Rain, Wind and Waves

Seychellen – October 2015

On the spur of the moment we booked a week’s holiday in the Seychelles to celebrate Martina’s 50th birthday – at least, that was the plan. Unfortunately, the weather had something really different in mind and we had to brave heavy rain and high winds all week so conditions were not exactly ideal. Although we had planned eight days’ fishing, one day was cancelled completely and on two other days we were only able to manage a few hours sail-fishing in the afternoons. Nevertheless, everything turned out quite well in the end. 

While trolling with light tackle we were able to catch a total of 10 sailfish in addition to the usual bycatches of dorados, bonitos, yellowfins and wahoos. We fished with our own “Magic Candy” and “Magic Star” lures off the outriggers and with 2 teasers for bait & switch close in. These teasers were our own “Striker”, “Chuggy” and “Little Grander” patterns and we were able to attract most of the sailfish, lure them to the boat and then cast mackerel baits rigged with a circle hook straight towards them. Of the 10 sails, we caught 7 using this method and 3 in the classic manner using our conventional lures.

We took GTs weighing up to 35 kg when popper fishing and a wide range of colourful reef dwellers when jigging.

Stephan Kreupl, October 2015