Re: Cape Verde - The best Hot Spot worldwide?
Maybe it is Milchner but it was certainly not like Mackerel fishing on my visit and you actually dont do yourself any favours saying it is.
Its certainly a fantastic opportunity but like any other fishery it can slow up. But given my limited experience in this field is there any other place than can average out at one fish a day when its slow ?
Please find my report for those interested.
It would be fair to say I’m battered and bruised after a week bouncing around the seas off Sao Vicente. Its been said in previous threads that this was to be expected and for those considering going and reading up for the fist time its not for the faint hearted . The sea conditions can and will from what I have seen be consistently rough with the calmer weather at this time of year being the exception.
I fished five days myself aboard Happy Hooker 2 skippered by Simon and caught five blue marlin, one big eye tuna .From the five days in total I would say that I spent around a full day jigging with some success given Simon my skipper had not done much of this before and it was too rough/far away to go to the only mark that we knew would produce AJ’s I caught Alamaco Jacks, Lesser AJ’s, Wahoo and a couple of unidentified species as well as blue runners and trigger fish.
The Marlin were 450,400, 350, 440 and 550 all these fish were tagged. The Big Eye Tuna was 240 pounds. Orange and black/ blue and silver moudcraft and an andromeda did the damage.
It seems I missed the main bite by around 3 days where some boats were tagging up to 10 fish per day. The strikes during the week were dropping off on the whole with things becoming more difficult as the week went on. Given the fishing had been so good versus the number of fish and % caught and tagged you might expect this. The moon may have been an issue as I was fishing up to a full moon.
I might be easy to feel disappointed at not getting the numbers of marlin caught the previous week. But wait a minute….where else can you go and average a blue marlin a day? Reality check required!!
I certainly had the opportunity with the numbers of strikes in the first few days, spent around a full day in total jigging and did not catch a marlin on my last day. Speaking of which on the last day I went 0 from 3 and got pretty much got spooled and then broken from a fish that actually got Simon excited. Having seen a few fish he is pretty cool under pressure so I knew when the fish came up into the spread and he started being vocal I was paying attention. Anyhow as you might expect from the “one that got away story” it did and it was 700 plus. It was totally different from anything I had hooked before and ran across the running sea with us chasing it at full pelt.
Summary
My object was to catch a blue marlin and also my largest fish so far. I achieved this and had a fish of lifetime with the big eye thrown in for good measure. This or a big yellowfin/bluefin was always on the wish list but these days are hard to target with any success I guess. Totally made up with this fish and was worth going for alone.
Simon on HH2 skipper was very good and a decent guy as were the crew of Tony and Elda. When Tony wraps a fish he doesn’t seem to let go! Berno was helpful and on the money with what was promised.
The food was good Sao Vicente seems safe enough. Beer was not cheap but cold and did the trick. The people did not appear that friendly but you are in a port where English is not really spoken. Might be a bit like Hawaiian fisherman landing in Govan in Scotland, don’t suppose he would find that friendly unless he had a Gers football top on.
I have never been sea sick, but if you are prone to this either take something or don’t go. I was very close to being sick after catching my first blue. Like everything else you get used to it fairly quickly but be warned. I have virtually no marlin pictures because of the size of the seas. The crew are on the fish which seemed to be a right handful given the height of the gunwale, waves and how the hooks were embedded in each time. Simon was making sure the boat was right for the guys to deal with the fish. So…..take a cameraman or share the boat with another angler.
What would I do differently? Not much unless I had a crystal ball. I would probably do ten days and split with another angler rather than five myself. This would hopefully cover some slow days. Being a longer trip it would also allow me to target the massive AJ’s that I never got a hook into. But then again I already half a plan in my head for those bad boys!
Martin
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Any chance of seeing some pictures!
and Chris 
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