This was literally a very dull month: one one side because of the ongoing touristic and subsequently economoc standstill and on the other the weather was simply awful. The Southeast Monsoon generally leaves rather few opportunities to fish but a nearly throughout heavy blow in the 20 knot range plus about daily  and often enough heavy rainfalls really frustrated. Only early there were a few not all bad days and on the 4th the single chance for me to enjoy some more light jigging oce more just in the La Digue Channel. Went quite well and the strongest opponents were as usually in that place those Golden Trevallies. After six of them I felt well served.

In between came around 30 or so other catches with Jobfish for the kitchen dominating the mix which also featured this miniscule Dogtooth Tuna. At times small ones happen to end up here so far inside the plateau but it had not been the case for years and this tiny bugger was the smallest I ever saw.

After that as mentioned the weather deteriorated badly beyond anything I can fish on the small boat. Only some of the large vessels did a few trips  while it was not too rough yet even for them. Trolling is solid as one would expect in this season with the Tuna running over the plateau and who tried like young Bertrand here on Lazio or the Mahe boats were rewarded with good numbers.

The Sailfish are also around but the quantities of this year`s run is difficult to assess with so few trips taking place.

The 25m long 9G according to the skipper was also not the usual sedan any more but I guess thanks to the GPS anchoring the chaps could even still bottom fish and jig a bit.

Instead of much hoped for improvement things actually got worse as around the 20th the large scale weather charts indicated a rather strange phenomenon. Such a twirl should not develop so far north and neither at this time of the year at all.

One should have expected that the Southeast blows such thing apart in no time but it was sturdy and slowly moved northwest past the equator. Subsequently I and my boat here had to face onshore winds of up to 25 knots and the subsequent breakers so I had to evacuate the nutshell into the protection of the Baie St. Anne lagoon. First time ever during the Southeast  in those more than 10 years I live here now. 

After the wind along 8 days had oscillated clockwise complelety around the compass rose it settled back in from the normal direction but had a bit of mercy at last. So when bringing the boat back home there was the chance to jig a few kitchen fish along the way for a start. Yesterday conditons were as good as one can expect during the Southeast so I headed west a couple of miles offshore. Topwater along both two hour sessions morning and afternoon was plain dead without even a stupid Shark or Jobfish seen but jigging went okay with a few quality fish in between the usual bunch.

Had been hoping for the odd Tuna out there maybe even casting but none passed. Still after the long and nagging wait it was an absolute pleasure to be out there again. Tomorrow Mahe International Airport reopens for regular flights and three airlines will be coming in twice a week. Remains to be seen to what degree this will bring tourism and subsequently the charter fleet back to life but at least the total isolation of the nation comes to an end. There is some hope for guests as the islands are CoVid free and a whole set of measures has been put in place. See the details here if interested. Hopefully the positioning as one of the few currently safe holiday destinations will convince. 

For the preceeding reports check the archive.