Species Bashing on the Fly – Day 3 at Farquhar

by | Dec 3, 2016 | Uncategorized | 3 comments

When hosting trips, I prefer my guests fish with as many different guides as possible.  All Farquhar guides are excellent but each has a unique personality, unalike favorite fish, skills and ideas.  This variety of guides allows you to try new things and learn, keeping the week interesting.  Today I went with Nick Isabelle and partnered with friend Steve Fitzsimons.  Sammy went solo.

 

Skip Brittenham went alone with my guide of yesterday, Matthieu Cosson.  They went straight for the milkfish.  Skip had seven take his fly, fought two to the boat and landed one.  Despite my long desire to catch one of these remarkable fish, my luck with them hasn’t been good.  This is an incredible accomplishment and I am stoked for Skip!

 

Steve Fitzsimons and I met in 2013 when he was a guest on one of my hosted Amazon trips.  Steve’s been enjoying catching the weird fish this week so today we went on a hardcore species hunt.  My favorite thing to do.

 

 

 

Species hunts at Farquhar start with a dredge (a heavy fly on bottom in deep water).  I dredge with my Winston Boron III 12-weight matched with the line I helped design for Scientific Anglers, the Sonar Big Water Taper Max Sink.  This line sinks faster than a bowling ball and most importantly has a 100lb core.  Attached I use a straight piece of 100lb mono for leader.  Grouper, snapper and giant wrasse (to mention a few) pull so hard it’s ridiculous.  Yet if you let them run they bury you in the rocks and coral leaving you with weak knees.  Instead I bare down with brute “Currier” strength and don’t allow them an inch.

 

Our first stop led to some shoulder dislocating tugs.  I sank a big black fly down deep and went to work.  I landed a blue colored African brown marbled grouper and this gorgeous yellow-edged lyretail.

 

We dredged a few more spots and I picked up two brown colored African grouper but all in all the bottom feeders of the sea weren’t feeding heavily.  Nick suggested we move to the deeper flats to look for giant trevally and perhaps a Napoleon wrasse – a fish not yet on my list.

 

The flat is called Napoleon Dynamite.  The depth is about six feet and mostly covered in sand.  The area is dotted with coral heads and turtle grass attracting many species of fish.  Steve got a quick but unsuccessful shot at a nice size GT.  I smashed up this honker of a blue spangled emperor along with a few humphead snappers.

 

Next, a life fact of an aging body, I sprained my stripping shoulder.  Basically, if you ever sprained your ankle and thought you were doomed only to walk it back to normal ten minutes later, this is what happened to my left shoulder.  I was still casting but striping like a gimp.  Naturally a Napoleon wrasse of Volkswagen proportions engulfed my fly.  I hooked him good but when it came to putting a halt to his run, my shoulder gave in.  The Napoleon buried me in the coral and broke my 100lb leader like it was 7X.  Redemption however came in the form of this pouty faced African marbled grouper.

 

Humphead Snapper

The drift across Napoleon Dynamite went for an hour and Steve and I caught bohar snappers, yellowlip emperor, longnose emperor, bigeye trevally and probably more I can’t think of.  It was a sensational session and the species were racking up.

 

After lunch the ocean flats were perfect to hunt big trevally, bumphead parrots and triggerfish.  The area wasn’t huge so I hung back and let Steve wade with Nick.  Soon I found myself wading away from the breaking waves of the ocean to the dead calm heated waters on a waist deep flat.  I added a bluefin trevally, honeycomb grouper, needle scale queenfish and a bluespotted grouper to the day’s list.

 

I caught a heap of cool fish.  They never stopped coming.  The highlight was casting to Titan triggerfish (also known as mustache triggers).  These guys have proved to be the most finicky fish this week and when you do get one to eat your fly they’re hard to hook.  But persistence always prevails and I landed this dazzling one just for fun.

 

My highlight was a lemon shark I had no business casting too while wading, especially by myself.  I was just wrapping things up.  My fishing had slowed and in the distance I could see Steve and Nick returning to the boat.  I was about a ¼ of a mile away.  Then I saw a shark dorsal coming down the flat toward me.

 

“Sweet”, I thought to myself.  I’ll hook this shark and the boys will arrive to help me land it.  The shark reached my casting range and I launched.  I stripped my fly to scurry away from him as he approached and in a scary-effortless move he devoured it and he was on.  When he felt the hook he exploded and the once thought to be 4ft long shark was closer to 6ft.

 

Sharks fight you on the flats like in a heavyweight match.  They put on an awesome fight.  So much that it annoys me when anglers avoid them rather than cast.  By now I had my hands full and I began hollering and waving my hat to the guys.

 

They were to me in less than five minutes like the fire department getting to a fire.  Nick was hoping I had my big Napoleon but soon realized it was a shark big enough to cause some grief.

 

An intense battle went on between me and the shark while Nick collected tools to handle the big fish.  This is not a common occurrence for the guides here but one they are trained to handle.  Soon Nick was with me and I hoisted the now tired shark on to the flat.

 

Things were looking good.  Nick approached the shark with caution.  I had his belly dragging on the turtle grass.  But in one quick swoosh he thrashed and showed his teeth and bit through my 100lb leader.  I was bummed but I believe there was some relief in Nick!

 

It was an insane day of species bashing.  Steve and I racked up a spectacular list of fish somewhere between 12 and 15.  I’d caught all before but one I don’t have on my list because when I caught one last trip I never got the photo to identify him later down the road.  This is the one.  He’s some sort of emperor but not sure which yet.  If anyone can figure it out, please contact me.

Matt Cosson identified it as a dark colored yellowlip emperor.

 

Other than Skips outstanding milkfish the rest of the group caught an array of oddball stuff but not one giant trevally.  This is a very strange week for these fish.  This one that I drew with my sharpies on Justin’s shirt tonight is as close as we’ve got so far.

 

The Seychelles are truly one of the great saltwater fly fishing destinations left in the world.  To learn more or even better, join me on my next trip here, contact me or Yellow Dog Flyfishing Adventures!

 

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing

3 Comments

  1. Mark

    Exciting erray of fish, very cool, be curious to see if the GT’s show and more milk fish get landed??

  2. Susan McDowell

    Jeff, I love reading about all your adventures. I am going to Seychelles in March and want to do some species bashing. Can you give me an idea of what gear (lines etc) i need to take. I have 11 and 12 wt rods. What do I need to pair with them. Happy Holidays to you and Granny. Best, Susie McDowell

  3. Jeff

    Thanks for reading and love hearing the comments guys! Mark, one day left. You’ll find out tomorrow on the fishes.

    Susie, you need your 12-weight and the Scientific Angler line I mention in my blog. Just click on that link and you’ll have the line. I’m most certain none of the local fly shops stock it so you need to order it or have them order it ASAP so you have it. Then have whoever is hosting your trip organize you to get the special 130lb GT tippet so its in the Seychelles waiting for you. This is the material I use for my leader. They might be able to make you the flies also. Basically they are the heaviest size 4/0 Clousers on the best hooks made possible. Let the Seychelles guides make them. We can chat on the phone if you like. Or Wed the 21sst I’ll be at the old JD’s doing art for their customer Xmas party. we can chat Oh and make sure you do your pushups those fish pull!

Welcome to the Blog of Jeff Currier!

Contact Jeff

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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