***Sorry this report isn't massively GT heavy, and the fish are not on the same proportions as Oman and other recent reports, but thought I'd share with you guys a little report I put together for our local forums here in South Africa... this trip was done last week up to Linene Island which is in the San Sebastien area of Mozambique, just South of the Bazaruto Arhcipelago:***
*** - As a note we call Trevally "Kingfish" over here, sorry for the confusion. Also "Zambi" is a Zambesi Shark, what we call Bull Sharks here, and "Couta" are what we call King/Spanish Mackerel... ***Hey guys,
Not too much time to write a full detailed report, but thought I'd share a quick report with you guys with some pics from our recent trip to Linene Island Resort in Mozambique in mid May.
JigStar Africa put together a short trip up to Linene with Barry Miller and a group of his mates in mid May. Was a fantastic group of guys, put together by Barry. An interesting mix of anglers and experience, as the group got together as they all have sons who play rugby together, so have got to know each other over the years from the sidelines of their boys school rugby games, and Barry decided they should put something together to go away and have a blast catching some fish.
Linene treated us to some beautiful weather conditions, and while the fishing wasn't red hot, we caught some great fish, had a bunch of great laughs, and it was fantastic to be involved with a group of guys which for most, were having their first exposure to Jigging and Popping, and to some, their first Saltwater offshore trip.
A big thanks to Adrian at Linene for hosting us, and to Barry and Co for having Roy and myself along for the ride.
While conditions for the trip were fantastic, we had very strong current conditions, with North Easterly winds, which meant heading out to the deep reefs to target the Amberjacks that reside on Adrians secret marks was out of the question, so we concentrated on the shallower reefs, and fishing topwaters in the form of Stickbaits and Poppers... and what a blast we had!!
Clear stand outs on this trip, as has been evidenced by previous trips to Linene, were the Starwalker STickbaits.. particularly the Pink & Purple.... so much so that the ghillie's on the boats would open my tackle bag ( which as alot of you will know, is FULL of every stickbait and popper on the planet ) they go straight for the Pink Starwalkers and say " STickbait, Stickbait, this one, this one!".... Like they always say, " Trust me, I'm a local!" and we did, and we scored...
Thats not to say they were the only lures that produced, as we had great success on DarkStar Poppers, both the GT Mania, Skipjacks and Cuberas, as well as Starwalkers in other colours ( Fish of the trip fell to a Green Kahwai Starwalker ) as well as we fished deepwater plastics, needle nose GT Ice Creams, and Sea Iron Sprat spoons...
Anothe rgreat discovery for us was the effectiveness of some new small prototype Starwalkers in 11 cm and 140cm lengths... these little lures absolutely tore the Yellowfin up on Topwater, and we looking forward to introducing these into SA, as I know they will be dynamite in both our inshore and offshore waters...
Add to the great topwater action, we enjoyed putting some live bonnies out on the jigging gear, which ended in a couple of great fish, some monumental bust offs, some awesome fights with the men in Grey Suits, as well as a Marlin hook up which chafed through the 200lb leader after a brief but spectacular fight...
We also had a great time fishing light dropshot and fly off the jetty at Linene which is absolutely drowned in life... Snapper, Flatheads ( by the hundreds!!! ) and even Lion fish which took a liking to the Dropshots....
One of our group decided to rather spend his days fishing off the spit with a fly rod in hand rather than join us on the boats, and he had a blast bashing a number of smaller kingies, Garfish, Mojarras and 3 Spot Pompano ( Wave Garrick ) on his 6 weight....
Thats enough typing, I'll let the pics do the rest:
As per usual, Linene delivered with awesome Bonnie action, on the light tackle armed with Sprat Soons, these little speedsters gave us hours of fun... This is Tim's first of the first morning from his usual perch in the Anchor hatch on the small boat.
Gazza with a beautiful Swallowtail:
On the big Boat the boys were transforming their light tackle Bonnies into Heavy Tackle baits, and after a couple of absolute SMASHES which left them with broken leaders and mainlines, Donnie managed to tie into this beautiful Malabar Rockcod
Tim got into the swing of Dropshotting, and landed his first Kingy, on my ultralight set up, a lovely little Blacktip Kingy that gave him gears on the 8lb tackle:
Donnie, armed with the only other baby Starwalker on the boat got into the action as well, fishing one of my light set ups:
Classic Gazza Fight Pose!
The Pink Starwalker again doing the damage!
But the next fish managed to avoid the Taxman, but not our plates, and a first for Rory!
Gazza finished the day with a lovely Yellowspot Kingy which ate a Darkstar Cubera under a beautiful Sunset:
Gary H recovered from his hiding by the Taxman and him and I managed a lovely double on the Yellowspots:
And yet another big Bonnie on the ultralight gear:
While Gary H put in a few more casts under a VERY fast approaching westerly buster and was rewarded with another beautiful Yellowspot on a purple DarkStar GT Mania 130.
