I’m not sure what Dave Moeller did yesterday to earn the chili suit but he wore it with pride. I think he tripped and took a dunk while wading. I fished with Dave and guide Jarryd today. Unfortunately, our travel was restricted again to fishing within a couple miles from the lodge due to the poacher incident now two days ago. I guess the Coast Guard didn’t make it out to St. Brandon’s Atoll yesterday. Of course it makes sense being it’s a 30 hour boat ride from Mauritius to here. They arrived last night and will hopefully get things in order.
Dave is still chasing this trip’s goal of landing a 10lb bonefish. I want him to achieve this as much as he does so we told Jarryd to go full bore on finding some big fish. We headed to the front side of Julies Flat. Julies is where we had amazing fishing the first few days of the trip.
We have a new moon and spring tides right now which means the low tides are extremely low and the highs are high. In between, there’s strong tidal currents and conditions change rapidly. We only had a few hours at this first spot.
But it doesn’t take much to nail a few bonefish if they’re there. And they certainly were. The rules are, you need to wear the chili suit till you catch a fish. Jarryd guided Dave into a bonefish within the first 15 minutes and he was relieved. It’s a good thing because I can tell you from my day eight experience, the suit is hot and stinky!
Once the suit was gone, we enjoyed some serious fishing. The tide was so low there was really only room for one on the flat. Dave and Jarryd picked of a half dozen bones – beautiful fish but nothing near 10lbs. I plucked the coral heads with a big shrimp fly but most of my catches were yellowlip emperors. The species is actually a secret favorite of mine but todays yellowlips were small.
Late morning we had to make a move. The tide was on its way in and our flat became too deep to fish in a short time. Jarryd had one more flat in mind that we could race to and get another couple hours fishing. Dave would land two more nice fish. I hooked two bonefish and lost them both. One on the second run and the other close to hand. They weren’t the elusive 10lbers but it’s been a couple days since I held one of these epic bonefish – I’m ready.
The afternoon session was extremely tough. And honestly, we thought it would be good. We waded completely around North Island which in both previous trips for me was one of our hotspots. Jarryd got Dave on two different permit in the first 15 minutes of walking, then the next two hours we saw nothing. It’s a unique walk in that it borders the reef but a few more shots at fish would have been nice.
It was simply just another off day for fishing. And I mean for everyone. Dave and his decent session of bonefishing in the morning was the only successful bonefishing of the day. Mike L. landed a gorgeous bluefin trevally but that was about it for his boat. I know I highlighted some amazing fish the last three days – my parrots, Morgans permit and Mikes bluefin, but overall, amongst eight anglers, we’re in a team slump. Difficult times in paradise have brought a few spirits to a trip low. Its normal on a 14 day trip to have a few tough ones but hopefully tomorrow the fishing will turn back on.