Hi Guys, just got back from a trip to Kilwa, Mwangaza Hideaway, here are a few photos and short report. Please note it’s not everyone’s catches and just includes write up for some of the fish.
Sat 3 November, left JHB at 10 am en route to Dar Er Salaam, excitement was building big time. I managed to keep luggage weight below 30kg, Stella and expensive poppers were safely stored in my hand luggage – good to go.
We arrived to some serious heat in Dar, boarded the charter flight to Kilwa, the wind was pumping and a storm was on the way, just to ease the tension, as we were taxiing, another plane had a minor crash on the runway which held us up for about 20 mins, nothing like settling the nerves for a few nervous fliers.
Nice flight from Dar to Kilwa, Dar is a huge city, and really impressive from the air, Six million people apparently.
About 40 mins into the charter flight we started to see some islands and atolls, here is a picture of Songo Songo, where we would visit during the trip
Check the long white strip of beach on the bottom left of the photo – the water drops down to 20 meters just off the beach – one of the guides, Warren, told us he has been spooled by some serious tuna and decent Gt’s casting from the beach. I managed to try one afternoon but didn’t have any luck, would love to get a YFT from the shore (next trip definitely).
Sunday 4 November – first fishing day
Woke up at 4 am without the alarm, had spent a good few hours the night before rigging lures, setting up rods, and general prep so everyone was super keen to get hold of some GT’s.
The lodge is in a great location and faces the estuary, so you don’t really have a view of sea conditions, I could feel a slight wind but the excitement to go start chasing GT’s meant no one was staying behind. We should have probably noted that the skipper put on his raincoat in the estuary when there was no visible wind or indication of bad weather – suffice to say we got pretty drenched from the spray out at sea that day.
On the way out to sea through the estuary, the skipper Warren was telling us about the Yellow Fin Tuna that they catch in the mouth of the estuary (and apparently in the estuary at some times), as luck would have it he had actually got a few over the last few days before we arrived so we were definitely keen to get at them. He told to get our spinning rods ready, I had my light spinning rod ready with one of my last 2 genuine Onda Onda’s (I seem to have a Onda Onda curse – after having dropped a tackle box with a whole bunch of brand of new genuine Onda’s into the ocean previously). We saw tuna busting, the boat stops and we start throwing (I have to note that we are pretty excited, fish koors?, so not thinking or acting calmly), Paul is probably more excited than me and proceeds to throw 4 or 5 casts with the leader knot passing through his guides, after each cast I would say “your line is going to snap, cast with the leader out the eyesâ€, and so bang it snaps with my second to last Onde flying off into the tuna. While I was condescendingly explaining to Paul the finer points of casting with braid and how much he owed me for the Onde (ha ha), my bail arm closes mid cast after probably the most wild efforts ever attempted by man and there flew my last Onde before the trip had actually started in ernest. Lesson one – try to maintain calm.
Unfortunately the wind was pumping with the sea very choppy and it made popping and jigging quite unbearable so we trawled back for a bit and I managed to get a Dorrie. I have been fortunate to catch a few Dorries and Couta so I was not really super excited considering I was hell bent on popping for GT’s, my mate Paul had not really been exposed to much sea fishing and he was well flabbergasted by this shiny yellow fish jumping around, the Skipper and I were telling him to throw his spoon in case there are other Dorries around (I was keeping the fish in the water), he was incapable of intelligent action though – ha ha.
The conditions were getting worse, so we decided to call it a day and shoot back to try some light tackle fishing in the estuary. We got a few Greenspots, and some reef fish on spoons before heading back to the lodge for lunch. We had an afternoon to kill so we decided to go check out the Kilwa ruins. It was interesting and since fishing was not possible it was nice to check out the scenery.
Some photos of the ruins
Monday 5 November
Weather was looking better, not 100% yet, we made our way out to some popping spots, we had no luck with the tuna on the way out again, must be the Onde curse ïŠ. We didn’t get any strikes or see any action after a good few spots so we made our way to the Cliffs for some light tackle fishing.
