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Yellowfin Tuna time in Mozambique

It most certainly is Yellowfin Tuna time here in Mozambique

Yellowfin Tuna time in Mozambique

Fresh in from Bazaruto Island: Captain Duarte Rato has been hard at all February, and rounds it all off with a fantastic trip he got together with his Dad and his son. Spanning three generations, the effort was serious enough, but with the help of Duarte Jnr’s mom Gretha, those yellowfin were really in deep trouble!

An exerpt from Duarte’s uber cool post,just recently published on http://fishbazaruto.com…

“As all who fish with us know my Dad, Jose Duarte, is a true salt, a real old man of the sea who spent his life in the Ocean, mostly on commercial vessels. He took me to sea from a very young age and, from a very early stage in my life, when my friends wanted to be Doctors, or fireman, or engineers, I knew I wanted to be a charter Captain. My oldest son, Duarte, who just turned 5, as definitely inherited the passion of the sea from us. Or should I say obsession! The boy dreams fishing, watches fishing videos as opposed to cartoons, spends huge amounts of time looking at my BlueWater, Ski-boat and Marlin Magazines and, at five, can easily identify between a Blue, a Black and a Striped!”

Read the whole post and see the complete gallery…

Yellowfin Tuna Jubilee for three generations…

Quick Mozambique fishing report…

The yellowfin tuna have also made an appearance of Tofo recently. Acres of birds enjoying the feast of small sardine-like fishies all over the place right now. Judging by some of the smashes going on, visible over a few kilometres even, there were some big fish on the hunt. Voracious attacks on the surface!

In the backline at Tofinho were the bonefish again. They looked like they could have been spawning as every now and then one lolled over another and a flash of underbelly was occasionally seen. Very cool to see them all so tightly knit and floating along just shy of the waves. If they were not spawning, then I am not sure what they were getting up to?! And no, they were not lemonfish!

Along the beach at Fatimas the bonefish pros were baiting up with prawn and squid and getting a handful of foot longs each. These guys just seem to know exactly when and where these fish decide to show up. This was a few days ago, as a front came through.

The markets are overloaded with lovely gamefish like couta, kingfish and tuna. The weather has been crappy, but aytime the row boats get themselves out there, they bring back nice fish.

Catching Yellowfin Tuna in Mozambique

Well the biggest one caught up in these tropical waters here so far, has to be this 72kg monster, by Duarte and crew, taken on a marlin rig, a few years ago. This fish caused quite a stir, as on this same day, they were all over the place. These huge yellowfin tuna, out of nowhere! And on a mission to smash into everything they could. Luckily this fish held on right to the end. Quite a few got away!

This is the biggest Yellowfin Tuna caught in mozambique by anyone we know. Yes Captain Duarte Rato again!
This is the biggest Yellowfin Tuna caught in mozambique by anyone we know. Yes Captain Duarte Rato again!

At around the same time, bigger class yellowfin tuna were being encountered up and down the East Coast seaboard of Southern Africa. Even Durban got a fish over 50kg’s. A new club record for all the years of that clubs existence.

Traditionally, yellowfin tuna just don’t hang in these tropical and warmer waters at all. Once they reach sexual maturity, which is 35 to 40kgs, they shoot over the horizon and into the “tuna lanes”.

But, tuna, all of the species, are well known for their feeding patterns. They can stick to a regimen like clockwork, often traversing hundreds of kilometres in a day as they migrate between feeding spots. Feeding spots that these highly intelligent fish know are going to produce at those times. And they can change feeding habits and patterns, completely.

Bluefin tuna used to use False Bay as one of their spots. These fish were most likely Southern Bluefin, which we still get in quite prolific numbers, right off our coast. The Transkei Wild Coast regularly sees legal longliners from Japan, there are two of them, catching Southern Bluefin Tuna, within cellphone signal distance from shore. These ships are based out of Durban and can be monitored on any AIS app, anytime. They catch serious fish. Billfish and Southern Bluefin. but the Bluefin that vacated False Bay in the seventies – have never come back!

Weirdly enough, Bluefin started pitching up off Ireland a while back. After a very long absence. Local anglers were amazed to see these huge fish coming right up to them, as they plied their regular fishing techniques right offshore. Soon, these guys were posting online, questions on how to catch Bluefin Tuna. And sure enough, they caught quite a few!

