Pussycaaaaaaaaaaaaat........

You can't miss this one!

Cape Cod Blue Devils!

Didn't have much time to post a proper report, I wrote it in spanish but a busy day didn't allow for a second one. I'll just say that we had a hell of a good time and that Steelwagon bank is a true Bluefin Tunas sanctuary, even in November. Taste this picture for the moment and as soon as possible you'll have a full report

About time for some fishing

People sometimes complain that there’s not much fishing in this blog. Fact is that for me, living in a city like Madrid, there are more opportunities to take photos rather than go fishing. Said that, a couple weeks ago I drove some 500km to the north east of Spain to meet a couple of friends and fish the waters surrounding the Delta of the Ebro River.

This place is quite emblematic for the Spanish coast. Is probably the best spot for Leerfish, Bluefish and Sea Bass plus a number of smaller pelagics. Sometimes Tuna and False Albacore show up yet it offers a very scarce jigging action. I have fished this area since 10 years probably, and I think I can say that I have been the first in consistently using top water lures, introducing the technique to many people who now use it with great results

During our two half days and one full day session we had seen quite a bunch of fish following our lures. My friend Oriol hooked a pretty large Leerfish and as many times happen he lost it during then fight. These darn fish for many different reasons are very tough both to hook and to keep hooked. I don’t know if is because of the hard mouth, the way the hit the plug or the fight they develop, but the fact is that for every 10 you have following your lure you are quite in good shape if you bring one to the boat

The Bluefish amused us with their spectacular strikes and fun fights. They’re not the main target but hey, they’re a good alternative and deliver tons of action. We also tried the Sea Bass, with scarce luck. Three small fish caught and one monster behind a lure creating a wake of impressive size. The good thing about Sea Bass fishing is that you can use very light tackle, and this is for me, at the moment, a major pleasure.

Oriol and Carlos, my fishing buddies, showed me how far the top water technique has been developed in their area to catch all these predators, and the funny thing is that in other areas of the Spanish coast, things can be dramatically different, and what works in the Delta, doesn’t’ work in Alicante, just to make an example.

I must admit that now what really attracts me is the light tackle action. I’d love to nail a large Sea Bass with an 8lb rod and line. I’m addicted to the walking the dog top water lures, I’d love to be more acquainted with the soft plastic and everything able to give me back my wrist sensibility lost in many tropical battles. Medium or heavy top water fishing can be fun, but for me it makes now sense to do it if the opponent is a member of the Tuna family. I have a pending affair with those fish and they’re at the top on my favourites list, but this is another story yet to be written...

Bermuda: new jigging paradise?

Is probably too early to say but the first clues have been quite impressive. We have just spent 5 days of fishing in the waters of this beautiful island and every single one of us has returned home excited and happy with the result. It was an exploratory trip, but the bases on which it was put together were strong. Bermuda holds 3 or 4 IGFA world records for both kind of Amberjack (Dumerili and Rivoliana). The biggest Greater Amberjack ever caught around the world comes from here, and if you put in the mix the abundance of Yellowfin Tunas, Groupers, Wahoo and many other different species, the landscape looks pretty bright.

Let me spend a word about the island itself first. It simply is a beautiful place. Neat, tidy, coloured, warm, peaceful, not polluted, green, blue... Again, a small and remarkably amazing paradise. People are nice too. Our captain, Peter Rahn, his wife Leslie and the boat's mate Steve are wonderful people, as well as many other inhabitants that we met and spent some time with. Lodging and dining is not the cheapest around, yet with the current value of the Euro compared to the Dollar is still doable.

Talking about the Captain and his fleet I have nothing but good words. Peter worked hard on something that is quite new for him. Jigging is a technique that requires a specific knowledge and thanks to his vast experience on the local reefs, he managed to constantly put the boat in the best spots. Theres many banks and reefs around the island, and not all of them are prooductive, yet he seemed to always know where to put the boat, and even if sometimes the tides were playing big time against us, when the fish turned on again, we were on top of them.

The first day we fished with the boat that we booked, a 41' Custom Express. But once returned from our fishing we noticed a super jigging boats moored near the Overproof. It was a 36' lobster boat, just arrived from Maine, and o boy, that was perfect. From day 2 we fished every day on the Son Rae, 5 guys in a row jigging elbow to elbow, or not even that because there was room to spare, without a tangle or a problem. The Son Rae is just the perfect jigging machine and we took full advantage of it.

One of the highlights, unexpected to be true, has been the variety of species we caught on jigs. I don't know if ti was 20 or more but every day we would catch 4 or 5 new critters. The mix of the subtropical water with the warm current of the Gulf creates a perfect environment, where fish from more moderate latitudes meet with other more typical of the tropics.

The amount of fish we caught has been quite impressive, I still wonder if Peter was expecting this result or if he was a bit skeptical. Millions of small Almaco Jack where ambushing the reefs. Even during the deadly tides you would manage one of them to bite the irons and I'm pretty sure that, because of the abundance of those smaller critters, we found it more difficult to hook serious contenders.

The big fish didn't participate too actively to the party. We hooked few of them but for a series of reason we only landed one, a 40lb Almaco jack. Thus, they are there, I don't have a single doubt about it, and for this reason I want to come back in May, when the summer starts and the migratory species are more likely to show up. Peter told me that the Yellowfin Tuna stay deep on the drop-offs, and that he can see them in the sounder. Quite a good change for a target fishing like ours: can't wait to get rid of the winter.

Bermuda was also a great lab for my photographic experiments and I have learnt few more things. The most important is that I don't have to clean the sensor myself, and the second that I need to buy a GOOD tripod.

You can see more images here http://www.caranx.net/bermuda_report_2008.htm