Arrived back on Praslin last night after spending a month in Germany but wasted no time to find out what had happened here meanwhile on the fishing side. As far as the wind is concerned the first three weeks of August were quite normal with the Southeast blowing at around 15 knots most of the time. As usually this was enough to shorten many trips to just an hour or so as many guests just can not stand the subsequent swell. Fishing must have been really good around Denis Island but the area is pretty much out of reach from the Inner Islands in these conditions. The large boats Alati and Special K though are based there quite often and have only a short trip to the drop. Quite an advantage as their trips produced very good Billfish catches like this Marlin.

Also Faizal fished there for a day and achieved impressive 12 Sailfish releases with about the same number missed. Sailfish were seen around Mahe also but catches were unusually low for this time of the year. But the odd Marlin made up for that to some degree and after a long drought Yellowfin Tuna in good numbers and sizes of upto 30kg were roaming the plateau again. The Praslin boats also got their fair share of those and Mervin (Divinity) who made it to the Drop Off once even found the big barrels of around 50kg. But after playing one there was simply no chance catching up with them again as thehad moved upwind. Apart from that trip the boats only fished rather close to Praslin also seeing Sailfish but catching them only sporadically. A few Marlin were spotted but only Bertrand on tiny YamSing got one after a long 4 hour fight. Meanwhile catches of smaller Gamefish like especially Wahoo were pretty good here and also around Mahe. In the prevailing conditions one can of course only dream of popping or jigging and even the popular bottom fishing is more than tough. So this feasty Emperor Snapper caught by Faizal really represents an outstanding catch these days.

He also provided another two interesting bits of information. Firstly that the swarms of Sardines that should be abundant this time of the year are missing these days and secondly that the water temperature on the plateau is down to unusually low 25 degrees Celsius. Would really like to go out for a measurement and some fishing but since last week the Southeast is blowing at 20 knots and even more at times. Unfortunately this is to last for as long as the weather forecast looks ahead so for the time being we are all sitting here longingly staring at a terribly rough sea.

For the preceeding reports check the archive.