It was good fun, with some nice 2-7 (est) kg kingies on needle nose, spoons, and small stickbaits. I had never caught any kingfish on topwater so it was very awesome to have a Greenspot smash my needle nose plug. I noticed that you needed to switch lures quite regularly as it seemed the fish would get used to certain lures. My highlight of the day was after about an hour at the cliffs, with a good number of fish already caught, we were getting tons of chases but no hook-ups, I put a pink Starwalker 110s stickbait (my only one) on and threw it out. The water was very clear and this stickbait does not sink far below the surface so you can see it from a long way off (I was retrieving quite quickly so the lure kind of suspends just below the surface), I was watching the baby Starwalker when this massive black dark shape came into focus behind my lure and literally destroyed it (it happens so fast), I was quite concerned about getting my lure back so I tried to keep the drag as loose as possible without getting reefed and I managed to coax an awesome Bluefin to the boat. I was using a Trevalla ML 7 foot and a sustain 5000 with 12lb Nanofil which proved to match the fish we were catching well.
One notable catch was a green Jobfish on a needle-nose plug which came off the base of the cliffs.
One of the small Greenspots – first fish on needle-nose
Fighting a nice Bluefin on my mini Starwalker
The result
Green Jobfish on needle-nose – close to shore
Another nice Bluefin – these guys seem to pull harder than the green spots.
After a quick snorkel and some lunch at the cliffs, we decided to try the big sticks again. It is important to note that popping is hard work (almost a cliché hearing this but trust me it’s not easy, I was finding that before you even hook a fish you are pretty worked over physically), especially in tropical heat and we had been popping for a good few hours without so much as a fish seen, so the morale was a bit low and some of the guys had stopped popping.
Our skipper casually had a throw and his first few pops resulted in a decent smash with no hook up, I had been busy changing my popper to a pink stickbait (I wanted something similar to the baby Starwalker I had got the Bluefin on), the nearest thing I had was pink Orion big foot sinking stickbait, so after the smash on Warrens cast, I was just in time to throw in the same area and it was really awesome to see a very dark black shape track from some distance away and also take a swipe at my lure, also with no hook up though but really gets your blood pumping to see that. These were unfortunately the last bits of action for the day on popper but we did manage a nice wahoo on the way back trolling.
Wahoo on the trawl back.
There was quite a few guys on the trip (we usually went out in 2 or 3 boats), and a big part of the trip was the evenings back at the lodge, talking rubbish and knocking back a few. Mwangaza has a nice bar with a pool right alongside which overlooks the estuary, on this specific day the kitchen had prepared octopus (fried) with some sort of chili sauce – this must rank as one of the best tasting snacks I’ve ever tried, Warren explained that its quite a process to cook in order to get it to taste decent – which it definitely did (next time I’m at the lodge Its going to be a daily requirement).
Drinks, chillin in the pool after a long days fishing with some mates – pretty good, hopefully next time sports illustrated swimsuit will be filming at the lodge but still pretty good.
Tuesday 6 November
It had been planned that we would shoot out to Songo Songo for 2 nights to get at some more untouched fishing spots, this is quite a long trip, something like 27 miles if I recall, and the boat that I was on was to haul all the food and fuel straight to the camp while the other boat fished their way there. It was kind of difficult to slowly steam out to the camp for a few hours while you imagine the other guys are slaying fish but I was to get my biggest GT today so it all worked out OK and not too much was missed.
We reached the camp, dropped off our supplies and made our way out to the first spot. The tides were not great and at the time we reached our first popping spot there was almost no movement in the water and again no takes or chases. We tried some jigging and a few more spots before we spotted some Bonnies feeding on the surface and quickly managed to get one on deck.
The composition of the guys on trip was quite varied in terms preferred fishing methods, the underlying requirement was to catch some fish, so trawling and live baiting were not off limits. As things had been a little slow, we put down the Bonnie on a Tiagra rig and pretty soon had a nibble. Paul took the rod and had a decent battle with a Doggie, his first ever, estimated at around 40kg. He was very stoked.
