Bassas Trip Report

[MCC]

Gerrit, that's actually a "Porno" reel

Thanks Shaun, there's more to come over the next few days.

[Jono Shales]

Awesome report guys, I know that you guys were looking forward to going and it looks like you had fun and made new friends.

Those parrots look amazing ... fantastic read and well written too, keep it up guys

[Shamwari]

This is a fantastic thread...I am super excited...I can't wait

[Quintin]

What an unbelievable thread!! The individual reports and fotos are fantastic!! Keep them coming!!!

[WJvE]

WOW!!! Dit is stunning fotos en dit lyk freaking lekker!!!!

[damage]

Fernando Duarte (aka APS, sorry secret can’t reveal – will need to ask him)



As the only non English as primary language member of the Team I'll try to be brief and go straight to the relevant parts.



First was truly an honor to be invited to be a part of this trip even not knowing most of the people and having previously spent only a couple hours with Franz on a desperate hangover "fishing" trip in one of Cape Town typical stormy days at sea and briefly meeting Andre for around one hour at a restaurant in Cape Waterfront.

With that said I cannot think of a better bunch to spend a whole week in the middle of nowhere with only sea surrounding us. A Special word for our Captain and "father" Craig and his lovely lady Yacht Sarah some of the things he allowed us to do on his boat with a smile on my own boat there would be a serious risk of me losing my patience and start throwing people overboard has Shark food, thanks Craig you have exceeded all our expectations and you are truly a great guy and a professional Captain, Cook, Guide, whatever more we can think of.



Lesson learned



First lesson never prepare a trip with so many months in advance, your bank account is going to take a serious hit with all the tackle expenses for the incredible amount of situations your imagination starts defining as possible fishing targets and techniques.



Second lesson, sailing two full days is no piece of cake and remember there is no bail out in the middle of the ocean so take all the medicine pills and every medical aid you can think of include in that pack seasickness pills my first night aboard in the middle of Mozambique Channel was not easy and it took my aging body a full day to adapt.



Third lesson, forget about deep open water jigging at Bassas if the fish is a decent size the time it will take you to land that fish will allow sharks to do their stuff.... It is not a pleasant experience having hooked the Yellowfin Tuna of your life on a jigging stick, all your adrenalin pumping, all the excitement around it, all the physical stress and suddenly you go from vey high to very low, you have been taxed and all that you land is the head of a great fish...



Deep, open water around Bassas is trolling and popping terrain only, bring heavy tackle, lock your drag and land fish as fast as possible. Shallower water is a different story there you get taxed from time to time but with the proper tackle you can land a serious amount of fish.

So 3 areas you can explore there, fishing inside the Atoll for the odd GT on hunting mode, or the elusive Triggers and Parrots, shallow water jigging and popping shallow and deep blue water.



On shallow water jigging do not worry too much about jig brands and expensive stuff anything will work, every time I dropped a metal spoon or a soft plastic I got fish and eventually from time to time got busted in the process by something really big, night jigging the usual stuff scents and lumo will increase your catch rate, I personally do not fish bait at all but you will fight the Grouper of your life if you follow that track.







Beautiful!



Tackle, I took an incredible amount of stuff most of it not used or barely used due to our not jigging deep water option.



2 Heavy Popping rods, a JM 8´6" and a Ripplefisher 79H paired with a Stella 10000 with a 16000 spool filled with PE8 line and a Stella 18000 filled with PE10 line. Did most of my fishing on the "lighter" rod (JM 8'6") with the 10000, perfect balance of weight castability and strength, being a not so tall guy the longer rod is a must for me if I need to reach those more distant spots and for stickbaits (the flavor of this trip) this is a great rod, I really think I can land most of what Bassas have to offer on this rod.



Would bring the exact same two rods for a next trip, the 79H would be if I needed to move big poppers and again de 8'6" would be my weapon of choice.



2 Jigging rods a extra strong Synit Seriola Deepshot and a Synit Venom 250 paired with a JM PE6 and JM PE5 reel on a following trip would take the Heavy Synit Seriola again and probably change to something even lighter for the evening light jigging off the boat or even leave it at home and get another intermediate spinning rod to complement the light spinning / Soft Plastics / Jigging Option.



1 Spinning light rod a St.Croix Wild River 8"6' rod paired with a Sustain 4000 just for the fun of getting beaten often, I love this rod would take it again just for the fun of light soft plastics fishing.



We have sent all our jigs ahead by road and that was a very wise decision.



A think all the rest has already been covered by the rest of the gang so let's go to the personal experience fishing stuff.



Fishing Experience



When I joined the trip I had to thing in mind, the adventure sailing/fishing remote location experience and landing some of those infamous GTs, where I fish we do not have that species and all I had read about on the internet made me very interested in feeling the fight of the GT.



