I have just returned from a fantastic ten day trip to the island of Acunda, a tiny island no more than 150 by 100 metres, which is part of the Bijagos Archipelago, 80 km off the coast of West Africa, the fishing was like nothing I’ve ever experienced so I thought I’d share it.
The first day involved a lunchtime flight from Heathrow to Lisbon, a four hour stopover and then an onward flight to Bissau airport where we were met by our local rep and I was very pleased to be reunited with 23kg of luggage, 20kg of which was tackle!
We were then transferred to a riverside lodge about 30 minutes drive away and we arrived at about 02:00, the bar was open for us to enjoy a few beers and then it was time for a couple of hours sleep in our luxurious accommodation.
I woke up at about 6am feeling like a kid at Christmas and had a quick walk around the camp and took a few pictures whilst the local wildlife was waking up and the sun was rising over the estuary. I spent 20 minutes watching the weaver birds doing their stuff, an incredible thing to watch – although a bit noisy at that time of the morning.
After a quick breakfast we loaded up the boats for the two to three hour trip to Acunda Island, there was not too much chop on the water so after a couple of hours we arrived at our home for the next eight days where we were met by our hosts for the week: a French couple, Thierry and Marie who went out of their way to ensure our stay was perfect.
The camp setup is ideal for a week’s fishing: a small bar, communal dining area and six two-man huts complete with shower and flushing toilet, all pretty basic but exactly as you’d expect for somewhere 60km off the coast of Africa. The Food was excellent and the laundry was done daily at no charge, you just left it in the wash basket and it was returned pressed and ironed the next day, ideal when you have spent all day on a boat!
We got ourselves settled in and then it was time to start fishing. I had pretty realistic expectations of the trip; I wanted to catch a decent-sized jack, some decent sized barracuda and to just get to grips with some angry fish. On the non-fishing side I just wanted a week of chilling out, the chance to see some good wildlife and if I was lucky enough to see a Manta Ray swimming along my trip would be complete.
To my surprise by the end of the first day I had done all three!
The Barracudas were primarily caught trolling using a variety of lures: Storm Deep Thunders and Rapala CD 18s were both extremely successful and the ever-reliable Super Shad Rap was also catching more than its fair share. These were all trolled at a speed of about four knots using small multipliers with 50lb braid and 150lb mono leaders.
The jack I caught was on a small Tsunami popper, the takes on these are awesome, a massive hit and then 15 minutes of max drag trying to get some control over the fish. All of the lures that I used were upgraded with Wolverine treble split rings and Owner ST-66 4x trebles; some of the other guys on the trip decided not to upgrade their hardware and a few split rings and hooks were opened up as the fish out there are monsters with no respect or finesse!
The tree at the base camp bears testament to the power of these fish; it is festooned with lures of all makes, shapes and sizes that have fallen victim to these angry fish !!
We were to spend the next day doing a mix of trolling and casting to reefs and known marks for snapper and jacks and whatever else took a fancy to our lures. Again we were using small (four to six inch) poppers, primarily Tsunamis but also small Williamson Jet Poppers.
After landing a few more barracuda and jacks we were taken to another reef to troll for some jacks and pompano. The barracuda were constantly hitting the Deep Thunders so I changed to a Rapala CD-18 in Green Mackerel and after about 20 minutes my rod screamed off and I had an angry pompano on the other end.
These fish have a hell of an attitude and never give up, as soon as they hit the surface they take off on another unstoppable 50m burst! After a 15 minute struggle I got the fish in, photos were taken and it was returned to fight another day.
The food and guiding on Acunda was fantastic, breakfast would be toast, with either crepes, eggs, or cakes (all freshly made) and there was an endless supply of tea and coffee.
Lunch would be taken either on the boat or on a sandy beach somewhere and this would consist of a pasta / rice salad with fish / chicken and vegetables. Additionally we would have carpaccio / ceviche, which was wafer thin fillets of the most recently caught fish, either barracuda or jack, drizzled in soy sauce, olive oil and lime juice. The freshest sashimi you will ever get and not only did it taste delicious it appeals to the inner hunter gatherer instinct that we all have.
The evening meal was usually a carpaccio starter with the main meal usually the catch of the day strangely enough! Memorable dishes were salt baked red snapper in a Provencale sauce, floured and grilled red snapper fillets with Dauphinoise potatoes and cobia steaks with rice. On a couple of evenings there was also steak / chicken. Desserts were freshly made and the French influence in the camp was apparent, crème brulees being the house speciality; suffice to say, nobody was ever hungry.
The next day was to be spent on another mark that the skippers knew about, looking for big jacks and maybe some big snappers. We stopped halfway to catch some livebait when all of a sudden two large cobia started to circle the boat. My heart was in my mouth, I had never seen fish that big that close up, they were like submarines and you could have strapped two saddles across their backs, let alone one !!
A quick panic and a bit of flapping and I had a rod rigged up with a livebait on, I tentatively dropped it over the side and saw the two fish coming towards it, I wasn’t sure which fish had actually taken the bait, the larger or the smaller as I didn’t see anything for the next 30 minutes, I just felt an angry weight at the end of the line about 100m away. Eventually it broke the surface, the hookhold was good and I knew the knots were good – as somebody else had tied them! This meant I could put a little more pressure on and within 30 minutes the fish was on the boat and I was happy, but knackered! The estimated weight was 25 – 28kg so I called it 60 lb!
