Captain's Blog

November has always been one of our strongest catching months here at Silver Fish Lodge, Maxixe, Mozambique. We are now well into the summer. Water is warmer, and the humidity climbs. It's hot. Winds can be a problem as we now go into our Hurricane season. Choosing correct times between now and March is difficult, as anything can happen with the weather.

What creates this phenomenon are the Yellowfin Tuna, Skipjack Tuna, Little Eastern Tuna and Bullet Tuna who arrive in their thousands. These are typically in the range of 4 kilos up to some Yellowfin Tuna bombers of 25 kilos plus. We have been seeing the baitfish arrive last month, and these Tuna are after them. Marlin come after the tuna. We believe the Tuna come from the equator area up north, and move down south this time of the year. Trevally also become more active and we catch these in between the bait shoals.

My best catch was 28 Yellowfin Tuna and 6 Wahoo's on a days charter, early November. That day we drove away from the Yellowfin because we had enough, and then targeted the Wahoo. Multiple hook-ups were the norm. The Yellowfin Tuna were in the 6 to 8 kg range, and the Wahoo was in the 8-10 kg range. This was about 4 years ago. I ended up giving a lot away to the Mission on top of the hill, as they feed children from their school daily. I try and help when I can as they don't receive any funds from government here, and they doing real good for the community.

We target Yellowfin tuna on Rapalas and Halcos, although now the newer Williamson variation also works well. For those of you that like to cast a plug, or spinner bait, you won't be disappointed. It's also a great time for Fly fishermen, because we can creep up to bait schools and cast into them. This requires a lot of patience, but is generally worth the wait when you get one on fly...

On the troll we always also pull two halfbeaks behind a small islander type lure, rigged at the back, with four Rapalas in the front of the spread. Pulling teaser rigs now are problematical because of the multiple hook-ups. We need hands on deck.

I'll let you know what's out there - watch the twitter feed...