As a complete package fishing adventure experience I think Bassas cannot be beat anywhere in Africa, I got much more than I ever expected, the trip is an adventure in itself, the scenery is incredible and the fishing action is just nonstop with an incredible amount of species to explore, I think we just scratched the surface.







In the scissors



I forgot count of all the fish I got, from GT popping to Yellowfin on mooring, snappers on stickbaits and soft plastic, black GTs on spoons and soft plastics, Bigeye on spoons, groupers on stickbait, etc.



Most memorable fishing moments



The first GT, the boat had just finished mooring I picked up my JM 8'6" rod with the Stella 10000 and casted a couple times to a water color change on the direction of the Atoll and VAS fish on my first GT ever and on a stickbait and we had just arrived the boat had not even stopped.







Oh ah …



Yellowfin lost to sharks, we were trolling around deep water for fish location a Tuna hit one of the trolling rods I picked up my Synit Heavy rod with a JM PE6 and a hooker jig dropped it and fish on, my biggest Yellowfin ever but after a couple minutes lot's of happiness screams and seriously bent rod sharked.



First fish ever on soft plastics, I had never fished soft plastics decided to rig one on my light spinning freshwater setup while everybody was having a ball with the Black Gts and BAM a beautiful snapper.





Mr Bohar



All the GTs were a hell of an experience and my prime target but the late afternoon bigger one that trashed my stickbait when me and Andre went for an end of the day session on the dingy was something special that I will not forget so soon







THE silver king!



Lastly a fight I unfortunately have no pictures off the fish, while casting on the moving around the Atoll boat I hooked a fish, started moving to the back of the yacht as usual and when the guys asked about the fish I told them keep on moving it's a small fish but then suddenly with me already on the back of the boat the fish became incredibly bigger, I increased my already tight drag and it pushed me to the rails almost falling overboard the guys had to hold me and that fish pressed me time and time to the rails, the JM 8"6 did incredible almost 180º bends all this time Andre guiding me and I could not move from the rail time and time again, finally managed with a lot of effort to get it near the boat and at the surface we saw a really big Shark that looked at the boat and spit my stickbait, this up until now has been the fight of my life on a casting stick never before I had felt such kind of pressure on a casting stick and never before I had worked with suck a tight drag on my faithful pimped Stella 10000!!!







Fish on ….

[damage]

Lots of fish but not fishing



I could not end without referring the incredible snorkeling experience at Bassas, that allowed me to take incredible pictures of the fish variety in their habitat.















With the two high points being first the discovery of a sunken dingy







And being "investigated" by a shark and not having any kind of defense weapon with me had to try spook it away with my camera flash.







Bassas is surely a place to revisit, next time I would just change the tactics of GT popping inside the Atoll and try cover more area there and on the outside explore the up to 50/60 meters jigging areas in search for Dogtooth Tuna.



What I would surely not change is the bunch of guys that shared this experience and the Captain that took us there and back safely.

[BuzzLiteBeer]

This is quite possibly the greatest report back in Flytalk history. How about a detailed list of tackle/gear ??

[damage]

G it's in the report still to come in MC's tackle tips and tactics
Watch this space

/d

[damage]

Denton Ingham-Brown (aka Damage aka stealth hippo)

I like to think of myself as a pretty decent fisherman, but here at (21deg28’53’’ S.39deg40’45’’E) standing on the atoll edge after months excitement and preparation;

720 emails, 1000s of Google hits, countless Facebook pages
, numerous calls to guys that have been there before, hours of Google earthing,
many days behind the vice, 12 spools of thread, 14 packs of superhair,
six bucktails, 4 packs of flash, 20packs of dumbbell eyes ,
160 beads, 4 packs of yarn, 8 packs of rubber legs,
600 hooks, 6 bottles of superglue, zpoxy, flexcoat,
1 rotisserie motor, 25 meetings to discuss patterns and strategy,
100 + knots tested two cases of wine, two flights covering 2000 km,
a two-day 260-mile sail, 85 gyms visits stronger and 22 kgs lighter,
armed with 5 rods, 4 reels 8 lines 3200 m of backing,
8 rolls of fluorocarbon tippet, flats boots, shin guards,
pliers, forceps, boga, camera, vhf radio, backup vhf radio,
epirb, stripping basket flats pack, camelback,
buff, Oakleys, Columbia bonehead shirt
and 4 Plano boxes stuffed full of over 300 flies ….



You would think I would be prepared but I wasn’t!





windey windey …



It was like my first day at pre-school exciting but scary at the same time.