After the highlight of the cobia we hit the mark thinking the day couldn’t get better; I was more than happy with my catch so far although at the back of my mind I was thinking: “Would it be too greedy to want a Leerfish as well?” First cast with a medium Tsunami Popper and there were about a dozen fish following it to the boat, a quick recast and after a ten minute battle another box was ticked !!
The day just got better, popping for jacks resulted in the three of us on the boat all hooked up to angry fish of about 15kg, all of which had taken baits about ten metres from the boat. Two of the three were landed and we took lunch happy but even more knackered !!
Livebaits were put out while we had lunch and after a brief little knock from mine and I was in again, this time another big fish, estimated at 20kg and another different species in the shape of a longfin trevally.
After this another Cobia was spotted circling the boat and Norm soon had a bait on it and within seconds was locked in battle, his fish turned out to be even bigger than mine and estimated to be at least 36kg.
The next day was a rest day before we spent the evening on the beach opposite our island for a couple of hours popping off the beach. The jacks and barracuda were slamming into the baitfish and at one point there were about six of us hooked up. As the sun went down we put some deadbaits out and caught five guitarfish between the six of us, also several small catfish as well as more barracuda on deadbait as well as some decent-sized Spanish mackerel.
With two more days to go we headed out to one of the tarpon marks, on the way we came across a massive ‘chasse’ – an incredible sight with about 100 20kg plus jacks slamming into baitfish over a sandbar and anything cast there was immediately taken and in a frenetic 15 minutes we hooked six fish, lost five poppers and landed one !!!
All was quiet on the tarpon side of things as we couldn’t get hold of any livebait that day, however one of the boats from the other island was a little more successful and over three days had Tarpon of 98, 90 and 75kg.
It wasn’t a matter of sitting back watching though as to the left of the boat there were jacks smashing into bait everywhere. It was a matter of watching the water and casting to showing fish 75% of the time. However, by casting to the same areas a well-worked popper would soon entice a voracious jack and we boated 16 fish in three hours between us; I had ten and the other guys four and two – mainly due to their hooks straightening and split rings opening out!
I had never felt so physically drained whilst fishing and in those three hours there was probably only about 15 minutes when I wasn’t hooked into an angry jack.
Over lunch I challenged the skipper to a handline competition and after a few near misses and some burnt fingers I narrowly beat him with a decent sized red snapper!
We spent the late afternoon live and deadbaiting at another mark for snappers, jacks, otolithes and pompano. This was some of the best fishing we had once I had the method sorted out: basically swing out a livebait, tighten down the drag and wait for the first hit, usually a four to six foot ‘twitch’ as the predator, usually a snapper, drags the fish back to the rocks. Wait 10-15 seconds and then the screamer comes, you clamp down and hold on for dear life trying to keep the snappers away from their rocky homes!
The best fish for me that day was a snapper of about 8kg and a big pompano of about 20kg which I got to the boat after 20 minutes only for the trainee deckhand we had for the day to try and lift it out by the leader! Even the strongest hook is not going to stand up to that kind of abuse and it straightened; it was a good day though with just one more to go!
The last full day we tried all sorts in the morning: trolling and popping until my arms were ready to drop off but we only had a few fish, mainly barracudas, to Deep Thunders and CD-18s. I think the water was too clear and the tide too big so we decided to hit the reef again for the snapper so went on a livebait hunt.
This was harder than it seemed as every string we brought in was getting smashed by small jacks and Spanish mackerel but eventually we filled the bait well and trolled back to the mark, getting there for about 4 pm. Within ten minutes I had another pompano on a livebait, followed by my best snapper of the trip weighing some 10-12kg and a proper angry fish – when I return these are going to be high up on my list.
The last livebait was plucked out of the well and flicked out ten metres and the take on this one was awesome, none of the little six foot twitches, just a little knock as the livebait panicked then I was on the rod as 150 metres flew off the reel – and that with the drag set so tight that I couldn’t pull anything off the reel by hand and nothing could stop it. The skipper was yelling “Ray-manta, Ray-manta” and I was thinking ‘I’m sure they’re plankton feeders, must be an eagle ray or similar’. For about 40 minutes this fish beat me up big style, one way then another, giving me 10 yards then taking 20.
Finally the fish came to the boat and there it was, a 20kg manta ray, hooked fair and square in the top lip; I still don’t know how it happened, I can think of no other reason than they do actually take livebaits, we’ve all seen or heard of it with carp or bream so why not on a bigger scale? It goes without saying that this was one fish I insisted on returning.
After this I was done for, an incredible end to an incredible week, we had the morning casting off the beach but I spent half of it swimming and lazing in the surf as after seven days of fantastic fishing I was done for.
On the final day we were visited by the king of the archipelago, exactly as you would expect him to look, but we felt privileged to be meeting him. He had previously been using an old rod butt section as a walking stick but the owners of Acunda had found him what can only be described as a ‘Pimp-stick’! The look on his face was priceless as he considered the gift and then began to strut around the beach looking like he’d won the lottery!
It was a fitting end to an amazing experience.
Final species count
Cobia
Jack Crevalle
Horse-eyed Jack
Long Finned Trevally
Pompano
Guitarfish
Manta Ray
Red Snapper
Crying Red Snapper
Poisson Chat
Barracuda
Spanish Mackerel
Ramora
Monrovia Doctor Fish
Several different types of small livebaits, Yabuoys and Yampla
With thanks to all the people at www.atlantic-evasion.com
