C'est pas l'homme qui prend la mer , c'est la mer qui prend l'homme.Moi la mer elle m'a pris, c'était un mardi.
A bon entendeur salut et bonne visite.
Back from Cape Verde , crewed 12 days on the Hooker with Capt. Clay Hensley and 1st mate Wilson Yamedor and 1 day on the Happy Hooker 2 with Capt. Simon Bracey.
1st week with our canarians guest was slow. We released only 1 fish about 300 pound on a pitch bait. We raised about a fish a day, and on the pitch, our guest missed a few blues, and also a nice 700 pounder on a lure.
Our second week on the Hooker was way better, with our French anglers we fished the North West Bank for 5 days with very good weather. We raised about 25 blues and released 7 of them, biggest 450 pound. On day 2, with fought a nice one on 130 tackle for 55 minutes, that finally pulled the hook only 10 feet from the leader, I'd say 700 + for that fished.
Back to mindelo, had a good day on the Happy Hooker, going 2 for 4, with a 250 and a 450 pounder. The last day on the Hooker we went fun fishing with friends just for a 3/4 day, and went 3 for 3 with a nice 500 , a 450 and a 300 pounder, all on pitch baits.
Really love to see these fish switching to our bait after been teased 20 feet off the transom.
Well Cape Verde is a sick Blue Marlin destination.
Wish a good season to all captains, crew and anglers.
Clement
Just back from a 7 days trip in Mindelo - Here are most of the game boats -Nobody's fishing right now, Season's gonna start in two month - Water is about 22 degres , and wind's blowing pretty much every days - The fish market is full of wahoo up to 90 pounds, plus yellowfins, a few marlin and some broadbills.
Fished 3 days on 3 different boats as french team with my buddies Antoine Drochon and Laurent Laferre.
We boated two blues, a 350 and a 400 pounder, out of 5 bites. Unfortunatly these two young fish got tailwrapped during the fight, and couldn't be revived. The bite was pretty good for the 11 boats fishing the competiton, a total of 30 blue was raised for 19 releases.
So, Punta Delgada seems to be a real good spot for blues, wich is not surprising as the main fishing ground, is located 110 milesEst the famous Azores and Condor banks.
More to come on the next issue of " Voyages de Peche Magazine ".
Video by Paul Watson - Marlin World media
06/09/12
Trying to get the IGFA Woman 16 pound record for bluefin tuna. The Fish hooked up this morning was way big enough. 5 miles and one and a half hour later, the leader was getting closer.... Then we just heard bang..!! Rod broken , then the line did the same. That sucks . At least we released a 150 pounder at the end of the afternoon, on 80 pound Tackle.
07/09/12
Still trying W-16 Pound, nothing at all for us, no wind, strong westernly current, marked a few fish , but no bite for us. A lot of boats fishing. Saw a 300 pounder weighted back at the harbour.
09/07/12
Fished on 80 pound tackle today, looking for a big blefin tuna, we marked very few fish and had no bite till we we were just about to wine up tu line. Strong bite, and 1h40 later we boated the fish, it was a nice 300 pounder. Leadering was scarying cause we hook up on a 220 pound mono leader. We put a pop-up tag on it before the release.
10/07/12
I wasn't onboard but just had a talk with the captain. Looking for IGFA W-16, the team fought a well sized fish ( over 37 kg ) for 3h20 . Then unfortunatly the fish spit the hook at only 25 meters from the boats.
11/07/12
Unfortunatly still wasn't onboard today, the team looked for the 16 Woman, and fought 3 fish that finally broke the line, the longest fight was 2 hours. Two of these fish were way too big, and the line broke cause of water pressure ( more than 400 meters in the water ..) the last one had a god size for the record , but broke 25 meters at the back of the boat. The team caught a 150 pounder on 80 pound tackle at the end of the afternoon, fish killed with autorization.
It was the last day fishing with killing autorization for Cyngali, so the record's not gonna be for this year.
Bluefin tuna bite's red hot in front of Rhône river , South of France. Fished 5 days on a 40 Footer gamefisherman, with capt. D. Lopuzansky, dead baiting, we had 12 bites releasing 12, all under 100 kg. Biggest 80 kg. Some boats had more luck gaffing some Nice one during the Martigues tournament , a 123 kg, a 150, a 160 kg and a 195 kg were killed with autorizartion. Will be back at it soon.
During a 2 month stay in Guadeloupe-FWI, I fished 7 days on two charter boats, giving a hand to the captains on the West (lee) side of the island.
During these 7 days, lure fishing, we had 10 bites of Blue marlin. Three of them were gaffed- the same day-, the biggest about 400 pound.
The average size of Blues here is about 150 pound during the winter season wich starts in October and ends in March.
My friend Tony ,who runs a 25 footer charter boat had a really good Marlin bite last monthes, with about 100 marlins boated during November, December, January and February.
We also caught a few mahi-mahi, up to 30 pounds, and some other smaller fish.
On my boat, I mostly fished FAD live baiting on the East side of the Island and caught some yellow fin tuna up to 25 pound.
From the 2nd to to 10th of December, I fished out of Abidjan - Ivory Coast, with my friends Jean Paul, Pierre and Rahim.
The boat was a 25 footer Bertram powered by a Cummins 200 Hp inboard engine.
During these 9 days, we targeted blue marlin, and only raised 4 decent fish on our live baits. The first one broke the 130 # line, because of a mistake due to precipitation. The second bite was a big tuna, for shure a 150+ yellowfin or bigeye, who left his tooth mark on the 10 pound bait, but didn't swallow it. The last two bites were definitly Blue Marlin, but even with a long drop back loop + a 10 second free spooling, we didn't hook these fish with the Mustad circle hook 20/0.
So, the Blue marlin bite was very slow during this trip altough bait were in numbers around the main platform field. We had a lot of yellowfin tuna casting flappers on the surface , biggest caught was a 80 pounder. Wahoo were still abundant, and really easy to catch trolling lazer pros. We also had some succes jigging, with amberjacks up to 35 pound, a few groupers and some other bottom inhabitant.
Conventional fishing, we gaffed a 532 and a 585, released a 600, a 400 pulled the hook, a 800 + missed the pitch, and we had another bite. A 600 refused the fly 20 #
Fun fishing, we released 2 about 700 pitched on 130#
For all the other fish that showed up in our spread, Gladius fished for IGFA records only, trying to beat two record:
Atlantic Blue on fly 20#, wich is 208 lbs.
Atlantic Blue conventional 12# , wich is 604 lbs.
Fought an 800 pitched on 12# conventional for 5 hours, we never had it close enough to grab the 15 feet of leader or to free gaff it.
Fought a 650 on fly 20 #for 3 hours, never close enough to gaff it.
Fought a 600 on fly 20 # for 8 hours, never close enough too.
Fought another 600 on fly for 20 min.
Fought two 400 on fly for 1 hour.
The other blues broke / pulled the hook within the first minutes, refused the fly, couldn't be properly teased or refused/missed pitch for conventional.
Looking for 2# fly White Marlin IGFA record, we broke 6 times.