How did I find myself out here, out of my depth in ankle deep water in the middle of the Indian Ocean? That question at least at face value was an easy one MC had send me a mail saying that he his mates Jannie and Franz (who I had yet to meet) were planning a trip to Bassas I said YES Immediately and then had to back track a bit until I knew whether I could afford it, well it didn’t quite fit into my budget so with the help of Visa and MasterCard we massaged it to fit!! When you get invited by MC the best fly fisherman you know on the trip of a lifetime it’s hard to resist.



Back to the atoll …



Day 1 Pre School



We get on the tender with Craig the skipper and trundle towards the atoll where the crystal clear water gives us a full view of the outer wall of the atoll until it disappears into the inky blue 50m down. We glide over the wall and onto the atoll. I don’t know why but as the shortest I always seem to get off the tender first into bath warm shoulder deep water. A quick spin around of the tender and we push Craig off the ledge back into the deep water. We walk up and take our first steps on dry land its surreal.



The tide is dropping fast there are large “gutters” of water pouring off the atoll both into the sea and into the lagoon. You walk “upstream” ‘till the top of the ridge on the atoll then you walk “downstream” to the lagoon. MC and Jannie are immediately into the crouch position (and will say that way for most of their time on the atoll)



Then suddenly I spot my first Parrot and then like those 3d dot pictures once you know what you looking for all is revealed there are many blue and pink and brown sickle tails glinting in the sun. Problem one, I’m dubbed Damage the Stealth Hippo by Darryl, my stream fishing partner. I see tails waving 40 m in front of me just out of casting range and as I take a step forward the closest tail to me stops waving and moves off. This happens repeatedly with the tails starting to flap 40 m behind me as I move away to me it seems I’m surrounded by tails but unable to reach them. Any attempt at a long cast results in me being short or reaching them but with poor presentation spooking them. At this point I’ve been moving so slowly in an attempt to avoid spooking the fish (but the ring of fire/tails persisted) that Jannie and MC have moved off a way.











Unreal – there really aren’t any words to describe it …



I laugh as I’m thinking in Afrikaans about a word that Jaco, my boat partner and Boland competitor used when I caught trout and won a session at the nationals.

Using a flipper…. The word “parmantig” will forever replace the simple “emo” I previously used to describe the human/piscatorial frustration only a fisherman can relate to.



I change tactics and target species and tie on a 10 cm flipper and cast it into the inside of the lagoon along the bommie edges looking for juvenile game fish. Ten casts and two 12 cm Black with blue speckled fish later (still unidentified but affectionately called black f@#$!!!), I eventually catch up to Jannie and MC on the edge of a “river” rushing off the atoll. This is no small river! It’s approximately the size of the Duzi when it not in flood.







We carefully wade across after moving to where the stream is the least strong. We walk back down the other side of the “river” to the mouth where it is falling into the ocean. Jannie in true Czech nymph style lobs a crab into and eddy and a blue and pink bullet turns out of the current to intercept the crab grabs it and streaks off flattening Jannie’s 10wt before he was popped off. This at least shattered the belief that had been forming in my mind over the last three hours and that was that parrots do not eat Crab Flies I change back to a crab pattern and resume the parrot hunt!



We walk around the outside edge well MC and Jannie Crouch walk around the atoll and I follow at stealth hippo snail’s pace. I come across the fact that as the tide drops the parrots take up position downwind of the rivers falling into the ocean. I try some long casts into the feeding pods but only succeed in spooking the sturgeons and the bright blue parrots that clears out the area.



I look up after a Yelp from MC.



A GT has delicately sipped one of his Crabs of the surface buy unlike his trouty cousins then proceeded to smash the flimsy thread connecting him to MC. I walk over to where MC is Tying on a whole new leader and he suggests that I try a streamer fly into the gullies on the outside. I decide it’s a good change from the Parrot torture I’ve endured for the last while and the tide is starting to push pack up onto the atoll.



As I have only brought my 9wt rod with me I tie on a smallish Pink Clouser and cast it over the second smallish wave that is breaking on a rock “beach” with a good looking rip, second cast and this black shape looms behind the fly. The black turns to silver as the GT pushes forward down the wave face pectoral fins splayed eyes lit up. He chased the fly till the water was too shallow for him and half his body was exposed 2 m from my rod tip turned on his side and rode the receding water into the deep.



I literally had to sit down after that chase I was shaking!!



Welcome to Bassas!!



The tide was coming in fast and we had to rely on the “Metalheads” to come and collect us as they had the tender. Craig from the mothership was in radio contact but the Metal heads all though we could see them were not answering the radio. The tide was suddenly streaming over the atoll. While not that perturbed about the lack of communication at this point I did start to consider the idea of having to swim the 300m from the atoll edge to the Yacht. 45 mins later and 45 cm higher the metal heads answered the radio call and collected us off the high ground we had retreated too.