The doggie putting some hurt into Pauls unprepared carp fishing arms
Paul and his Doggie
After one more down with some remaining Bonnie bait, I pulled out a smallish Couta, really murdered it with the Tiagra rig.
This guy had no chance
After this action on the bait side, the tide had started to turn nicely so James suggested we go and try some popping. First spot, after a few casts I was rewarded with a nice smash on my lure and a solid pull and then nothing. . . . . . . . James asked “reefedâ€, I knew it had not run that far and I had a sneaking suspicion it may have been knot failure, which I’m embarrassed to say it was, my Bimmini was still fine and a few minutes later my Halco Rooster with the entire leader popped up and we collected it – my pride was a little battered to say the least. I had bought a bobbin and learned the PR knot but I was shown a Yucatan knot at the lodge and had decided to try it. Basically I didn’t get the mono to seat properly (tightly against each other), I had pulled the knot with gloves on to test and it seemed solid but obviously the shock of the take had shown the deficiency pretty clearly. The school fees were paid– use the knots you know and make sure you have them down before going out !.
I was a little despondent at this stage – earlier in the day I had had a pickup on my jigging rod (James suspected a doggie) that had run for a good distance before I started to get some string back when the line just went dead and all that came back was my knot to the solid ring (the knot had held but the line had parted somewhere at the section that joins to the solid ring to the jig – if that makes sense) I had spent all this money, learned my knots then made a stupid error, I had popped and jigged longer than most on the boat and duffed the only two chances and it had been a few long days with the body feeling a little tired with not much results, it was getting quite late and James said we should try another spot before heading back. I reckoned that if I had one take on a Halco I might as well try another so I put on a pink and white striped version on the way to the next spot.
My second or third cast at the spot resulted in a really big smash on the popper, I didn’t really pick up much detail but James and Warren were quite excited saying it was a good fish, I was pretty much keen to get anything out at this stage so the first few minutes were very nerve racking for me, luckily it stayed attached and aside from some long runs and worries about the reef we got the fish into deeper water and slowly got him to the boat. I had a bucket with gimble pin (which I hadn’t removed) and my popping rod has quite a long but so I learned another few choice lessons here about being prepared properly (firstly the rod was very awkward to fight from the bucket with the gimble pin in and secondly the idea of amending your drag on the fly is not always possible - I was finding that taking your hand from the handle to the drag knob was sometimes just not possible). I really battled to get the fish up and was really amazed at the power of this fish. We eventually got this guy out and James estimated the weight at 28kg – not a monster by any standards but I was super stoked – I actually can’t comprehend how guys pull out 50kg GT’s. This was what I had come for and I could not wipe the smile off my face, especially after the last few mishaps (In the photos I should have perhaps wiped some sun cream off tho ïŠ).
This is my favourite photo of the trip – Me with a nice GT on the line, the Stella bling hurting your eyes (my wallet)
The GT in question
And another
We made our way back to camp where a couple of ice cold beer fines were waiting, with two of the anglers on the boat having caught good fish, the other fisherman, Terry, would get properly stuck in the next day though with more than his fair share.
Nice view on the way back
Wednesday 7 November
This was to be our full days fishing at Songo Songo, the weather played its part with the best conditions I have ever seen at sea (well wind and swell size wise), we started off popping at a few spots and had a good few smaller fish, but as we were mostly novices, this proved to be good fun. Wont bore you guys with the details – lots of double ups and back to backs.
Me with a GT, Paul on in the background
Paul half of the double up
After that spot died down we moved off to a nearby jigging spot and finally got some fish up – we had not had much luck on the jigging side so the change in fortunes was happily accepted regardless of the fact that none of the fish were monsters.
Terry gets stuck in.
Probably not the best technique but another one on
GT on jig
Paul with a jig caught GT, I have just pulled one out in the background
Double up
The jigging action died down and we moved to a far off reef, at some point we got a rainbow runner on jig or spoon and it too went down on a Tiagra rig, it was Terry’s strike and when the rod went away he took his chance to battle what turned out to be a really nice GT. These GT’s pull and after a serious fight the following fish came up.
