Barely Caught the Fish of the Day

by | Apr 28, 2011 | Uncategorized | 2 comments

April 15

Madagascar – Day 16


Even though yesterday led me to believe the fishing here isn’t too good I began the day by chucking some Crazy Charlie shrimp patterns in front of our room. I’ve managed to catch a fish every single day of this trip that I’ve been near water. It’s important I keep that going, but morning gave me no luck.

After breakfast, Granny and I joined our South African family (the father, Peter, his wife Renee, and their two daughters Ané and Monique) for a tour of Isle Saint Marie. There are a couple things we wanted to check out, the village on Isle Saint Marie and the world’s only pirate cemetery.

Florio and Herman (the guys I fished with yesterday) poled us all across the channel to
Isle Saint Marie. Me and Peter started by enjoying a few early beers during the short pirogue ride. What the heck, its vacation right?

The way this tour worked, La Petite Traversée helped us hire a four wheel drive vehicle with a driver and guide. The truck was supposed to have room for all six of us. It didn’t. Granny and I huddled in the back as if we were on an African minivan bus, something we are all too familiar with. We made it work though despite the fact that I ruined my shorts by sitting in oil and it was excruciatingly hot.

Anyhow, we saw the village. That was nothing to write home about. The pirate cemetery was cool, but if the fishing was decent yesterday I could have easily skipped this. The highlight at the cemetery was seeing the first tarantula of the trip. We also checked out a waterfall. That was nice and I wanted to hike above it and fish wherever the water was coming from but our driver would have no part of the idea. The tours highlight was eating a great lunch of monster prawns on a remote beach at the north part of the island. All the food has been great this trip and the prawns were scrumptious. To top the tour off, I sucked a few extra beers and watched Granny and the South Africans explore several of the locally made rums. Everyone was feeling good.

Tonight I ran straight to the channel near our room to try and get that one fish for the day. First cast I had a small barracuda chase but he never returned. Twenty minutes later I was about to give up when as I was

stripping as fast as I can while backing up the beach to add more speed and I nailed another baby bluefin trevally. Yes! The perfect record keeps going!

Other than having a blast with our new found family, the tour was a bore. However, it was a heck of an eating day. We had those delicious prawns for lunch and tonight La Petite fed us whole crabs. I like this anniversary!

2 Comments

  1. Erik

    The Pirate Cemetery looks almost like it is out of a movie… kind of cool. Congratulations on your tarantula, and Granny looks as if she has found a warm friend in a glass.
    Another cold day in ID, and they are expecting more snow in the mountains… fishing is very limited here in the south west side of the state.

  2. Urocyon

    You know Jeff, as you contemplate your ‘Cioppino,’ you look a little like a young Ansel Adams. He would probably want more of your photos in B&W though. 🙂

    On crutches, so fishing for me these days. Besides all Sierra Nevada creeks to rivers are running high. Snowpack is about 160% of average.

    Pat

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I started fly fishing at age 7 in the lakes and ponds of New England cutting my teeth on various sunfish, bass, crappie and stocked trout. I went to Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, where I graduated with a Naturalist Degree while I discovered new fishing opportunities for pike, muskellunge, walleyes and various salmonids found in Lake Superior and its tributaries.

From there I headed west to work a few years in the Yellowstone region to simply work as much as most people fish and fish as much as most people work. I did just that, only it lasted over 20 years working at the Jack Dennis Fly Shop in Jackson, WY where I departed in 2009. Now it’s time to work for "The Man", working for myself that is.

I pursue my love to paint fish, lecture on every aspect of fly fishing you can imagine and host a few trips to some of the most exotic places you can think of. My ultimate goal is to catch as many species of fish on fly possible from freshwater to saltwater, throughout the world. I presently have taken over 440 species from over 60 countries!

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