Vilanculo Gamefishing
A gallery of pics by Tracey and Paul Saayman whilst recently in Vilanculo…that depict exactly what Vilanculo Gamefishing is all about.
We were lucky enough to fish 6 days out of 11 – and thank goodness for the breaks in between!
The billfish were being a bit picky with us. We were targeting them between seasons really, but had three come up altogether, with two having a go at the same lure – but both missing! But the bycatch (as Duarte calls it?!), had us working hard with sweat dripping time and time again.
Videos and full stories to follow…
Thanks Seann, great to see the Bazaruto trip articles still coming through!
What a privilege to have Seann spend almost 2 weeks with us at Vilanculos in the Bazaruto Archipelago. Shaun is a “reel” talent at everything “Fishy”- Guide, Sushi chef, Line-man, advanced Skipper training and techniques, motor mechanic, navigator, boat electrician, live bait surgeon, fish braai master, passionate conservationist, great humour – absolute necessity in Moz … to have a really good time without taking anything too seriously, Portuguese translator, fuel jockey (one time Sean did not have a beer and almost had withdraw symptoms filling all the containers through a very slow Racor filter) speary guide, lure / kona trolling technician (Yes, a guru at setting out patterns and not getting tangles – and on the one or two occasions that there was a small tangle up, NEVER blaming the Skipper! etc. etc.
Those Mydo spoons of his should be banned when there are Queen Mackerel around (and any species near the surface for that matter!). They are so effective we had to blindfold him every time the birds gave away the Mackeral’s location between the island channels else we would never get out to the deep :). Great fun for Sean and the kids though, and those who don’t feel so good on the Ocean side of the islands, or not keen going through the ‘Washing Machine’ channels on a rough day between the Islands.
Talking about washing machines, we (should probably be I …), learnt very quickly the power of those two 150 hp 4 stroke Merc’s – brought a whole new meaning to throttling back after punching through a wave, or is that throttling too hard to punch the wave ?? … I felt we were within less than 1 degree of doing a somersault – Sean was adamant we were not even close though but then that still does not explain why everything not tied down was now either hanging over the stern or upside down!? With some deeper water navigation through the channels, sand banks, and some very up to date Google imagery (even better than the latest Navionics downloads) by Robin (Captain Gallop – will leave that for another story, related to Rum and Raspberry – R&R! ….) and confident motivation and enthusiasm from Shaun we made it through.
I still say leave those ‘short cuts’ through the “Washing machine” for calmer days and stick to the long way around with the deeper channels – especially when it is so rough between the islands the locals are not even going out at all! They did convince me to do the same the next day, but with more respect to the Merc’s this time we were almost through without incident until we went over a single but on heading down the swell the other side we realised it was in fact a double and its twin went almost right over the top of us!
Lesson learnt, don’t always listen to 2 adventurer big wave surfers when in a ski boat – I now know to rather leave Sean’s short cut ideas and advice for when you’re on a surfboard! 🙂
Good times spent with Sean and Robin – great when all aboard, and strangers only a few days before, are in such sync and same wave length with similar solutions and fish finding ideas (only grumpiness trying to satisfy 3 different tastes in music for hours on end – but harmony soon restored with due consideration by all sides eventually! :)) and ALL challenges met with a great sense of humour and always a positive side, even if it meant a bit of self BS, but never pointed out by the others! This harmony lasted until the oversize Wahoo gave Sean a nasty gash during a photo shoot (see previous photos and article) and both Robin and I were no longer his best mates – but only for a few minutes until medic Gallop had him all patched up and I found Sean some more Couta!
… more to come… Including that you catch more fish without Heavy Rock music Robin! 🙂
Capitao! Thanks for the words man! Maybe you should do this job for me rather! Hi to the (our) family! Will be posting first video later today…