A very happy Terry
How broad is this fish!
We went back to jigging and I managed to hook a slightly larger GT than we had previously caught
Smith AMJ and Stella 10k in action
Jig caught GT
The next catch was probably the most notable jig catch of the trip. Terry was using a light jigging setup of mine as his had been left behind in SA. The setup consisted of a kingfisher Poseidon jigging rod (blue handle), a Seagate 4500 and 40lb Jigman braid. Terry hooked up to a Doggie which proceeded to take a lot of line, everyone was laughing and looking until the run just did not end and we had to get the boat and try to get the fish off the reef / get some line back. James got us off the reef and we did get some line back, the fish then carried on running which led James to tightened the drag up to max and the doggie just kept talking string – I knew how light the braid was so I expected to see it part at any minute, never mind the beating that the little rod and the reel drag was taking (The KF rod was really bending to the max). After a long stressful fight, we finally got the doggie to the top and into the boat – it was a truly impressive effort from the 2 skippers and Terry and the tackle held up well – great fish. (estimation of weight 30-40kg region).
This is not the way doggies should be targeted – check the Poseidon, Seagate and braid close to the limit
Doggie on a stupidly light rig
The fish and tackle in question
To end off the afternoon we got stuck into some more smallish fish – great fun nonetheless. We had arrived at a new spot and had a few casts with no activity when I saw a garfish jumping – I cast towards it and it seemed to be after my lure (it was jumping in and out the water in the direction of my popper) so you are expecting to see this little garfish try tackle your popper when a GT suddenly smashed my lure (assuming it was chasing the garfish) but just highlights the nature of this type of fishing.
Few photos of some GT’s on popper
And Pauls on.
GT
After getting some confidence after a few in the boat, we started putting a bit more pressure and bringing these guys in faster – they still can pull though.
Double up
GT
Please note – I don’t endorse this holding the fish closer to the camera story ïŠ â€“ we were messing around, this fish looks quite big when in reality the Bluefin I got on day one was probably bigger.
So probably our best day came to an end, was great fun and everyone got a few decent fish. We had two further days however the weather didn’t play ball and we had limited fishing time with a few more small fish.
The guys at Mwangaza are really great, they worked hard to get us fish, the food is top notch, really enjoyable trip, can’t wait to go again.
Tackle used
I used the following
Stella 10 000 with a Smith 80p/35 and 60lb JB hollow
Smith AMJ52 EX with the Stella 10k (swopped) – I learned a bit of a lesson here, really preferable to have dedicated outfits, changing the rigs was a mission due to different leader lengths for the popping and jigging and I had instances where you would be jigging and a doggie would bust on the surface and you have no popping outfit ready!.
Seagate 4500, Jigman 40lb, Kingfisher Poseidon jigging rod
Trevalla 7’ ML and sustain 5000 and 12lb Nanofil
Paul used
Saragosa 10 000 and a quantum Boca popping rod 9 foot, JB hollow 60 lb
Gosa 10K and a shimano Jigwrex 200g rod (older version)
Memorable quotes
I had hooked what we thought was a doggie on the Seagate rig, it was really burning up the drag and I was not really making headway so James pipes up with a pearler “does your husband also fishâ€
Paul hooked a nice GT and needed to move from one side of the boat to the other, as he was going past the front the GT pulled a little and he lost his footing and nearly went over but it looked like he was throwing his rod overboard at the fish, luckily no broken rods / lost fish so Warren cracks “this is not spearfishing hey†– ha ha.
I had managed to source some Adhek Penipens, one was an unfortunate dodgy purple colour, and these things are really big (I have put it next to a Starwalker for scale) and it has an unfortunate shape, so when the guys saw these things the chirps really started to fly
The purple “love†stickbait
“what shop did you buy this atâ€
“GT’s don’t go after double D’sâ€
“Were you embarrassed to bring this through security at the airportâ€
Ha ha – everyone was just jealous
Thanks for reading.
