Seychelles

Seychelles 2018

Denis Island – Sharks, Sharks, Sharks ….

The Seychelles, February 2018

This time we ended up on Denis Island in the Seychelles. After a thirty-minute domestic flight from the main island of Mahé the small Cessna landed on this private island. The isle can be best be described as paradise because here you will find intact natural surroundings, brightly luminescent coral reefs and the finest sand on earth. No telephone, no internet and no television – but white sandy beaches, a natural lagoon with magnificent coral reefs and an abundance of tropical nature.

The island is home to a small but nice resort that leaves nothing to be desired and is surrounded by several beautiful flats and excellent snorkelling spots. You can reach the drop off about two sea miles offshore. This is where the sea bed drops sharply for a couple of hundred metres – a top area with a wide variety of fishing possibilities. We decided to spend the mornings wading through the flats with our fly-rods and the afternoons jigging for a couple of hours. Since everything is within easy reach you don’t lose any time with taxi journeys or unnecessarily steaming far out to sea to find the best spots.

Weather conditions were good. We spent the first few days discovering the island – partially on foot, partially on mountain bikes provided by the resort. It takes a good two and a half hours to ride around the island along the beaches, an athletic challenge.

When you wade through the flats you get the feeling that you are going to see a bonefish fin any moment but unfortunately far from it. Over the 11 days we were there I failed to see a single bonefish. However, you do find the full range of coral fish. Occasionally barracudas, blue-fin trevallies and GT’s weighing up to about 15 kilos. Small black-tip reef shark patrol the island close to the shoreline.

The drop off area and the surrounding submerged mountains are simply teeming with reef sharks so when jigging we were extremely lucky to land hooked fish. On one afternoon spent at two different spots we managed to net none of the 12 fish hooked up to the surface. These sharks took their toll of every fight lasting more than ten minutes and we finished up with empty trace lengths. We lost 9 big fish to the sharks that day.

Our luggage was 8 kilos lighter by the end of the trip. We “fed” over 50 jigs to the sharks in the course of our stay. There was never a dull moment changing spots and trolling our lures which took plenty of wahoos, dorados, tuna and sailfish.

On the last two afternoons of our vacation on Denis Island we managed to find a spot where there weren’t so many sharks and we caught the entire range of local reef dwellers – jubilation!

Special thanks to Henry Riggs-Miller for his energetic support and to the team at “Special K Sportfishing” with Capt. Brandon Grant and Mate Zoro who never tired in their efforts to find spots that were not infested with sharks.

Denis Island produces and grows 80% of its requirements itself. It has its own cattle and pig breeding farms and all kinds of vegetable and fruit plantations. You won’t find any plastic there and the drinking water is supplied in glass bottles. The island is regarded as being rat-free which means it is a paradise for the wide variety of sea-birds that breed there in large numbers.