INHACA Trip Dec 2012

[L Hooker]

Well after about 2 months of planning, 12 tackle check sessions with the crew  , countless chats with we finally left for Maputo on the evening of the 4th Dec.
My mate was taking his Skivee and i was taking my new boat a Seacat 510cc. This was too be the first time we where taking our boats too sea so we where quite amped! We left PTA around 11pm the Tuesday night and made our way down to Komatipoort without much incident except for a slow puncture on my trailer tyre. We arrived at Komatipoort around 4am , filled up with some fuel (being worried about the stories of contaminated fuel in Maputo) and headed for the border. We went through the border quite quickly and arrived at Clube Naval in Maputo around 7:00am. At Club Naval we met up with Pedro (PeterBlace) and he handed over our fishing licenses etc. (BIG THANKS to Pedro really appreciated all the help bud). After our were boats surveyed, Pedro got us into the lauch que and we were ready to hit InHaca..
Well that was the plan... As we left the harbour i realized my back left motor was not running well and intitially thought one of my carbs had picked up some dirt!!#$%^&.. At the same time my mate on the other boat also reported a problem with one of his motors #$$^ you gotta be kidding!! We decided to head on towards Inhaca and once at Inhaca i was going to try clean the carbs there... We where about halfway across the bay when my left motor died, dammit!! Started doing some checks and i see we have just finished 25ltr of fuel WTF, not possible unless we have a leak somewhere.. So we change tanks, i open the motor and get one my crew to prime the bulb, on inspection i find a small leak on one of the carb fuel hoses!!! (As Murphy would have it, the loose fuel line was on the bottom carb and in the most in accessible place!)When in the harbour i had asked my mate to prime the left bulb and he must have primed the hell out of it , and with the pressure the clamp holding the hose onto the carb had  slipped off.. Anyway had to remove the oil tank to get to the fuel line, and after about an hr fixed the problem! My mates problem turned out to be a faulty fuel connector, the o ring had dislodged and now that connector was sucking in some air! They bipassed this connector and we where back in business..
We eventually arrived at Inhaca yeehhaaa!! We had booked to stay at Manicos camp and on arrival at the Inhaca Jetty BoetJan was there ready to take us to the camp.
 

[L Hooker]

Manico Camp is a great place to stay, it's comfortable has a great layout and the service was good.
That afternoon the wind picked up however we where keen to get the lines wet so we decided to try our luck at one of the sheltered spots.. Once on the water my mate on his SKivee decided to give the channel in front of the Island a go and i decided to make a run for one of the buoys a bit deeper out as i wanted to see how my SeaCat would handle and wanted to cover different water. I am very impressed with my Seacat 510 cc, it handles a horrible chop very well, at no time did i feel unsafe and with a bit of trimming i could lift her nose to ride the chop and eliminate spray!! At the buoy we put down a few halcos and within minutes had our first take on the blue head/silver body that Fritz speaks so highly of! It turned out to be a small cuta that would serve as supper for the guys that evening...
A short time later another halco goes this time the purple/black tiger pattern with a small bonny. It was getting pretty rough out there so we decided to head back to shelter and get our things prepared for the next day.

[L Hooker]

After a few    that evening, and checking the weather report we where ready to leave early the next morning. Around 5:30 am we launched and headed off to the channel to try catch some bait, i quickly saw showings with my new Airmar p66 transducer(Very happy with it)  and dropped a few mozuris and quickly filled the live bait well.
We headed off to the buoys however on arrival there where quite a few local boats there so decided to give this spot a skip and head off to Jeremia's. The sea was a bit on it's head, and a few of my crew proceeded to feed the fish in fine style. . Once we arrived at Jeremia's we saw some bird activity so i decided to rig up a few small konas and some williamson jet heads and work the activity a bit. Before long we had a take on the jethead and after a nice firght we landed a small YFT around 8kg. The fishing was pretty hard and between 2 boats we landed about 6 YFT and about 6 bonnies.. not one take on live bait??

[L Hooker]

The next few days we worked all the reefs up to B52, mixing it up with jigging, live bait dead bait, pulling kona's ,feathers and halco's. We did not catch a huge amount of fish however between the 2 boats we caught mainly YFT, bonnies, 1 dorado a few couta, some jobfish on live bait, 3 species of kings, some tomato & swallowtail  rockod.
This place has huge potential and if you hit it right i think it would be off the wall in terms of fishing..

[L Hooker]

some more pics

[L Hooker]

The Dorado and the nice couta in the pic above where both caught on drifting dead mozzies. 1st Pic looking back at Inhaca from Jeremia's. 2nd pic of quad trailer used to transport us back to Manico Camp

[super_daav]

Nice report LH. Some nice fish there. Lekker Island and part of the world hey!?!

[L Hooker]

The trip was a great success, we tested our boats we caught some fish, we met up with some great Ultimate mates Marcos and Pedro. Hope you guys enjoyed the report. The last pick is off us coming into Club Naval.
The trip back to Pta was pretty quick and after leaving Inhaca around 7:30 we got back to PTA around 5pm that arvo. Almost forgot we did happen to get a fine in Maputo for having open beer bottles in the car. It's a new in Moz not even passengers can drink in a car!!
Going to Ponta in APril so until then i will be dreaming of fishing the big blue, so guys please add those reports to tide me over till then.
Cheers

[L Hooker]

almost forgot pic of my boat and the skivee in action

[L Hooker]

Awesome place Super_D

[Manuel Junior]

Nice report LH!
Congrats on your catches!

[REEFMAN]

What a GREAT report Sheldon! Thanks for sharing it and congrats on the nice fish! 

[Half-Pint]

Great report! and thanks for keeping those of us stranded in JHB sane!

[Lichia amia]

Nice report 

[L Hooker]

Thanks guys was a great trip, glad you enjoyed the report. As usuall i wish we had taken more pics of the fish, camp etc etc. Next time i will to ensure a lekker colourfull UA report

[Ettienne]

Well done and great report. Not so lekker to read while still at work though!

[Homie]

Superb report and pics !!!

Congrats !

[Prego]

Nice one L Hooker, glad you guys got into some fish and had a great trip.

 

[L Hooker]

Nice one L Hooker, glad you guys got into some fish and had a great trip.

 

Thanks bud, how was your trip! See you at least went out.

[Happy Dog]

Looks like an awesome trip. Well done