Sat 3 November, left JHB at 10 am en route to Dar Er Salaam, excitement was building big time. I managed to keep luggage weight below 30kg, Stella and expensive poppers were safely stored in my hand luggage – good to go.
We arrived to some serious heat in Dar, boarded the charter flight to Kilwa, the wind was pumping and a storm was on the way, just to ease the tension, as we were taxiing, another plane had a minor crash on the runway which held us up for about 20 mins, nothing like settling the nerves for a few nervous fliers.
Nice flight from Dar to Kilwa, Dar is a huge city, and really impressive from the air, Six million people apparently.
About 40 mins into the charter flight we started to see some islands and atolls, here is a picture of Songo Songo, where we would visit during the trip
Check the long white strip of beach on the bottom left of the photo – the water drops down to 20 meters just off the beach – one of the guides, Warren, told us he has been spooled by some serious tuna and decent Gt’s casting from the beach. I managed to try one afternoon but didn’t have any luck, would love to get a YFT from the shore (next trip definitely).
Sunday 4 November – first fishing day
Woke up at 4 am without the alarm, had spent a good few hours the night before rigging lures, setting up rods, and general prep so everyone was super keen to get hold of some GT’s.
The lodge is in a great location and faces the estuary, so you don’t really have a view of sea conditions, I could feel a slight wind but the excitement to go start chasing GT’s meant no one was staying behind. We should have probably noted that the skipper put on his raincoat in the estuary when there was no visible wind or indication of bad weather – suffice to say we got pretty drenched from the spray out at sea that day.
On the way out to sea through the estuary, the skipper Warren was telling us about the Yellow Fin Tuna that they catch in the mouth of the estuary (and apparently in the estuary at some times), as luck would have it he had actually got a few over the last few days before we arrived so we were definitely keen to get at them. He told to get our spinning rods ready, I had my light spinning rod ready with one of my last 2 genuine Onda Onda’s (I seem to have a Onda Onda curse – after having dropped a tackle box with a whole bunch of brand of new genuine Onda’s into the ocean previously). We saw tuna busting, the boat stops and we start throwing (I have to note that we are pretty excited, fish koors?, so not thinking or acting calmly), Paul is probably more excited than me and proceeds to throw 4 or 5 casts with the leader knot passing through his guides, after each cast I would say “your line is going to snap, cast with the leader out the eyesâ€, and so bang it snaps with my second to last Onde flying off into the tuna. While I was condescendingly explaining to Paul the finer points of casting with braid and how much he owed me for the Onde (ha ha), my bail arm closes mid cast after probably the most wild efforts ever attempted by man and there flew my last Onde before the trip had actually started in ernest. Lesson one – try to maintain calm.
Unfortunately the wind was pumping with the sea very choppy and it made popping and jigging quite unbearable so we trawled back for a bit and I managed to get a Dorrie. I have been fortunate to catch a few Dorries and Couta so I was not really super excited considering I was hell bent on popping for GT’s, my mate Paul had not really been exposed to much sea fishing and he was well flabbergasted by this shiny yellow fish jumping around, the Skipper and I were telling him to throw his spoon in case there are other Dorries around (I was keeping the fish in the water), he was incapable of intelligent action though – ha ha.
The conditions were getting worse, so we decided to call it a day and shoot back to try some light tackle fishing in the estuary. We got a few Greenspots, and some reef fish on spoons before heading back to the lodge for lunch. We had an afternoon to kill so we decided to go check out the Kilwa ruins. It was interesting and since fishing was not possible it was nice to check out the scenery.
Some photos of the ruins
Monday 5 November
Weather was looking better, not 100% yet, we made our way out to some popping spots, we had no luck with the tuna on the way out again, must be the Onde curse ïŠ. We didn’t get any strikes or see any action after a good few spots so we made our way to the Cliffs for some light tackle fishing.
