IT IS NO secret that I take myself off to lake Nasser, in southern Egypt, fairly frequently, this trip being my eighth. I do this because it is a beautiful wilderness with lots of wildlife, few people, and big fish.


Lady angler and guide Henni with 95-pounder
The actual, calculated average weight of my fish out there is 22lbs: three weighed 100lb or more. And I’ve had several thousand pounds worth of fish – so it’s not a story of one fish every so often. In fact, the Nile perch come to the boat, or bank, at the rate of 2-7 each day, and to lure, bait or fly. And the company is wonderful, the food quite excellent – and I can afford it because it costs no more than a couple of weeks in Ireland. So what about this year?

Friendly Egyptians

Since September 11th bookings on lake Nasser have fallen off, and only now are beginning to pick up again. It’s a bit difficult to understand why, really, because the chances of being involved in any kind of incident in Egypt are exceedingly low, not least because the Egyptians are both very friendly and quite security conscious. In all my travels I have found two nations where the level of friendliness is outstanding – Ireland and Egypt. In the friendliness stakes other countries are also-rans.


Barrie playing fish from bank

This year we arrived in Luxor via Egypt Air more or less on schedule, looking forward to our night in the Luxor Sheraton Hotel, before flying on to Aswan the following morning after an early breakfast. In fact, a sand storm blew up over the whole of the country, grounding aircraft. Our safari people were onto this, however, anticipating problems. So, without waiting for airport decisions, put us in an air-conditioned taxi and drove us to Aswan – a nice three-hour journey giving a fine view of the Nile valley and the small towns. And we had our own security guard, a very pleasant policeman with a Kalashnikov on his knee.

A lake with 4000 miles of shorelineIn Aswan we transferred to another car and headed south down the western shore of the lake.

Let me digress and put the lake’s size into perspective: drop it on the UK and it would stretch from Cambs to N. Yorkshire, and it has 4,000 miles of shoreline.

Lost in the sand storm


Barrie with 75lb perch
The dust/sand storm still blew, but we arrived at Garf Hussein just after dark/ The Nubian guides were waiting with the boat, ready to take us to a base camp situated on one of the islands. Now, normally, the Nubians can navigate the lake at night as easily as you negotiate your bedroom, but in a sandstorm, features were blotted out and after an hour on the lake we were more or less lost.A decision was taken to tie up behind an island, share out the food we had on board, and then proceed at dawn when, hopefully, the sand storm had blown itself out.

This proved to be the case and by breakfast time, conveniently, we were at the first base camp, enthusiastically welcomed and fed. From then on the dust settled by the minute, the sun came up and we had, as usual, wall to wall sunshine for the rest of the week. An aside: there was one lady travelling with us, a lady much more used to holidaying in five star hotels, rather than a mattress on a small boat. Just as everyone was falling asleep on that first night in the sandstorm, when we were well lost, she was heard to say “Isn’t this fun?” I have high hopes of this lady: and it puts reluctant travellers into full perspective doesn’t it?


Barrie’s lure bag!
New bait techniques

One of my functions on this trip was to help Tim Baily work out new bait techniques to supplement the lure fishing normally employed on lake Nasser. In a nutshell, some of the hot-spots were proving difficult on lures because the fish were wising up to them, and the large boats usually used for trolling. Smaller, stealth boats have been introduced and now Tim has the facilities to provide both dead and livebait for use as appropriate. Most of the time, of course, lures suffice, but for circumstances where they seem to be failing (or, indeed, where anglers prefer baitfishing) he is well geared up for it.

A great shape materialised

Let me give an example. One of the favourite haunts of Nile Perch anglers on lake Nasser is at the foot of a cliff where big fish work very close to the bank. When I say close I mean a foot off the bank. And when I say big fish I mean fish of up to 100lbs. They were being cagey on lures so I crept into position with a Tilapia live bait on each of the two rods. Those I simply held in the water about eighteen inches from the bank, perhaps a foot below the surface. The guides Mohammed and Hanni were with me.


Mohammed with a good tigerfish
As we stood there quietly a great shape materialised beneath our feet and, before we could move an inch, snaffled the Tilapia and disappeared. The battle was tremendous but eventually a fish of 75lbs was landed, the single hook removed and the fish held up for a picture. As we did so another great shape sidled up from the depths, took the other Tilapia, and disappeared pronto. The strike, made by Hanni, missed! So these fish ignore a lure at times but will come to the very feet of standing anglers and grab a livebait. It’s heady stuff.

So the week went on, a bit of fly fishing, a bit of lure fishing, some bait fishing and the total of good fish mounted. The next highlight was when a quest from the British Embassy in Cairo caught an 85lb fish on the troll. Another was when we discovered that the Masterline jerkbaits that look like Tilapia and sardinias could be fished slowly like wobbled deadbaits, and could take both good Tiger fish and Nile perch – normally these fish need a lure on fast retrieve.

The best fish

But the best fish of this safari was an amazing story. Our lady angler and I were travelling together shortly after the capture of the 75lb fish. A tremendous take on her rod, at 70 yards distance behind the boat, stripped off a further 50 yards of line, down to the backing and, as the backing knot slid through the rings it briefly snagged and then broke. Disaster! It’s the first time in my life that a backing knot tied by me has given way.


Mohammed and Vundu catfish
The next day Tim and I were trying trolled baits beneath floats, trying to get the technique right for the benefit of future quests, when a shout from our other boat (where our lady was casting from a drifting boat) told us of action. The inter-boat telephone communication told us that she had snagged the line lost on the previous day and that the fish was still on! The guide had knotted that lost line to the replacement line and the fish was eventually boated, weighing in at 95lbs. We reckon she and that fish deserved each other. But what a story.

All in all it was a tremendous week with lots of big fish. We took a night train from Aswan to Luxor, and spent the last night in the Luxor Sheridan. At 7am we were breakfasting by the Nile: at 4pm we were back in the office in the UK.

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