Years of experience and connections in the fishing business, have led to the opening of Four Fish Trading in Nelspruit. Open for a few months now, the store is jam-packed with stock, including The Mydo range of fishing lures. Read all about them right here (https://thesardine.co.za/mydo/), and pop in to Mohamed to get your own.
Rock and Surf, Deep Sea, Estuary, Freshwater…it’s all covered at Four Fish Trading. With a comprehensive range in each genre.
Four Fish Trading in Nelspruit
Being right on the route to Mozambique makes Four Fish a convenient stop for tackle on the way to your favourite fishing spot.
FishBazaruto.com is taking Bazaruto 2018 bookings now!
FishBazaruto.com is taking Bazaruto 2018 bookings now! After another incredible year fishing the waters around the Bazaruto Archipilego, Captain Duarte Rato has opened his booking calendar up for 2018.
Duarte has also opened up the spread with many more options for you to choose from. From the really big and comfort laden Supercat 38’s, to this year Duarte has worked hard on getting smaller boat packages together, that are real affordable. He has broadened his accommodation offerings too.
Vilankulos, where FishBazaruto operates from, is really quite a drive for anybody convinced on taking their own boat all that way up north. And fishing with Duarte and his decades of experience really puts you in right on the action.
Sunrise overlooking the Bazaruto Archipelego
You get to enjoy the Archipilego thoroughly, with Duarte and crew relating historical, geographical and all things fishing regards this most interesting area, and country. All of Duarte’s team really know the place super well, and are first class pros, in big game fishing – and making sure you have a great day out.
Now here’s the thing. 1000 Pounds. The grander. The big momma. She is there. And up for a fight. Black and blue marlin. You can actually choose which to hunt. The bad tempered stripeys also make their rodeo appearances, as do shoals and shoals of willing sailfish. Some big ones, even going over 50!
A few pics from the old days…where release wasn’t as compulsory, as it is nowadays…
The increasing mean size of yellowfin tuna being encountered inshore has rapidly increased lately in KZN waters. They even got a 48 off Durban?! But last season, Duarte shocked everyone with a 72 off the island! Luckily it grabbed ahold of a kona rigged on an 80, and it came home before those dumb sharks got it!
The 72kg yellowfin tuna that has gotten everyone very excited. There were a whole shoal of these things when luckily they hooked up on just this one, and got it out!
And that’s another thing about fishing Baz. It’s wild. Really wild. You might even encounter a dugong. Or a whale shark. A friendly school of dolphins. All sorts of whales. Even orcas.
Fishing out the back of Bazaruto Island gets you in the hot seat for a marlin on plastic, or a 10kg yellowfin to rig and try keep out of trouble until a marley comes along. Wahoo are real mean as they knock the sense out of any live bait rigged that weighs less than 10. The wahoo are huge. And if it ain’t the wahoo, you also have to watch for goliath GT’s that also love to swallow a bonito whole. And then there are the sharks. Nuff said. So back to plastics and hope for that huge big and loud strike.
Seeing these huge fish come charging into the wake at blurry speeds, smashing into a kona, pulling line and then leaping and greyhounding away is what every angler should experience. It’s diabolical. It’s insane. It’s something you need to see and absorb. The power. The grace. The magnificense of it all.
In bad weather, Bazaruto waters hold another ace. The channels between the islands are clear and deep, and in the completely flat water. Wave action out to sea, and island either side of you, and you can catch king mackerel, sailfish, Natal Snoek – until you are blue. On spinning tackle! Too much fun. And we do end up fishing in these highly technical fishing areas quite a lot. Knowing where and when to find the hot spots and times, is all the fun! There are very many places where, if you pay your 500 Met park fees, you can walk and spin fish for all sorts from kingfish to rock salmon.
Right, there you have it. I could add the islands themselves, the unreal snorkeling in the lukewarm crystal palace water, the palm trees and coconuts, the delightful and unspoilt wetlands and river, the quaint little party town of Vilankulos that recently welcomed Sylvester Stallone, Jeremy Clarkson and his little mate…and back in the days…The Kennedys, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger and host of other stars. The Donna Anna, the hotel in which they partied, which has been restored to a level of glory, and yes you’ll go there too!
