Guinea Bissau - Oct 2104

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Guinea Bissau - Oct 2104

Postby richardsheard1 » Wed Nov 19, 2014 1:18 pm

Ok where to start ??? .

Ebola would be the obvious question . Well there are still no reports of any incidences in either Guinea Bissau , or Gambia . When we arrived at the airport we had out temperatures taken and filled in a form as to where we would be staying .

Apparently the world bank has given Guinea Bissau £750,000 to prevent the spread of Ebola and it does seem to being spent on that rather than a new Mercedes for the Health minister .

Its a crying shame the ridiculous over reaction of the press in their blanket non specific coverage of countries which have no outbreaks at all . The effects are horrendous , hotels and restaurants are closing across Gambia , Acunda has lost pretty much all of its french clients and its new manager , Isle de Kere has had so many cancellations that Lauren is talking about laying off all his staff , and thats in countries that do not even have the virus . The Bubaque camps are virtually empty . We are still reasonably busy on Orango , obviously the Brits are less easily scared than other clients , but we have had some cancellations . So what the hell will happen to Sierra Leone and Liberia where they actually have the virus .

Weather . Well I was a bit concerned when we arrived and were greeted with a huge thunderstorm around 2am , however that was pretty much how it stayed . Storms at night a nd flat calm days , we did get caught in one storm , well a squall actually , but it was warm rain and we carried on catching fish all the way through it . A couple of days the wind came up with the turn of the tide and made find livebaits tricky , but never to a point when it became uncomfortable to fish . The last days were like mill ponds , you could see a fish fart at a thousand yards .
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Fishing . We had a couple of days to tour the islands , because the hotel was full so we took the chance to visit Lauren at Isle de Kere . Over several beers we concluded that Ebola was a crying shame because this was looking to be the best fishing year either of us had seen since starting work in the Bijagos , Ive been working there for 10 years and Lauren at least 14 . There are fish everywhere , and in big numbers and big sizes .

Day one

We arrived and sorted some gear for a quick beach session on Pikanina { little sand bar island on the end of the huge Orango sand bank } . The clients started with a bit of Popper fishing and lure fishing , despite a few strikes nothing was landed , so we set up 7 beach rods to catch the start of the incoming tide . Within a minute of the first bait hitting the water , we had fish , a bite a chuck , with some crashing takes nearly ripping the rod off the rest . Stephen Marshall had the first notable fish , which made a screaming run of about 80 yds and after a tough scrap of about 15mins he landed a good 20lb Jack. A succession of 20 plus Barracudas between 10 and 25 lb came to the beach accompanied by Snappers , Cassavas and catfish . But as is the norm with sea fishing , as quickly as it started , it stopped . Oh well beer oclock .

Day Two

I was guiding with Tony and Stephen , skipper Ze aboard Lady Jane . After a 20km trip out we struggled to find live baits , having to resort to searching with the sounder only . Normally we can spot them on the surface , but today it was proving impossible. However we persevered and ended up with about 45 yabouys , a common theme appeared over the following week , which was it took twice as long to catch live baits as it did to use them !!!.
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Anchored up on the plateau , the fishing was mad , after 15 minutes , I had to say to the boys " two rods only " as they insisted on casting 4 and 5 livebaits at a time , I took great pains in pointing out that when both the clients were already hooked up and fighting fish there was very little point in hooking anymore fish , so slow down and wait . I understand why they want to fish flat out , its because they know that this bite may only last for 1 hr or 35mins dependent on the tide , so they are keen to land the most possible fish , this is obviously admirable in any deckie or skipper and to be applauded , but there is still very little point in hooking up more fish than you have hands to fight them with .

Anyway initially it was Jack and Big Pompanos { some of these Pomps are huge dustbin sized fish } , and I mean fast fishing , literally baits were not reaching the bottom before they were snatched , the Big Pomps make screaming runs and will literally collect every line on the boat and the anchor rope if you are not careful , they fight like mad , charging around in a series of long runs .
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We were running low on livebaits at this point and the fish had slowed a bit { we were only getting a hit every two minutes , rather than every 30 secs } . Didi the deckie began casting a Halco Hula popper , second cast bang another big Pompano , then a Jack another Jack , Two Leerfish and a Pompano . For the next 45 minutes everything switched from Baits to Poppers . Stunning fishing , multiple Jack attacks on any lure that crossed the mark , great visual stuff with some massive smashes by big leers as well , Pomps tend to sneak up on the lure and almost suck it in like a chub . so no massive spash just a screaming run . anyway after all that we probably had in excess of 40- 45 fish to the boat , and very few cudas , which meant the lions share was realeased .

We popper fished the corner of Uno on the way home , and Tony hooked a 22lb Jack in the shallow ground and after a good fight , he had his first fish on a popper { so he said , he had however caught a leerfish and a pompano earlier in the day , on a popper , but hey ho !! } . Anyway in his words he said " people tell you about fishing like this but you dont believe it exist , and now I know it does " .
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These kind of days are rare , and there not normally days as such , but a succession of mad half hours , the proof our skippers are doing their jobs well is the number of those mad half hours they can put together in a day . Fish will take advantage of a place , a point of the tide , and a particular occurrence { fish spawning , breeding , plankton bloom } and its the job of the skipper to know those things so he can give you as many mad half hours as possible .

Writers cramp now so . I have 10 more days to !!!!

For this message the author richardsheard1 has received thanks: 6
corbyeire (Wed Nov 19, 2014 1:33 pm), MAC (Fri Nov 21, 2014 4:42 pm), Moody Marlin (Thu Nov 20, 2014 8:59 pm), Pat (Wed Nov 19, 2014 2:23 pm), seanie35 (Wed Nov 19, 2014 2:08 pm), Sweetwrasse (Wed Nov 19, 2014 6:21 pm)
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Re: Guinea Bissau - Oct 2104

Postby Moody Marlin » Thu Nov 20, 2014 8:58 pm

Savage fishing, really wanna do some of this at some stage. :)
Species 2015: Long Spined Sea Scorpion, LSD, Poor Cod, Whiting, Flounder, Corkwing Wrasse, Tompot Blenny, Thornie, Tope, Dab, Ballan Wrasse, Pollack, Pouting, Herring, Coalie, Rock Goby, Mackerel, Cuckoo Wrasse, Ling, Cod, Conger, Smoothie, Common Blenny, Goldshinny Wrasse, Grey Gurnard, Bass, Bull Huss, Tub Gurnard, Haddock, Red Gurnard, Launce, Homelyn Ray, Sandeel, Blue Shark

Species 2014: (40) Flounder PB 37cm, Shore Rockling, Short Spined Sea Scorpion, Three Bearded Rockling, Pouting, Pollack, Whiting, Five Bearded Rockling, Codling, LSD, Dab, Smooth Hound, Tope PB 55lb, Bull Huss PB 13LB, Thornback Ray, Common Blenny, Ballan Wrasse, Black Goby, Grey Gurnard, Long Spined Sea Scorpion, Mackerel, Launce, Cuckoo Wrasse, Coalie, Tub Gurnard, Poor Cod, Tompot Blenny, Rock Goby, Small Mouth Wrasse, Corkwing Wrasse, Goldshinny Wrasse, Red Gurnard, Ling, Scad, Turbot, Sandeel, Haddock, Blue Shark PB 92LB, Mullet, Weever & an Octopus

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