by Captain Duarte Rato
Captain Duarte Rato from fishbazaruto.com had a long time dream to enter the Blue Marlin World Cup in Mozambique waters.
Having fished the World Cup since 2006 this was a special time seeing it was the first time ever I would fish it in my home waters in Bazaruto – it was actually the first time a boat entered from Mozambique. This is not surprising seeing July is peak of our winter and not our…
And another knee-weakening set of photographs professionally shot by Captain Duarte Rato as he sits out his spell being tortured by Blue Marlin day after day…taking guests marlin fishing off Cape Verde… “Hi Sean, Bru, fishing everyday just got to me and was absolutely too exhausted every night to send you photos and reports…been having a good time brother and absolutely epic fishing! Here´s a few photos from the last week…. Cheers, Duarte”
Thanks Duarte! For more information on Captain Duarte Rato and his exploits…click here
Insane Cape Verde blue marlin bite continues!
by Captain Duarte Rato
“Hey brother and the insane bite continues…
This morning we only fished a half day (5 hours) because our clients had to catch a plane back home….but we made it count and released 2 out of three fish.
The first fish come in hot on the teasers 15 minutes after we started and switched on the big ballyhoo pitch bait – hookup and release!
An h0ur later we get another one up on the short left teaser and hookup again. The fish, about 350 put on a great fight on the stand up #50 (that´s all we fishing) before release.
Before getting back we still had another that jumped as the client was feeding and never hooked up…
Two blues before lunch ain´t bad!!!!”
Captain Duarte Rato checked in with us, all the way from the Cape Verde Islands, where he is working a blue marlin season this time of year.
“First day out we started with hooking a double header 20 minutes after we set the spread and the action was hot the all day. We ended up raising a total of 6 Marlin, with 4 strikes, 4 hookup´s and 3 releases.”
More to follow as the season in Cape Verde gets underway…
“Man this place is insane…. yesterday had 5 up, got 4 bites and released 3.
This morning only fished 5 hours ´cause the clients catching a plane and got 3 bites and released 2, all on pitch baits.
Will send you reports and photos of last two days later.”\
Many thanks Duarte! Keep it up man!!!
Tim and Ross from CT had been here on a 3-day trip three years ago and in that trip released three Blacks up to 450 lbs in horrible conditions. Still today I talk about it as the absolutely more shity crappie water I have ever caught a Marlin. The water was not green, it was brown!!!
It is uncommon and not to such an extent but, three days before they got here the water went completely off-colour. The night they arrived it finally turned SE but not knowing the water had seriously moved in we spent a couple of fruitless hours in the early morning on the inside catching bait.
We had enough of it and set a spread of lures and planned to go deep for Blues but as soon as we got to 90 meters the water turned an electric Blue (which seriously put a smile on my face). Fifteen minutes later a dark shade materializes behind the long corner lure and after trailing it for a while finally inhales it properly and stuck. Ross made short work of it and in no time at all we had this very frisky Black to deal with by the boat. We released it and called it 150 LBS.
The second day was alive at Lighthouse. We released a bunch of Yellowfin and bonnies and got a nice wahoo. Everything looked in place and early morning Big Bob hooked up and released a nice 600 pound Black just to the outside of us. An hour later we got a 350 come on the spread, knock the long corner and then come snake like billing the long left and fade away. Later we live baited and got sharked by a massive bull.
The third day started with a big YFT and a dorie. But it was nowhere as alive as the day before although we did get a lot of YFT on the blind. At 11am we decided to go deep for a couple hours and worked the 300-line counter for a while. I got a call from Steve on Wave Walker about a drifting commercial FAD they were working on a few miles down. When we got there it was gamefish mayhem and the boys had an hour of fun on bonnies, YFT and wahoo. We left to go shallow and work the afternoon incoming tide. On the way in 240 meters a very aggressive fish took the long left lure from the inside out and went off for the races. This Blue did all it was supposed to do, that is go absolutely insane after the bite, warping off at lighting speed, then turning and jumping towards the boat like Hell and then just decide to dash away into the horizon. This hysterical behavior soon settled down and we quickly got on top of the fish and released it at probably a dash over 550 LBS for Tim Bacon.
Very cool to catch a Blue as we, for good reasons, do not normally venture into their territory…
