THE PLACE
Luanda, Angola, WEST CENTRAL AFRICA May 9 2009
THE EVENTS
Friday evening I had a wedding ceremony that I could not escape from and because of that I had told the guys that I could not go and fish with them on Saturday morning.
When I was getting out of the wedding, around 3 o’clock in the morning, while driving the family home I noticed that there was a full moon on the nigh sky that immediately triggered a thought in my head “cob fishing dayâ€.
Got home, slept less than 2 hours and immeadtly sent an SMS to the guys “Don’t leave without me, I’m going†picked up two rods a couple of jigs and flew to the boat club, arrived there at 5:45 AM and the guy’s were already in the boat ready to go.
While getting out of Luanda Port, the usual discussion, let’s go south popping, let’s go west Tuna might still be there we saw them last week, let’s go north jigging.
I didn’t even brought popping tackle with me and explained why, for me it was going to be a cob morning, it’s getting colder, full moon was on the sky and the tide would be outgoing for most of the morning. That settled the question and I sat down on the back of the boat and enjoyed the view while, as usual, the rest of the gang stayed at the console.
From left to right Marco “pesca†Couto, Carlos “careca†Louro, Ralph “rafa†Brigham
When we arrived at the spot (sorry it’s a secret), excitement immediately rose, the sonar was saying “THEY ARE HEREâ€
Got the tackle ready while planning the drift, I decided to start with a Blue Rose rod, Saragosa 14000 reel and a rose tacklewore jig.
Boat on place for first drift, and when the jig arrived at the bottom I said “Got a cob on my lineâ€, Carlos and Marco said that they had cob also and Ralph say that he had a fish but didn’t know what it was, 4 strike!!!!
The fight begun, after a couple of minutes Marco said he had lost his, but a few second later got another strike and told us “AJ on the lineâ€, mine was the first in the boat and the others followed.
2 cobs and 2 AJs
Ralph started arguing saying the bite was hot and it was no time for photographs and I couldn’t get a photo of his fish, Marco said the same thing and because of that a lot of the fish wasn’t recorded during the rest of the morning :-(
After that I started to lost track but I’ll try to write it with the few photos I was allowed to take with my mobile phone.
I decided to change tackle and switched to a Jigstar Rod 350, Shimano Trinidad TN30 reel, tacklewore inchiku 300g jig, usually I get fewer strikes of AJ’s on the inchiku and in my mind this was a way of trying to avoid the AJ bite and focus on the cob.
2nd Drift 4 Strike again, we all got cobs!!!!!
This was mine and Ralph’s
Carlos one
Some more drift’s bite still hot, more fish, the AJ’s started to attack the jigs on the bottom and it was difficult to avoid them and focus on the cobs, I remember getting another cob on the jigstar inchiku in between AJ’s
Now I must start a little explanation before the next photo, I’m not an overhead guy, and certainly not (up until now) a short rod jigging guy, usually I prefer the longer rods and the spinning reels.
After all this hot action I started to get used to this “short rod†difference in technique and realized that although I’m not used to it, it’s really easier on you to jig with a shorter rod (less tiring) and I started to enjoy it.
When I bought this jigstar rod, the jigstar Africa guys told me I should get a JSR 450 and not this 350 mainly because they thought that I could get “undergunnedâ€, I told them “NO WAY†I usually use jigs from 200 to 350 grams, this one was ideal for me….
Well they were right….. I was wrong :-(
On one of the drift’s I really stubborn AJ managed to put a hell of a fight for it’s size, I’m really ashamed of this but my only excuse is I’m not used to short rods.
After a hell of a fight I broke the rod in mid water (totally my fault).
With half of the rod I still managed to fight the fish and bring it in, not loosing the line and the jig.
Quickly changed back to the blue rose and went on fishing, with this light blue rose I know the limits because I’m used to it.
We got many more drifts, lot's o fish, and very few photos, the only relevant thing I can remember is that with what should have been a HUGE cob (probably above my 40Kg personal record) I got “undergunned†and he managed to go to the rocks and cut the line :-(
Double, Triple and 4 strikes kept happening.
About eleven o’clock in the morning the bite stopped.
Cob end count 14.