It was good fun, with some nice 2-7 (est) kg kingies on needle nose, spoons, and small stickbaits. I had never caught any kingfish on topwater so it was very awesome to have a Greenspot smash my needle nose plug. I noticed that you needed to switch lures quite regularly as it seemed the fish would get used to certain lures. My highlight of the day was after about an hour at the cliffs, with a good number of fish already caught, we were getting tons of chases but no hook-ups, I put a pink Starwalker 110s stickbait (my only one) on and threw it out. The water was very clear and this stickbait does not sink far below the surface so you can see it from a long way off (I was retrieving quite quickly so the lure kind of suspends just below the surface), I was watching the baby Starwalker when this massive black dark shape came into focus behind my lure and literally destroyed it (it happens so fast), I was quite concerned about getting my lure back so I tried to keep the drag as loose as possible without getting reefed and I managed to coax an awesome Bluefin to the boat. I was using a Trevalla ML 7 foot and a sustain 5000 with 12lb Nanofil which proved to match the fish we were catching well.
One notable catch was a green Jobfish on a needle-nose plug which came off the base of the cliffs.
One of the small Greenspots – first fish on needle-nose
Fighting a nice Bluefin on my mini Starwalker
The result
Green Jobfish on needle-nose – close to shore
Another nice Bluefin – these guys seem to pull harder than the green spots.
After a quick snorkel and some lunch at the cliffs, we decided to try the big sticks again. It is important to note that popping is hard work (almost a cliché hearing this but trust me it’s not easy, I was finding that before you even hook a fish you are pretty worked over physically), especially in tropical heat and we had been popping for a good few hours without so much as a fish seen, so the morale was a bit low and some of the guys had stopped popping.
Our skipper casually had a throw and his first few pops resulted in a decent smash with no hook up, I had been busy changing my popper to a pink stickbait (I wanted something similar to the baby Starwalker I had got the Bluefin on), the nearest thing I had was pink Orion big foot sinking stickbait, so after the smash on Warrens cast, I was just in time to throw in the same area and it was really awesome to see a very dark black shape track from some distance away and also take a swipe at my lure, also with no hook up though but really gets your blood pumping to see that. These were unfortunately the last bits of action for the day on popper but we did manage a nice wahoo on the way back trolling.
Wahoo on the trawl back.
There was quite a few guys on the trip (we usually went out in 2 or 3 boats), and a big part of the trip was the evenings back at the lodge, talking rubbish and knocking back a few. Mwangaza has a nice bar with a pool right alongside which overlooks the estuary, on this specific day the kitchen had prepared octopus (fried) with some sort of chili sauce – this must rank as one of the best tasting snacks I’ve ever tried, Warren explained that its quite a process to cook in order to get it to taste decent – which it definitely did (next time I’m at the lodge Its going to be a daily requirement).
Drinks, chillin in the pool after a long days fishing with some mates – pretty good, hopefully next time sports illustrated swimsuit will be filming at the lodge but still pretty good.
Tuesday 6 November
It had been planned that we would shoot out to Songo Songo for 2 nights to get at some more untouched fishing spots, this is quite a long trip, something like 27 miles if I recall, and the boat that I was on was to haul all the food and fuel straight to the camp while the other boat fished their way there. It was kind of difficult to slowly steam out to the camp for a few hours while you imagine the other guys are slaying fish but I was to get my biggest GT today so it all worked out OK and not too much was missed.
We reached the camp, dropped off our supplies and made our way out to the first spot. The tides were not great and at the time we reached our first popping spot there was almost no movement in the water and again no takes or chases. We tried some jigging and a few more spots before we spotted some Bonnies feeding on the surface and quickly managed to get one on deck.
The composition of the guys on trip was quite varied in terms preferred fishing methods, the underlying requirement was to catch some fish, so trawling and live baiting were not off limits. As things had been a little slow, we put down the Bonnie on a Tiagra rig and pretty soon had a nibble. Paul took the rod and had a decent battle with a Doggie, his first ever, estimated at around 40kg. He was very stoked.
