Spending time with Captain Duarte Rato
Tofo has of recent been playing host to Dario, Duarte jnr and Greta – the enthusiastic young family of Captain Duarte Rato, along with Duarte, as they spend some quality time together. Each season he does up at Bazaruto, off Vilancoulos, Duarte leaves the archipilego where he has been coaching the marlin there for decades, to visit Tofo for a week.
We have been bumping into them all over town and the beach, culminating in a visit at their cabin, during feeding time in the early evening.
“He only eats fish! Give him anything else and he just looks at it?!”, exclaims Duarte as he finely chops up a juicy chunk of couta fillet.
Greta is preparing the meal of healthy beans and local vegetables. The couta fillet is to flavour it all with fresh fish. Dario who is almost one, and Duarte jnr, 3, encourage her eagerly.
Soon we’re able to talk lures, and I show him through the original Mydo range, and then the new stuff. Out of the blue, Duarte drops the biggest marketing bombshell I have ever dreamed of.
” Hey I got my first billfish on a Mydo…a sailfish, when I was 16.”
I nearly fainted as the enormity of his statement set in. Africa’s most successful marlin fishermen got his first billfish on a Mydo #2 Baitswimmer.
I piled more lures into his lucky packet. All the Baitswimmer range up to the 4.5 weighing in at a healthy 222g – gets big baits down real deep. The Luck Shots for high speed deep trolling and jigging or even just drifting. The 2 sizes in the Luck Shot Mini, for casting and cranking. And then the newly developed (from the original Mydo spoons), the SS Spoon range. For casting, cranking and jigging.
I give a lot of lures out in this way, and there are just a few things that with Duarte, I am sure of. First, I will get the photos. And second…he will use every last one of them.
Obrigado Amigo!