The only we could all say was “HELL OF A DAY, ONE TO REMMEMBERâ€
P.S. – Sorry for the lack of quality of the photos, but Gerhard went to SA and the only thing available was a Nokia Cell Phone
Luanda, Angola, WEST CENTRAL AFRICA May 9 2009
THE EVENTS
Friday evening I had a wedding ceremony that I could not escape from and because of that I had told the guys that I could not go and fish with them on Saturday morning.
When I was getting out of the wedding, around 3 o’clock in the morning, while driving the family home I noticed that there was a full moon on the nigh sky that immediately triggered a thought in my head “cob fishing dayâ€.
Got home, slept less than 2 hours and immeadtly sent an SMS to the guys “Don’t leave without me, I’m going†picked up two rods a couple of jigs and flew to the boat club, arrived there at 5:45 AM and the guy’s were already in the boat ready to go.
While getting out of Luanda Port, the usual discussion, let’s go south popping, let’s go west Tuna might still be there we saw them last week, let’s go north jigging.
I didn’t even brought popping tackle with me and explained why, for me it was going to be a cob morning, it’s getting colder, full moon was on the sky and the tide would be outgoing for most of the morning. That settled the question and I sat down on the back of the boat and enjoyed the view while, as usual, the rest of the gang stayed at the console.
From left to right Marco “pesca†Couto, Carlos “careca†Louro, Ralph “rafa†Brigham
When we arrived at the spot (sorry it’s a secret), excitement immediately rose, the sonar was saying “THEY ARE HEREâ€
Got the tackle ready while planning the drift, I decided to start with a Blue Rose rod, Saragosa 14000 reel and a rose tacklewore jig.
Boat on place for first drift, and when the jig arrived at the bottom I said “Got a cob on my lineâ€, Carlos and Marco said that they had cob also and Ralph say that he had a fish but didn’t know what it was, 4 strike!!!!
The fight begun, after a couple of minutes Marco said he had lost his, but a few second later got another strike and told us “AJ on the lineâ€, mine was the first in the boat and the others followed.
2 cobs and 2 AJs
Ralph started arguing saying the bite was hot and it was no time for photographs and I couldn’t get a photo of his fish, Marco said the same thing and because of that a lot of the fish wasn’t recorded during the rest of the morning :-(
After that I started to lost track but I’ll try to write it with the few photos I was allowed to take with my mobile phone.
I decided to change tackle and switched to a Jigstar Rod 350, Shimano Trinidad TN30 reel, tacklewore inchiku 300g jig, usually I get fewer strikes of AJ’s on the inchiku and in my mind this was a way of trying to avoid the AJ bite and focus on the cob.
2nd Drift 4 Strike again, we all got cobs!!!!!
This was mine and Ralph’s
Carlos one
Some more drift’s bite still hot, more fish, the AJ’s started to attack the jigs on the bottom and it was difficult to avoid them and focus on the cobs, I remember getting another cob on the jigstar inchiku in between AJ’s
Now I must start a little explanation before the next photo, I’m not an overhead guy, and certainly not (up until now) a short rod jigging guy, usually I prefer the longer rods and the spinning reels.
After all this hot action I started to get used to this “short rod†difference in technique and realized that although I’m not used to it, it’s really easier on you to jig with a shorter rod (less tiring) and I started to enjoy it.
When I bought this jigstar rod, the jigstar Africa guys told me I should get a JSR 450 and not this 350 mainly because they thought that I could get “undergunnedâ€, I told them “NO WAY†I usually use jigs from 200 to 350 grams, this one was ideal for me….
Well they were right….. I was wrong :-(
On one of the drift’s I really stubborn AJ managed to put a hell of a fight for it’s size, I’m really ashamed of this but my only excuse is I’m not used to short rods.
After a hell of a fight I broke the rod in mid water (totally my fault).
With half of the rod I still managed to fight the fish and bring it in, not loosing the line and the jig.
Quickly changed back to the blue rose and went on fishing, with this light blue rose I know the limits because I’m used to it.
We got many more drifts, lot's o fish, and very few photos, the only relevant thing I can remember is that with what should have been a HUGE cob (probably above my 40Kg personal record) I got “undergunned†and he managed to go to the rocks and cut the line :-(
Double, Triple and 4 strikes kept happening.
About eleven o’clock in the morning the bite stopped.
Cob end count 14.
The only we could all say was “HELL OF A DAY, ONE TO REMMEMBERâ€
P.S. – Sorry for the lack of quality of the photos, but Gerhard went to SA and the only thing available was a Nokia Cell Phone