You can get the ball rolling and get in touch with the team at FishBazaruto at his website link below:
Surfing Praia do Rocha with the cool crew of Grant Gilmour, Chad Leavitt and Branco Mijulkov.
Grant Gilmour, Chad Levitt and Branco Mijulkov star in the surf movie style flick of a surf patrol to Praia do Rocha, Inhambane, Mozambique. A fun session great for laughs and a few cool clips – all done on cellphones.
The sand has finally returned to Tofinho reportedly, but it doesn’t mean we won’t be doing the odd dawn patrol down Praia do Rocha way.
And here is Part 2, which features a couple of photos that will haunt you for the whole of today. My favourite being the absolutely beautiful looking and performing white marlin they got into, whilst chasing blues.
Unbelievably, Duarte is now in Madeira where he has already picked a fight with one 550 pounder blue. His angler Peter Bristow did the hard work for a one on one release on their first day out. They are fishing RIGHT NOW, as I write this!
Stay tuned for further updates – there is still an instalment three coming from Cape Verde. And you can expect to see some photos, sometimes straight from the boat, from Madeira waters (signal dependent) popping up all over Facebook.
Where you can read many years’ worth of journals by Duarte, since 2011 in fact. Each and every trip. There is also a video section which has started growing nicely – some video produced by Duarte and The Sardine Team, and others chosen by Duarte off the web, as relevant.
After Madeira, Duarte ships back to family and Bazaruto…where those eager marlin have started congregating already! Get in touch if you want to catch a grander too!
PARTING SHOT – maybe you haven’t seen this cool video Duarte shot from underwater, as they release a handsome blue marlin carefully and successfully. About two weeks ago…hardcore stuff man!
Cyclone Dineo caused serious havoc in a lot of people’s lives, leaving behind destruction that will take years to rectify. But it also left us a proper left-hander. Right in the corner at The Dragon in Tofinho.
After imagining many times that one day a left would magically appear in Mozambique, it would appear out of nowhere – be a top to bottom pitching barreling rip wave that made you work and sweat and surf and surf and surf…well, it appeared. The featured picture is more to show where it is, there was only Captain Gallop and myself in the water AGAIN! So no more pics, but the main factor in this miraculous birth of a wave is very clear in the seascape. THERE IS NO SAND.
Right from Praia do Rocha in the south, past Backdoor, around the point at Tofinho, across the Dragon, into the bay, and all along to Tofo. There is nothing. Beaches have vanished completely. The football pitch sized beach on the wild side (if you can call it that), of Praia do Tofo, is gone. You have to walk half up the dune at high tide. It’s an amazing spectacle. The coastline in Mozambique is so subject to change by the elements.
Back to the top to bottom pitching barreling rip wave that made you work and sweat and surf and surf and surf.
The first day my eyes nearly popped out of my head. I saw it in the perfect blue warm conditions we came here for. It was hammering through. Head high and mean.
What had happened, is that the removal of all the sand scoured out the bay at The Dragon, right back to the primary dune. Exposing a reef! So the waves that come off The Dragon point reef (which is well surfed every high tide every day when this happens), spill into the corner, the water escapes north and drags across this reborn reef and straight out into the oncoming swells. Ok the current was mean, but that’s what makes these kind of waves stand up and go so fast.
We had to stop surfing eventually!
The next day was the same as the tide barely moved being in full neaps. Luckily for the neaps as the current would have been undo-able in spring tides. Water moves so fast with the 4m spring tide range around this area.
The next day was the same.
And the next.
And the next, until it was time to make travel arrangements and go West.
We left it there for any takers. A cooking powerful hollow EMPTY left in Mozambique.
PS except for Tofinho, the other waves are all still operating just fine. Backdoor is a bit wild as the lack of sand means it breaks right onto that shelf. I still cannot get over the power that bay holds. At 10 foot the ground shakes when the sets break – huge perfect a-frames that will shake your bones. The bay in Tofo has many different faces through the tides with the sandbanks producing long running lefts and rights at low tide and playful shorebreaks at high.
For any other surfing info or accommodation or tour options, buzz Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com…or click here for more.