The doggie putting some hurt into Pauls unprepared carp fishing arms
Paul and his Doggie
After one more down with some remaining Bonnie bait, I pulled out a smallish Couta, really murdered it with the Tiagra rig.
This guy had no chance
After this action on the bait side, the tide had started to turn nicely so James suggested we go and try some popping. First spot, after a few casts I was rewarded with a nice smash on my lure and a solid pull and then nothing. . . . . . . . James asked “reefedâ€, I knew it had not run that far and I had a sneaking suspicion it may have been knot failure, which I’m embarrassed to say it was, my Bimmini was still fine and a few minutes later my Halco Rooster with the entire leader popped up and we collected it – my pride was a little battered to say the least. I had bought a bobbin and learned the PR knot but I was shown a Yucatan knot at the lodge and had decided to try it. Basically I didn’t get the mono to seat properly (tightly against each other), I had pulled the knot with gloves on to test and it seemed solid but obviously the shock of the take had shown the deficiency pretty clearly. The school fees were paid– use the knots you know and make sure you have them down before going out !.
I was a little despondent at this stage – earlier in the day I had had a pickup on my jigging rod (James suspected a doggie) that had run for a good distance before I started to get some string back when the line just went dead and all that came back was my knot to the solid ring (the knot had held but the line had parted somewhere at the section that joins to the solid ring to the jig – if that makes sense) I had spent all this money, learned my knots then made a stupid error, I had popped and jigged longer than most on the boat and duffed the only two chances and it had been a few long days with the body feeling a little tired with not much results, it was getting quite late and James said we should try another spot before heading back. I reckoned that if I had one take on a Halco I might as well try another so I put on a pink and white striped version on the way to the next spot.
My second or third cast at the spot resulted in a really big smash on the popper, I didn’t really pick up much detail but James and Warren were quite excited saying it was a good fish, I was pretty much keen to get anything out at this stage so the first few minutes were very nerve racking for me, luckily it stayed attached and aside from some long runs and worries about the reef we got the fish into deeper water and slowly got him to the boat. I had a bucket with gimble pin (which I hadn’t removed) and my popping rod has quite a long but so I learned another few choice lessons here about being prepared properly (firstly the rod was very awkward to fight from the bucket with the gimble pin in and secondly the idea of amending your drag on the fly is not always possible - I was finding that taking your hand from the handle to the drag knob was sometimes just not possible). I really battled to get the fish up and was really amazed at the power of this fish. We eventually got this guy out and James estimated the weight at 28kg – not a monster by any standards but I was super stoked – I actually can’t comprehend how guys pull out 50kg GT’s. This was what I had come for and I could not wipe the smile off my face, especially after the last few mishaps (In the photos I should have perhaps wiped some sun cream off tho ïŠ).
This is my favourite photo of the trip – Me with a nice GT on the line, the Stella bling hurting your eyes (my wallet)
The GT in question
And another
We made our way back to camp where a couple of ice cold beer fines were waiting, with two of the anglers on the boat having caught good fish, the other fisherman, Terry, would get properly stuck in the next day though with more than his fair share.
Nice view on the way back
Wednesday 7 November
This was to be our full days fishing at Songo Songo, the weather played its part with the best conditions I have ever seen at sea (well wind and swell size wise), we started off popping at a few spots and had a good few smaller fish, but as we were mostly novices, this proved to be good fun. Wont bore you guys with the details – lots of double ups and back to backs.
Me with a GT, Paul on in the background
Paul half of the double up
After that spot died down we moved off to a nearby jigging spot and finally got some fish up – we had not had much luck on the jigging side so the change in fortunes was happily accepted regardless of the fact that none of the fish were monsters.
Terry gets stuck in.
Probably not the best technique but another one on
GT on jig
Paul with a jig caught GT, I have just pulled one out in the background
Double up
The jigging action died down and we moved to a far off reef, at some point we got a rainbow runner on jig or spoon and it too went down on a Tiagra rig, it was Terry’s strike and when the rod went away he took his chance to battle what turned out to be a really nice GT. These GT’s pull and after a serious fight the following fish came up.
