Yup, the title pretty much sum up the trip.
Colorful! The country, the people and of course the FISHING!
Marcus from Sweden, Vicente from Brazil, Vladimir from Serbia (San Diego) and myself travelled over 10,000 miles to Tanzania for a week of fintastic fishing adventure with Jason and Mady.
The originally planned 50-50 jigging and popping trip was delightfully greeted with a sudden change of migrating yellow fin tunas! These mixed sized of 20 to 150 pounds fins were viciously displaying their feeding prowess on the surface fighting with birds over flying fishes and baby squids sometimes leaping over 6ft off the surface, truly a breathtaking sight ? something taken out of National Geographic Moments is what I would call it.
We started day one popping for GTs and landed quite a few of these knuckle heads. When the bite slowed down, we moved on to deeper waters to ?jig? caught a few jacks, ruby snappers, green and rusty job fish and even GTs, as for dogtooths, we only managed a few small ones.
Jason and Mady blamed it on the weird weather patterns that wasn?t supposed to be this time of the year, not that we weren?t happy about it, it brought the tunas and calm seas! But jigging was near impossible when you are dropping 300g to 450g lead to the bottom with a steady 4 knot current. Maybe only our Swedish Viking made it to the bottom with an 800g jig!
And so - we casted, initially to the birds that were hovering and then ? blind casting ? and then just cast for the sake of casting!
The tunas were so thick that we were getting instantaneous hookups! I mean it when I say instantaneous! All our lures that landed on the water were almost instantly picked up by hungry tunas exploding on the surface, they were watching and following the lures fly through the air like flying fishes and pounce on them the moment they landed on the water. It was rinse and repeat for the next 2 days, tunas everywhere!! And when we finally head back on the third day for refuel and resupply, everyone was thankful for the much needed break to loosen our sored and aching bodies.
We slept soundly and I was pretty sure our arms were twitching from muscle spasm that night.
On the fourth and fifth day, Mother Nature decided to do a little tweak in the weather.
The wind started picking up and the seas got rough but the great tuna fishing didn?t stop! In fact it got better, the tunas got fatter and bigger and more, as far as your eyes could see.
But like all good things must come to an end, it was time to leave?I believe everyone have had this feeling at least once, happy, sad and reluctant to go and at the same time, put me on a bed already!
We bid Jason and Mady Fare Ye Well and headed back to our lodge, everyone constantly reminding everyone how amazing this trip was, maybe we were lucky, maybe we were there at the right time and place, maybe not?and according to Jason and Mady, this time of the year do bring in the yellow fin tunas, maybe this year was exceptional but our host assured us that it will get better in years to come, it has been 3 years since the purseiners left Tanzania wiping out the entire yellow fin population but the yellow fins have started to come back and I hope they do come back! Until then, I hope all those with plans to fish in Tanzania will have the same experience as us, if not better!
Tight lines and enjoy the pics!
Tackle used
Rods ? Saltywater Tackle Race Point 200/250, El Maestro 710MH/77H, Outer Banks 300/400, Carpenter, Synit, Jigging Master, Fisherman
Reels ? Shimano Stella, Daiwa Saltiga, Ocean Maxel
Lures and Jigs ? check out the photos!
Lines ? Sunline, Varivas, Shout Sasame, Jerry brown Hollow Spectra, Power Pro Hollow Ace
Leaders/System knots ? Seaguar, Sunline, Varivas, Izorline, Blackwater/ Saltywater Tackle Twisted Leader System, PR/FG Knot, Yucatan knot
Terminal and Hooks ? Owner TSS swivels, Shout Power Swivels, CB One Swivels EXH, Raymond custom assist hooks, Shout Kudako/Ringed Kudakos, Owner ST76/66, Gamakatsu GT Recorder
Mood ? Bloody Satisfied! To the point that I am writing this report and on a 13 hours flight when I should be catching up on some hard earned rest!
