Cape Verde 2017

Cape Verde 2017-Boa Vista

 At the end of January 2017, we headed back to our favorite winterspot, Boa Vista, Cape Verde again. We prefer the RIU Touareg because of its pristine surroundings and the fact that the direction of the winds are great for fishing up there. Though it's probably one of the best spots in the world for wahoo fishing, chances for sailing in January and February are low because of the extreme winds, which makes biggame fishing a no go!

Same thing for lure fishing, though we tried a couple of times, we blanked everytime, only once we had a small fish following the lure, no bites at all this week. Being there in the summertime, it will be different when there is a lot of Jacks and Bluefish in these waters. So the main target would be shark again, there around all year.

Because we stayed one week only, we had to take every opportunity to fish under the best conditions. Because we fish with light gear, we had to wait till the surf was at low level and the tide was not running. That happened 2 times this week around midnight, on our first day and the day before we left. Last year we caught us a nurseshark and we hoped to get a lemonshark this year, that one is still on the bucket list! We fished with 17/100 braid, 40 grams led weight, and Gamakatsu circle hooks in the 6/0 size, weapon of choice spinning rods till 80 gram and 3 meter in size. Simone caught us a couple of bait fish so we were ready to start the shark fishing which we prefer in the dark. The first strike scared the hell out of us, the rod totally bent down and the braid snapped right of, this must have been a really big shark, it all happened in a split second.

 
All exited we tried again, and a couple of minutes later I had another one on. The shark bites are always the same, at first you get a big bent down, after that the line comes loose, the shark will be swimming towards you..Just behind the surf it is aware it's hooked and takes off (sometimes 5 times in a row). Screaming reels and very exiting fishery all together. After a while a very beautifull black tip shark came through the surf. It was pretty pissed off and almost took my liver out while snapping around with his razor sharp teeth.

Half an hour later Simone caught us another one and after the pics were taken we released them alive and well to fight another day. We went back to the hotel lounge for some drinks and texted our buddy Andy Stevens in England, who was totally exited. Andy was on this spot in November and caught some nice fish too during the daytime.

 
The day before we left was another opportunity for shark fishing and so we did. Strangely enough it wasn't easy to catch any baitfish, but when we did, the circle hooks with chunks of fish were casted out again. We managed to get one bite of another beautifull blacktip shark. We had a great time this week and look forward till the next holiday in September, keep you posted!

 
Tight lines

 Lee