A very happy Terry
How broad is this fish!
We went back to jigging and I managed to hook a slightly larger GT than we had previously caught
Smith AMJ and Stella 10k in action
Jig caught GT
The next catch was probably the most notable jig catch of the trip. Terry was using a light jigging setup of mine as his had been left behind in SA. The setup consisted of a kingfisher Poseidon jigging rod (blue handle), a Seagate 4500 and 40lb Jigman braid. Terry hooked up to a Doggie which proceeded to take a lot of line, everyone was laughing and looking until the run just did not end and we had to get the boat and try to get the fish off the reef / get some line back. James got us off the reef and we did get some line back, the fish then carried on running which led James to tightened the drag up to max and the doggie just kept talking string – I knew how light the braid was so I expected to see it part at any minute, never mind the beating that the little rod and the reel drag was taking (The KF rod was really bending to the max). After a long stressful fight, we finally got the doggie to the top and into the boat – it was a truly impressive effort from the 2 skippers and Terry and the tackle held up well – great fish. (estimation of weight 30-40kg region).
This is not the way doggies should be targeted – check the Poseidon, Seagate and braid close to the limit
Doggie on a stupidly light rig
The fish and tackle in question
To end off the afternoon we got stuck into some more smallish fish – great fun nonetheless. We had arrived at a new spot and had a few casts with no activity when I saw a garfish jumping – I cast towards it and it seemed to be after my lure (it was jumping in and out the water in the direction of my popper) so you are expecting to see this little garfish try tackle your popper when a GT suddenly smashed my lure (assuming it was chasing the garfish) but just highlights the nature of this type of fishing.
Few photos of some GT’s on popper
And Pauls on.
GT
After getting some confidence after a few in the boat, we started putting a bit more pressure and bringing these guys in faster – they still can pull though.
Double up
GT
Please note – I don’t endorse this holding the fish closer to the camera story ïŠ â€“ we were messing around, this fish looks quite big when in reality the Bluefin I got on day one was probably bigger.
So probably our best day came to an end, was great fun and everyone got a few decent fish. We had two further days however the weather didn’t play ball and we had limited fishing time with a few more small fish.
The guys at Mwangaza are really great, they worked hard to get us fish, the food is top notch, really enjoyable trip, can’t wait to go again.
Tackle used
I used the following
Stella 10 000 with a Smith 80p/35 and 60lb JB hollow
Smith AMJ52 EX with the Stella 10k (swopped) – I learned a bit of a lesson here, really preferable to have dedicated outfits, changing the rigs was a mission due to different leader lengths for the popping and jigging and I had instances where you would be jigging and a doggie would bust on the surface and you have no popping outfit ready!.
Seagate 4500, Jigman 40lb, Kingfisher Poseidon jigging rod
Trevalla 7’ ML and sustain 5000 and 12lb Nanofil
Paul used
Saragosa 10 000 and a quantum Boca popping rod 9 foot, JB hollow 60 lb
Gosa 10K and a shimano Jigwrex 200g rod (older version)
Memorable quotes
I had hooked what we thought was a doggie on the Seagate rig, it was really burning up the drag and I was not really making headway so James pipes up with a pearler “does your husband also fishâ€
Paul hooked a nice GT and needed to move from one side of the boat to the other, as he was going past the front the GT pulled a little and he lost his footing and nearly went over but it looked like he was throwing his rod overboard at the fish, luckily no broken rods / lost fish so Warren cracks “this is not spearfishing hey†– ha ha.
I had managed to source some Adhek Penipens, one was an unfortunate dodgy purple colour, and these things are really big (I have put it next to a Starwalker for scale) and it has an unfortunate shape, so when the guys saw these things the chirps really started to fly
The purple “love†stickbait
“what shop did you buy this atâ€
“GT’s don’t go after double D’sâ€
“Were you embarrassed to bring this through security at the airportâ€
Ha ha – everyone was just jealous
Thanks for reading.
great fish!