Cape Verde 2011 - Boa Vista

Boa Vista

 

When God was ready creating earth, he clapped his hands and the sand that fell off was dropped in the Atlantic, and formed the beautiful islands of Cape Verde. They lay about 400 kilometres in front of the main land of Africa. Tropical circumstances and very pristine beaches, we checked in at the RIU Touareg, no other hotels or civilisation around. The landscape makes you think you’re in a western movie, it’s august 2011.

 

First morning, break of dawn after some coffee at the bar, in about 5 minutes on the spot. The surf is enormous, pretty good thing the wind is coming from behind. I tried out some different Rapalas but the only lure that wasn’t crushed by the surf, seemed to be the Yo-zuri popper. In a while I got a nice strike by a horse eye jack that wasn’t giving up easy, great fun! The bites continued till the sun started burning, I caught me some blackjacks to.

 

Next morning I got company from a stray dog and it would stay with me for a couple of sessions more.
I fed it some of the caught jackfish which I did use for bait anyway. In this time of the year it’s not allowed to fish at night, because sea turtles are laying their eggs right on the beach next to the resort. In the next sessions, we fished with chunks of fish on sharks.

 

The planned boat trip didn’t occur, just because the charter company only takes Visa cards. That was a big disappointment because I heard form a guy called Joe from Essex, they caught a lot of wahoo, tuna and even lost a marlin. So Simone and I tried us to catch some fish with teeth from the shore. I started out with a little black tip reef shark, beautiful animal by the way. Simone first lost a giant bluefish when it jumped out of the surf and broke the leader. She casted back in, and dropped the 60 gram weight and steal leader behind the surf and it didn’t take long when a strike came on. She nicely drilled an aggressive little black tip out of the surf, it drew a lot of people from the beach to come and watch. We quickly removed the 8/0 hook and put the shark back alive and well, as all sharks that we caught this holiday. This was a session we will both never forget, Simone made a great catch!

 

Black tip shark wasn't the only predator interested in chunks of baitfish, we also caught us a little murene, unfortunately I must say.. It got rolled up in the steal leader and died. A couple of days later I got an enormous strike which appeared to be a beautiful bluefish, another new specie on my list of "fish to be caught".

 

On the last day I went fishing, I took the long walk on the left of the hotel to the cliff of sandstone so I could check that out as a fishing spot. I left when it was still dark, had to avoid guards and turtle patrol quads by staying of the beach. When I arrived at the break of dawn, it seemed like a fantastic fishing spot, because you can fish your lures behind the surf easily. You could see the jackfish attack the popper like a bunch of pit bull terriers, it was great fun! A disadvantage on this spot is the height, a bigger fish could be difficult to lift out. Walking it to the beach was no option because of the rocks. Bottom fishing wasn't an option either because of the rocky bottom. So I tried a very thick leader and a floater with steal leader, 6/0 tringle hooks. I baited them with the jackfish I caught earlier and I could see 2 sharks react immediately. When I caught two beautiful black tips, It wasn't easy to get them out as expected, so I decided to start the long way back in the broiling sun. Great fishing up here, we definitely got to come back here someday! Boa Vista recommended!


Tight lines!

Lee