BluewaterFishing Marlinlure-Promotion-Tour April/May 2010

The first fishing trip in Stephan’s and my angler’s life, in which we were not only fishing, but also presenting our new marlin lures to skippers, owners of boats and other anglers. As well it was the first baptism of fire of our new lure models: Big Smoker and Grander 1238.

Matthias Henningsen, Captain of the Boat Smoker was our tester number one: He achieved straightaway a few good catches with our Big Smoker and Grander 1238 as teaser (with “Bait & Switch-Technique”). Like in all marinas this spread like wildfire and our lures were (exceptional) the number one topic of conservation at Club Nautico.

Tester number two was our friend Ferdi Worst, skipper of the boat Bebiche. He also caught one great marlin with the Grander 1238 and two with the Big Smoker. Now all of the other crews asked for lures, they actually demanded us of them. They wanted to test them. All in all we equipped seven boats, each with one Grander 1238 and one Big Smoker. To cut a long story short the achievements: During the 12 days we were on location 21 marlins were caught with the Big Smoker and 6 were teased. 13 marlins were caught with the Grander 1238 and 3 were teased (without our marlins).

Our results: After our arrival in Mindelo we drove directly to the Club Nautico. There we met good friends and acquaintances. They told us unhappy: “Just one … two in ten days … also in front of Sao Antau and Sao Nicolau no bits … and the by catch is spare as well …”. The next morning the next frustration appeared at the marina: Some of the boats (ours included) didn’t have a “new Cape Verde additional authorization”, day – to – day. Though we weren’t nervous, because it wasn’t our first journey to the Cape Verde Islands! Anyhow the next morning our boat Dimeu, Captain Calu and the crew: Jorge do Graco Rodrigues and Gianone Graaro were ready! With Calu and Jorge we experienced already a lot of marlin adventures. Gianone is only 25 and arises from Brazil. He wants to get his last necessary experiences to become a great crewman there. It was important for us that the boys love marlin fishing and we got along well with each other.

Due to the fact that this is the sixth marlin report about Cape Verde Islands we will just give you a short informative, tabular summary, not another exciting drilling story. You can see the most beautiful and interesting scenes and photos combined in our video-clip “Cape Verde 2010”.

Our fishing days and marlins:

Date Boat Tide C&R Strikes
23th April Dimeu 14.45 0 0
24th April Dimeu 16.13 1 1
25th April Dimeu 17.24 2 3
26th April Dimeu 18.21 0 3
27th April Dimeu 0.651 0 0
28th April Dimeu 07.35 + 3 4
29th April Dimeu 08.15 1 1
30th April Dimeu 08.15 0 1
1. May Dimeu 08.55 2 3
2. May Dimeu 09.34 ++
4. May Dona Pi 10.13 0 0
Total     9 16

+) Full Moon ++) Starboard shaft broke after two hours

Something about the fishing in general:

  • In contrast to the last seasons, the boats caught in average just half of the quantity.
  • Compared to the past years we rarely caught sight of bigger swarms of bait fish at the water surface or at the fishfinder.
  • The boats passed more often than the past years through deep water – the crews hoped for lucky strikes there.
  • Up to 10 boats were driving daily, for hours, round the bank of San Petro.
  • At the Dimeu and at the most other boats the crews troll the classic way only. At the boats: Smoker, Andromeda and Amelia the chance to catch is increased additionally with the “Bait & Switch” technique.
  • Maybe the great marlin run will coming in the next weeks – we hope so for the crews and the anglers!

Our purposes for the next fishing journey to Cape Verde Islands and our general review:

  • The “Bait & Switch” will take place in our planning and fishing-technique in the future!
  • Because we caught our 9 marlins with single-hook-rigs and because we know the advantage with releasing (for the crew and fish) for a long time now, we will assemble our marlin lures just like that in the future. Finally we think that the single-hook-rigs will bring more hook-ups, too!
  • In future some marlin fishing-days at San Vincente or Sao Nicolau will be sacrificed in favour of fishing at Sal – the expectation of by- catch seems to become good.
  • The flight with TUI-Fly and the TACV was on schedule, despite of the volcanic ash; the whole luggage arrived; but the time of waiting from Sal to Mindelo has to become shorter.
  • Compared to the 1990th you won’t recognize Mindelo. Exceptionally the harbor promenade and the marina are exemplary.
  • In the meanwhile you can eat and drink everything in the restaurants round the harbor promenade without being worried about dysentery and cholera!

When on May 2nd, one shaft of the Dimeu broke; we made an excursion to the north coast of Sao Vincente. We tried to catch horse mackerels with sliders and poppers from the coast – unfortunately without success. Nevertheless we evaluate the chances to catch sting rays, sharks… on these “original seaside” very high!?

Stephan Kreupl and Robert Rein, May 2010