I am back from my trip to Benguerra, Man that place seems to always produce something special!
We arrived at the lodge at around 4pm on monday and spent a bit of time rigging rods and reels and having a couple of beers while we chatted to the skippers about the fishing.
Tuesday morning we were on the boat and heading out at 5am. We went to 5 mile reef, behind Bazaruto island, and started casting stickbaits. I had a range of samples of the new Williamson Typhoon Sticks that we were trying out, and we started with the 125g models, hoping for some big GT's. After about an hour of casting with no real smashes, just a couple of swirls from smaller fish, I decided to have a few throws with the smaller 50g stickbait on my light popping rod. As Murphy would have it on my second throw an absolute BUS of a GT came charging in on the lure. I yanked it away from the fish quickly, as I would have no chance whatsoever of landing that fish on that tackle in less than 10m of water and reef all around us. I quickly grabbed the heavy popping rod and threw the bigger stickbait, hoping that the monster would come for it, but sadly he had departed. We fished pretty hard, but the bite was slow on the surface. We decided to move out deeper to a reef at around 50m depth and try a bit of dropshotting while waiting for the tide to turn. This brought on a few fish, mainly green jobfish, some kawakawa and a very nice yellowtail kingfish, which ate my chartreuse Mcarthy jershad on a 2 ounce jighead. The fish put up a great fight and came aboard for some quick pics before being sent back to the reef.
Soon after that I landed a very nice specimen of a Longnose Emperor, the biggest one I have caught so far. This one ate a 5" white Mcarthy jerkbait, also on a 2 ounce jig head. The fish put up a really good fight on the light tackle, and showed no effects of barotrauma. The Emperor family seem to be able to deal with pressure change better than other bottom species. Anyhow, it was a great fish and I was very pleased to see one of that size.
We then had some fun casting spoons at yellowfin tuna, skipjack tuna and kawakawa, all of which we landed a few of. We were using light tackle for this; a Shimano beastmaster special tiger rod, with a stella 5000 reel and 20lb Sufix performance braid. I had a leader of 50lb and was using a Sea Iron casting spoon. The tuna gave us lots of fun, and we must have landed around half a dozen each.
The following day we went out at 5am again, and headed for the shallow inshore reefs along the back of Bazaruto, fishing stickbaits over water of 7m to 15m in places like 5 mile, 7 mile, 9 mile and in the shallows at sailfish bay. I stuck to the heavy outfit, not wanting a repeat performance of the previous day. The bite was slow and fish were striking short a lot, just leaving a swirl on the surface. I slowed my retrieve down to very slow, working the stickbait with a gentle side to side wobbling action, with pauses in between. The water exploded on my lure and I saw the mottled side of a very large grouper as it rolled on the surface where my lure had been moments before. The fish pulled very hard, heading for the bottom, where it was intent on getting under a ledge. I managed to control it and finally landed a beautiful Malabar rockcod of around 25 kg's or so. It was great to get a bottom dwelling species such as this on a surface lure, and I was very chuffed.
A short while later I had another beast of a GT take three serious swipes at my stickbait, but sadly it did not connect. My friend Paddy in the meantime had a nice king mackerel come leaping right out of the water with his stickbait in its mouth. The fish was hooked and on landing, it tore off on a hard run. Sadly the hooks pulled after a while and he lost the fish.
We went to some deeper water to do a bit of dropshotting and were drifting along when we spotted a shoal of kingfish near the surface, near the boat. I gave Paddy the light rod with a 2 ounce white chisel plug on it and told him to have a go. The plug had hardly hit the water before it was smashed and a few minutes later Paddy landed a lovely Bigeye Kingfish, which gave him a great fight on the light rod.
We than had some more frenetic surface action with yellowfin tuna, landing a few on the 50g stickbaits. We decided to leave the tuna and head for 9 mile reef after a while. As we were approaching 9 mile we saw plenty of needlescale queenfish (saladfish) jumping from the water in panic, as they were being chased. I went back to the big stickbait on the heavy popping outfit and started working it slowly again on the top as we drifted along the reef. Twice my stickbait was hit viciously by big king mackerel, but neither one connected with the hooks, which was a bit frustrating. A few minutes later there was an almighty smash on my lure, and my rod went down. Ha! I thought, I have got a good couta on. Imagine my surprise when a small marlin came leaping from the water a second later, with my lure in its mouth. I quickly released tension on the drag, as it had been set for GT's (sunset) and I felt it would be better to let this fish run a bit. The fish put up a spectacular fight, jumping repeatedly from the water around the boat. It had a lot of power and did some good runs. My heart was in my mouth every time it jumped, as I expected it to throw the lure. Anyway I finally got it to the boat, where it was landed. What a beautiful fish! The size of the tail confirmed why this animal had so much speed and power. It had been hooked on one of the single hooks on the belly of the stickbait, and was firmly hooked. We checked it out for a moment, admiring it, before swimming it next to the boat for a few minutes before releasing it. I was so happy to have a new species on surface lure, and a Black Marlin at that! The amazing thing is that it was hooked in 14m of water!
On our last day we targeted GT's again with the large stickbaits and Paddy got a nice fish, which really made me pleased, as he had been working hard for it. His stickbait had barely landed from a cast he aimed at some baitfish, when the water exploded on it and he was on. After a short, but hard fight he boated a GT of around 17kg's.
Our skipper Gareth also got into the action with a nice King Mackerel of around 14kg's that he landed on my little flick stick with a small spoon on it. That Couta really ran, and I was expecting to see smoke from the drag on my stella 5000, but it handled it well. Gareth did well to land that lovely fish on such light tackle. He had cast the spoon at a shoal of saladfish and allowed it to sink before retrieveing it. The couta must have been hanging beneath the shoal of salads.
Anyway, all in all it was a great trip. We didn't get the big GT that we were looking for on stickbait, but conditions were marginal and the GT's were not committing much on the strike. The marlin more than made up for it for me though, even though it was a baby, it is still something of an achievement, and I was thrilled. I am pretty sure somebody is going to land a big marlin on stickbait in the near future. These lures are just so versatile and seem to appeal to a wide range of fish species!
