Posted on 2 Comments

FIRST MARLIN FOR ANDREW WHITEHEAD

IMG_5856 FIRST MARLIN FOR ANDREW WHITEHEAD

Dave MacLean has fished with us for years and on his last trip in early October 2011 he had a brilliant trip, including fighting a fish well over a 1000 pounds into the drak for nearly 5 hours that unfortunetly chafed through the 650 lbs leader. He missed last year but a couple of months ago he phoned me but all I had left was three days in December, which he took straight away.

Unluckly, after a month of beautiful calm weather he arrived on the 5th, along with his sister and brother in law, Andrew exactly at the same time as a low pressure system moved in. However, despite the strong SE we decided to give it a go the next morning and by 6h30am were trolling a spread of lures down south in a very uncomfortable swell. As we tacked north we finally started to see some baitfish on the surface, mostly skipjack and caught a wahoo and released a nice great barracuda on the lures.

It was Andrew´s first ever deep sea fishing and I had given him all the in´s and out´s and finally at 9am the time come for him to get in the chair as a nice Black Inhaled the Blue & Pink Williamson BMC2 on the long right. The fish took off in a series of jumps and put us on the backing straight away. We quickly cleared and we in hot pursuit with Andrew puffing and sweating as he quicky recovered line. As we got close the fish made another series of jumps and trashed on the surface which gave us a break to get right on top of it. It then went down and I told Andrew to put up the drag, go to low gear and start the real work!  Eventually the fish come up, gave a couple of jumps and just before the half an hour Alex got the leader on a still very green fish. We got a couple pics, tagged the fish and let him go.

IMG_5850

 

IMG_5853

Duarte A. Moreira Rato
Share
Posted on Leave a comment

Tofinho Murmurs

Tofinho murmured today...
Tofinho murmured today…

In another rare set of weather conditions…a nice SE swell was greeted by a stiff rainy offshore just after low tide today. At about 4ft, on a neap tide, some great waves were had all round.

Share
Posted on Leave a comment

Season in Tofo!

Santa Claus was spotted in the Tofo market today. Photographed here by Captain Gallop, with Mikelangelo in the background…checking out for cops or something?!

DSC_0136

Santa Claus in the Tofo market on his way to the school pageant and awards ceremony at Tofo Mar Hotel. As depicted by Mike Moye.

Share
Posted on Leave a comment

DOUBLE HEADER MARLIN FOR CHRISSIE & JOHN JACKSON

DOUBLE HEADER MARLIN FOR CHRISSIE & JOHN JACKSON

by Captain Duarte Rato on Bazaruto Island

Over the last 6 days we had Chrissie and John Jackson from the States and despite a slow Marlin bite we had great fun and some good fishing. The first day four days were great fun and we raised a number of Marlin, one estimated very close to a 1000 pounds. We released one about 150 lbs, a sailfish and got a good number of game fish including dorado, wahoo, yellowfin tuna, skipjack, bonito, great barracuda and queen mackerel.

Our 5th day started up north at lighthouse and we had not set the spread for more than 15 minutes when both, the left short and long go simultaneously. What a sight as the two Marlin jumped in together in our wake and what pandemonium as we tried to clear the deck and make sure the lines did not cross over. After that initial chaos we had everything under control and we decided to deal with the smallest fish first which John was fighting stand up. We made short work of it and soon we had the 150 pounder by the boat, tagged it and let it go. Now it was time to deal with the bigger fish which Chrissie was fighting from the fighting chair. The fish was deep but as soon as we got on top of it and applied some more heat it come up and gave us an absolute fantastic jumping display in the beautiful morning light. We got it close to the  boat but it was a hard fish and with 40 pounds of drag (as much as Chrissie wanted to go) it still took us another 10 minutes to get it under control by the side of the bat for some photos. We eventually let it go and called it 400 pounds. What a start to the day!!!

Share
Posted on Leave a comment

Bazaruto Traffic

Bazaruto Traffic on the way to the office (c) Rato
Bazaruto Traffic on the way to the office (c) Rato

BAZARUTO TRAFFIC!!!

After a very windy start to the season the weather as just been absolutely phenomenal from early November. It has been a peach to be out there in sunny skies and calm electric blue water.

This was yesterday morning as we made our way to the office, a little bit of traffic but nothing too crazy!

Captain Duarte Rato

 

 

Share