Since the beginning of the month a few airlines resumed their flights to Seychelles but frequencies are still low. On the 23rd it must have been around 2,200 tourists alltogether mainly from the UAE. A far cry from the numbers we should have at this time of the year but it is a start at least. Not enough though to get the charter boats moving. Heard of a single charter here on Praslin that was cut short after the first Wahoo. The weather had a role I think as the wind reduced any fishing opportunities to a very few also for me. On the 1st it was on the edge to fish at least the La Digue Channel in quite a swell and at times hard rain. The Golden Trevallies surprisingly were nowhere to be found but such a Yellowtail pulls comparably hard.

Beyond that the light jigging produced the common kitchen fish in good numbers and the usual few more uncommon ones like this funny bugger.

Groupers usually sit a bit further north but were rather lethargic that day. So this reasonable Whiteblotched was a joy.

Next chance came after a spell of strong Southeast on the 10th. Was a good idea to drop the jig a few times at the house bay`s exit as with two decent Goldens under the belt in no time the rest of the day was approached with a headstart feeling. 

Plan was to head east to a rather difficult GT spot  as it is always infested by Sharks and before approaching that ideally to find a few jigging spots in the vicinity. Had done that twice before a few years back and again found nothing of interest at all. Thus a bit unmotivated and early just an hour after low tide a stickbait was put to work. Sharks have a much lesser interest in those compared to poppers and indeed it worked out as hoped for in the shape of this normal size but nearly black GT.

How dark that fish really was the following pic reveals much better.

That was of course all in all very okay for a day with limited expectations. And if I had known that the weather was going to allow for absolutely no more fishing until today I would surely have gone out again the next still halfway reasonable day. Last chance missed as the wind kept blowing constantly in the 20 knot range so even the large private boats on Mahe refrained from fishing. Along those mentioned reasonable days though they did fish. The 9G Sportfishing Team had a great day trolling with 4 Sailfish and a Black Marlin while the other vessel reported this cool GT.

Today I feel the wind dropping slowly as predicted and the next two days should allow to go out. Don`t want to miss these which explains why this report comes early.

For the preceeding reports check the archive.