish in the Vilankulos waters. Besides the Vilankulo Sailfish Prize, the competition also gives points and prizes for Marlin and game fish.
If you want to charter a local boat and crew let us know, but private boats are also welcome, and can be provided with local knowledge, tips on areas, techniques, rigging and local skippers if needed. Secure Mooring´s will be available in front of Big Blue.
Vila Do Paraiso has once again come up with a very nice package deal for their accommodation. The refreshments and food every night, as all that have been here before, are world class…
Captain Duarte Rato of FishBazaruto.com has his finger on the pulse up and down the East Coast of Africa, and has an amazing Inhaca Blue Marlin bite to report, this March 2017.
The recent sport fishing competition held from out of Inhaca, just out from Mozambiques capital, Maputo –  reported phenomenal numbers and more numbers of marlin action. The release only tourney was a huge success for the 13 boats, who each accounted for a minimum of three fish!
The winning teams raised so many marlin, that they lost count!
An excerpt from Captain Duarte’s report…
“Yolanda won the event with the release of 7 fish, four Blues and three stripes. However, they reported sixteen bites and over thirty raised fish – they said they lost count.
Then there were two boats with 5 releases; Hakuna Matata released 3 blues and 2 striped and Aquamarine 2 Blues and 3 stripes.
Gabri got 4 fish on the day. They released a blue and two Blacks and had another Blue die on them, which got tail wrapped and could not be revived.
The guys aboard Fourplay released 3 Blues, out of 12 they either missed or pulled – and they had 19 fish up for the day.
Other fish reported where a Black by Cheetah out of three bites, and they only fished until 9am. Nakisai also released 2 Blues amongst a number of strikes. Nana released two Blues and had another one sharked by an Oceanic Whitetip, the first ever time I have heard of a fish being sharked out wide in this fishery´s. They also lost another right by the leader, and reported about 15 bites! Another boat that reported a similar number of fish on the day was Mon Ami, although they failed to convert those except on one striped they released out of the whole lot. Bite Me II released two Blues, as well as DanDan.
That´s an average of more than 3 Marlin per boat per day and not a single one of the ten boats that where specifically targeting Marlin skunked! Again, this is weekend anglers, mostly fishing out of small outboard powered trailer boats!
The recent cyclone and weird weather may have had something to do with things but Bazaruto has been absolutely off the scale. Yellowfin tuna as far as you can see in every direction, with bonito and skipjack filling in any spaces.
And the marlin and sailfish are still around for a fight, it’s been one helluva billfish season up and down our coastline.
Here is a link –  Baitball Article – to a contribution Captain Duarte Rato of FishBazaruto, made to a great article that ran in the January issue of Voyages de Peche magazine.
The article, which is about bait balls or where and when large masses of bait come together along with its predators, was put together by Julien Lajournade, had as it´s collaborators Duarte along with well know photographers Jessica Haydahl Richardson (Yellowfin & blue runnes in Cobia Panama), Pat Ford (tarpon and others on mullet at vero beach Florida), Marc Montocchio (great photograph with tarpon and silversides in the Caymans) and Scott Kerrigan (on sailfish and sardines off Isle Mujeres – Mexico).
You can read and see more of Duarte’ss amazing experiences with these bait balls right here…
Bait balls – massive amounts of bait and predators – it is all happening at Bazaruto right now, here is an email I received from Duarte recently…
“Hey mate, hope all good…
As you know after the season I have chilling with the family and finalizing all the bookings for the rest of the year for Bazaruto and Cape Verde. But, after cyclone Dineo (which as you know was much kinder to us here in Vilankulos / Bazaruto than our friends further south in the Inhambane area) we finally have had a spell of absolutely gorgeous weather and my boys at Bazaruto told me about excellent light tackle game fishing. So, yesterday decided to take my boy (that´s Duarte´s oldest son which just turned 4 years and is obsessed with fishing – I hear he prefers to watch fishing videos than cartoons – wonder where he gets it from) out. Man, it was absolutely unbelievable from when we got to V-mile area yesterday morning until midafternoon when we come back was going mental. I think all the churning caused by the cyclone as just moved up all these nutrients and the ocean is alive everywhere you look. Between V mile all the way to the north of the Island at any given time you seeing 5 or more schools of Yellowfin tuna, skipjack and bonnies gorging themselves on tiny oceanic anchovy! It´s all small stuff (what we in season call bait) but great fun on the light tackle. Perfect stuff to target on the light spinning rods.
We had nonstop action from the start and everyone hooked up simultaneously all the time. It looks like a slaughter and we did take a lot of fish out but we released much more and we were all with our freezers empty and brought some fish back for the boys. Funniest thing was Duarte Jnr, who we have now nicknamed gaffman, who at a stage did not want to take any rod but just wanted to gaff the fish, every single one of them…hilarious! And he knows when they really small he was like ´´this one we throw back “! By 10am he was so tired he was falling asleep but kept being woken up by screaming reels and he just could not resist. To let him have a much-deserved nap (he did wake up at 4am), and despite the water being horrible dirty and green I decided to fish for Marlin for a couple hours. We first put a live YFT but that did not last long and we were hooked up to a shark within 20 minutes, which obviously woke him up againJ! I decided to put the lures and head out wide in search of blue water which was not to be seen up to 500 meters out! It was green and we never raised one, did get a decent wahoo for Rafi tough. When we come back early afternoon it was still going wild and the mayhem continued before we decided to call it a day at 3pm. We have a strong SE moving in on Sunday which should push in the blue water and I am sure some fish with a sharp nose with it…there is enough bait to make them come! Until then we will just have fun on the small stuff, back at it tomorrow…
Cheers mate…attached a couple of pics from yesterday. Back at it tomorrow, and the next day!!!””
Some guys have all the luck!
Thank you Duarte…
And now this…
After mastering the necessary gaffing skills to be on the boat with his Dad, young Duarte was seen at the helm of his first vessel – a surfboard, at Tofo!
Oh oh, better catch some waves now before he grows up