So the influx of bigger tuna to these shallower and more tropical waters, could be seen as an adjustment to their feeding patterns. An adjustment to the adjustments made as so many variables have to line up for natural events like sardine runs to occur.

So tackle up this next season. Keep that heavy duty popper at the ready!

Or better still, a Mydo SS Spoon. Heavy duty…

https://thesardine.co.za/product/mydo-ss-spoon-tuna-127-4-6mm/

Drag UP!

More about The MYDO SS Spoon range can be found here…

https://thesardine.co.za/product-category/fishingtackle/mydolures/mydossspoons/

Catch us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/thesardine.co.za/

 

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Video: Surfing Fatimas Nest in the Afternoon

Surfing Fatimas Nest-in-the

Video: Surfing Fatimas Nest in the Afternoon

Fatimas Nest, venue of each years Ocean Fest on Praia do Tofo, also plays host to a real fun surf spot. Right out front of the restaurant!

Featuring Renske Massing aka The Frenzy is an ISA Qualified Surf Coach, who has spent many seasons in Tofo and surrounds and even has a house here.  Casa Frenzy…just down the beach from Fatimas. Renske surfs a longboard this sunny afternoon, with another surfing local, Joao Loureiro joining her for the quick session.

Renske is introduced into the insert by Mozambican TV Personality Ras Ghotaz. Ghotaz runs a music show on TV Gugu on Saturdays at 20h00 each week. Ras Ghotaz is also involved in the production and running of the Ocean Fest. Which once again, was a huge party this year.

The sounds are from a local church family gathering, where the lyrics are about doing whatever it is they can to uplift their community. Language – Bithonga.

The wave out front of Fatimas has kept many a surfer sane – as the more fickle Tofinho carefully guards her secrets. Sometimes for months at a time! But there will always be a wave to ride in the bay at Tofo. Sometimes long peeling rights are served up. Or powerful little shorebreaks. Spread out all over the place. Sometimes right up in the corner, the little right-hand point break comes alive. Peels for its entire 100 metre length!

The amount of sand that moves up here in Mozambique is phenomenal. Waves can literally appear out of nowhere. And disappear a week later!

But it’s this endless variation, coupled with huge tides (sometimes 5 metres or more), that makes the place so interesting for surfers and other ocean lovers.

Click on over to Fatimas Nest page on The Sardine News for options and more information.

Catch us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/thesardine.co.za/

Looking over the surf launch towards Praia do Tofo and Casa Agodoal from Fatima's backpackers in TofoWhale Sharks are also high on the victim listFatimas from the beachFatimas for breakfast in Tofo starts at 7amOutdoor seating area at Fatimas Nest in Tofo
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The Bonefish of Mozambique

Jimmy Bonefish regularly catches these world record potential bonefish in summertime

