Seychelles

Mahe Island

Travel:

Approximately 4 hours and 30 minutes flight from Johannesburg (not the most comfortable flight). The airport is unique and beautiful like everything else on the island, but from safety perspective, hmmm...can be quite challenging place for landing, in my humble opinion.

 












Accommodation:

The hotels are generally well maintained, and managed (hello... for these prices, they better be). The food was exquisite and after we made friends with the chef, who cooked for us all the fish we managed to catch, we were one of the most popular guests of the hotel and  made some interesting friends.

    The garden in front of our room.

The swimming pool - very popular place amongst the European and predominantly French tourists. Why? - I don't know.

View of the restaurant and the bar.

View of restaurant No 2 Coco... something.











The fishing:
Coming from South Africa we were well prepared for rock and surf fishing carrying good and different tackle with us.

On the first day we checked the beach in front of the hotel, we also brought with us flippers, underwater masks and snorkels, I will say the most useful items we took with us. One can hire equipment, but ... I prefer to have my own snorkel, for exclusive use. Swimming with the angel fish, found massive King Fish and the resident Giant Barracuda, inhabiting a hole just in front of the rocks on the photographs. We did not bring with us underwater camera and could not take any photos of the amazing coral reef inhabitants. I promised myself that I will not catch the resident Giant Barracuda, majestic fish and obviously a mother of plenty smaller size barracuda we observed in the area.

I could not even think of harming the big majestic fish. So, the rock and surf fishing part (as we know it in South Africa) turned out to be sorry affair.  I managed to catch plenty of Eels, but nothing else. I found that this guys have some kick in them (electricity) the hard way. One of them knocked out of me the living daylights and send me on my backside on the sand, while trying to unhook the "ESCOM" creature. I purchased mackerel from the fish market for bait and had to tag it along with me through the town in a plastic bag.

National Cultural Centre and me with a plastic bag full of mackerel bait.











Not big on fly fishing and bone fish, I will say that the conventional rock and surf fishing in the Seychelles is very different from what one is used to in South Africa.

The boat fishing though is something else. We manged to catch plenty of fish in no time (no sail fish), I kept some which we took to our friend chef in the hotel for cooking and the rest was given to the crew to sell.

Bonito...  
   

and another one...












The flying fish were plentiful and every time we noticed them gliding past the boat we came close to the rods, sure sign that Dorado is chasing them, and every time we had a reel screaming:

The captain of the boat (right on the photo) was blissfully unaware of the ever present danger of Somali pirates, lurking at all time just off the coast of Seychelles. She was informed about their presence only after we managed to catch plenty of fish. But on a serious note, the Somali pirates are becoming real problem for the Seychelles Government.  On the same day we were fishing they kidnapped entire Seychelouis  fishing boat with the crew. 

Captain courageous with some of the catch.












"Some people" had enough fish to eat for the entire week, every day, lunch and dinner - bonito sushini and  dorado prepared in the most amazing Seychelles traditional way:

 

And of course, we spend plenty of time with a bottle or two of nice french champagne ..... on the beach.

Beautiful islands, beautiful friendly and proud people, one hopes that they will manage to preserve the current way of life for as long as possible... but speaking with the locals one can see that political instability due to corruption, drug abuse amongst young people are starting to appear like a dark clouds on the horizon of this truly idyllic islands. 

Combination of chokka and sardine for kob bait

For the preparation of the bait one will need the following items:

1. Good filleting knife;
2. Cotton (I prefer Latex cotton);

3. Tenderising hammer; 

4. Cutting board;

Trace; hooks and swivels:

When fishing for kob and using sardine and chokka combination my preferred trace is a pulley rig 6 - 8 OZ grapnel sinker, 6/0 to 8/0 long shank "J" hook or circle hook of the same size (most of the time I will use a smaller size trailing hook). I always "snail" my hooks, even when I use foam.

The sardine:

Remove the head and tail of the sardine as illustrated on the photograph.

 Cut out the stomach section of the sardine as illustrated on the photograph.

Place the sardine stomach on the hook as illustrated on the photograph and secure with cotton.











Chokka:

Use only good quality chokka, if you notice any pinkish coloring on the chokka do not buy it, as it is definitely not going to be as effective as you would like it to be.

Cut, at least 3 tentacles, at the end of the chokka. Lightly tenderize the portion of chokka above the tentacles and insert the hook as illustrated on the photograph. Tenderize the softer/inner part of the chokka, and make sure that the softer/tenderized part of the chokka is placed to face to the outside and the harder part is facing the hook shank. Secure with cotton. You will notice that I have placed free moving glow bead on the line on top of the bait - it assists for night fishing.    

Chokka bait for white steenbras

For the preparation of the bait one will need the following items:

1. Good filleting knife;
2. Cotton (I prefer Latex cotton);

3. Tenderising hammer; 

4. Cutting board;

Trace; hooks and swivel:

When fishing for white steenbras my preferred trace is a sliding sinker, 2/0 to 3/0 long shank "J" hook, with a smaller size trailing hook. I always "snail" my hooks.

Chokka:

Use only good quality chokka, if you notice any pinkish coloring on the chokka do not buy it, as it is definitely not going to be as effective as you would like it to be.

Cut a piece of chokka as illustrated on the photograph below:

Tenderise the upper section, always tenderise the softer side of the chokka, not the side from which you have removed the skin. Hook a 3/0 hook through the piece of chokka just above the end of the cut and secure with cotton, as illustrated on the photograph below:

Make sure that the softer/tenderised side of the chokka is on the outside of the hook and the hard side is wrapped around the shank of the hook. In order to fold the chokka properly around the shank of the hook, one may cut half way through the flesh of the chokka and prepare a groove for the shank of the hook.

Insert the small trailing hook, pointing in the same direction as the main hook, as illustrated on the photograph above.

Although this bait is intended for targeting white steenbras, a kob will not think twice of taking it and the question is: what diameter line one shall use for the construction of the free running sinker trace?

• If you go "light", you risk being bitten off, if a kob takes the bait. You risk not being able to land the kob.
• If you go heavy, the fastidious feeding white steenbras may not bite.

 Combination of chokka with white mussel bait for white steenbras:

Use the prepared chokka bait as described above and attach as illustrated on the photograph white mussel with cotton. Excellent bait for kob too.

Sand crab bait for white steenbras:

Get yourself a sand crab. They can be caught in different ways. My favorite method is to use onion mesh bag, which is filled with sardines' offcuts and placed in knee deep water in the ocean. Attache the bag with a piece of fishing line to your rod holder. After 30 minutes to an hour, retrieve the  bag and you will find some of the sand crabs holding to the mesh, as they can not resist the juicy sent of the sardine offcuts.

Some anglers prefer to secure with cotton the legs of the crab to the line above the hook, in order to prevent the line from tangling. I prefer to hook the crab in the way illustrated on the photograph.

Some anglers use supper glue to glue their hooks to the shell of the crab and in this way allow the crab to stay alive in the water.


If the fish is not baiting, one can cut off the top shell cover of the crab and expose some of the meat. In some cases this helps.