The Bonefish of Mozambique

The bonefish of Mozambique – well Inhambane in this case. Often this time of year (Summer), whilst working the shallow waters between Tofo and Tofinho, big silver fish can be seen lolling about the surface. Their silver backs are exposed as they dart this way and that, seemingly on the feed. But cast after cast and all you might get out of them is a look. Dropshots don’t work, nor do spoons or plugs. I am sure they will take a well-presented fillet bait, but they won’t touch a rapala or even a daisy chain.
Bonefish!
Right behind the Tofo headland is where the shoals of huge bonefish swim...
Right behind the Tofo headland, is where these shoals of huge bonefish swim…
Some local subsistence fishermen know where and how to catch the smaller ones. Right in the surf zone, in the white waters below the cliffs, with bait won off the rocks at low tide.
But Jimmy, our fishing champion, based on the point at Tofinho…knows how to catch the big ones.
He has taken 5 in an evening…on squid bait!? And the size? Average 6 or 7 kilos!
Even Jimmy’s clients (he is a great rock ‘n surf fishing guide), have taken 2 or 3 in a session, using this method.
Highly acclaimed as a prizefighter, bonefish are extensively hunted on the flats of the Florida Keys in the USA. It’s one of the biggest sport fishing industries there is. And all on fly.
Saltwater fly fishing grew enormously as a result of these fiesty and fussy game fish.
Permit (pompano to us) and tarpon frequent the same waters as bonefish and many fishing guides and charters take their clients fishing for these acclaimed fish, all over the South.
But. In the USA,  they hardly get half the size of the behemoths hanging out on the backline off Tofo and surrounds.
IGFA, the International Game Fishing Association, is the custodian organization for world and regional fishing records. And the all tackle world record bonefish is recorded as being caught in Zululand, South Africa, by Brian Bachelor in 1962. 8.6kgs.
When the bonefish come through here, they are really active. They seem to feed on tiny surface fish and organisms on the backline and the edge of the surf zone, with their otherwise suggesting down facing tiny mouths. In the USA they are fished on the flats on an incoming tide, where they feed on the sand bottom and in and about seagrass fields.
If you are super keen to get onto whipping a few flys about the back line, between Tofo and Tofinho points, and if you can handle a 9 weight, give us a buzz on umzimkulu@gmail.com.
It might be an even better plan…to bring a 12 weight rig too, as kingfish, sailfish, tuna, king mackerel and queen fish also patrol the shallows behind the long, shallow ledge just off the Tofo headland.
And 8.6kgs is an easy target.
Jimmy says he has caught many 9kg bonefish! And bigger!

 

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Surfing Mozambique’s surprise left-hander

Surfing Mozambiques surprise left

Surfing Mozambique’s surprise left-hander

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.

https://www.facebook.com/thesardine.co.za/

 

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The tides of March are marching

The tides of March are marching

The tides of March are marching

The tides of March are marching again, and it’s quite tough to understand why.

The main thing out of synch is that the tidal coefficients are not that high. Monday’s coefficient was a mere 95 in the morning. Given that the coefficient range reaches over 120, it means that it was only about 85% of what it could have been. The height of the tide on Monday was 2.1m in Durban. Durban’s highest tides come in at a raging 2.3m! That’s 20cm more than Monday’s water.

But it’s the storm surges from the massive swell that really is higher grade learning. Why now? Why The Ides of March?

Very strange stuff indeed.

But if you check this amazing animation of the globe’s wind and weather (and even ocean currents and waves if you select the right overlay), you will be able to monitor the whole lot in real time.

https://earth.nullschool.net/

The way I interpret this last push, is that the cyclonic system that grew as it moved south East of Madagascar over the weekend, but did not develop to full cyclone (didn’t even get a name), just stubbornly stayed out there, day after day, whipping swell straight at everyone from the Cape to Mozambique. It’s the positioning of the cyclone that makes for the swells. If it goes crazy and heads for land, it’s not ideal, not by a long way. But when they sit out there, just far enough off not to make too much chaos on land (torrential rain), just behind and below Mad, the distance that  a swell can be built up, is a good 2000 to 3500kms. Winds pushing consistently at 60kmh to 120kmh and sometimes more, can do wonders for us, with this huge fetch of water. Hence the huge swell and storm surges that swamped Durban beachfront and surrounds the last few days. Epic stuff – like a mini tsunami really. And with our best cyclone season for years going on right now, things are gonna stay very interesting.

Aside: If you study the animation at the link above closely and over time, you will also see how come Mozambique is offshore so often, this time of the year. As the winds square the coast, where I write this now – Port Shepstone KZN, it’s raining, it’s onshore, the water is brown and the waves are huge. Meanwhile, get on up to sunny skies and chevrolet, and huge crystal clean barrels – at any low tide in Mozambique, right now!

“I have been trying to get photos or pics from the crew up there, but at this stage, an ominous silence prevails. The wind does look a bit iffy today, but it’s the perfect tides  – things, when they smooth out up there, will be melted plastic.

Calvin Moore is in Pomene! Robin Beatty is in Tofinho! Send news!

Is Caesar going down tomorrow? – Xona”

Endless rains are great for farmers but the brown water instils a nervousness as it's full of sharks.
Endless rains are great for farmers but the brown water instils a nervousness down here in KZN as it’s full of sharks. The Umzimkulu River mouth is a favourite hangout for huge Zambezi’s, that can often be seen free-swimming around the mouth area. Eish!
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