The Tarpon Of Gabon

Through South African sportfishing consultants Charles Norman Safaris, found via the internet, I managed to visit an angling paradise, Iguela Camp, south of the Gabonese capital Libreville on the west coast of Africa. It is situated on the bank of a massive estuary with the river mouth a few kilometres away.

Through Charles I met up with Rob Bowker, another ex-pat from the Eastern Cape in South Africa. He and his wife Nikki had been wanting to visit Gabon for a while, so this was the ideal opportunity. Flights from Europe are ridiculously priced compared to those from Johannesburg and the distance travelled virtually the same, but what the hell, we wanted to go fishing.

After being delayed at Gatwick overnight on Saturday, I arrived in Libreville on the Sunday night and was met by Charles Norman’s local contact from the travel agency Mistral Voyages. Rob and Nikki had been in Libreville since the previous day after arriving from Prague via Paris, and I met up with them at the Novohotel for dinner. (Buy water and under no circumstances drink the tap water.)

Early the next morning we took a charter flight with Avirex to Omboue via the oil port, Port Gentil, home of a large Shell operation. Owner of Iguela, Jean-Pierre Sage (French ex-pat) met us at Omboue airport. The airport notably has a very strong French military presence. Jean-Pierre took us in his 4×4 to the camp, a drive through the jungle which takes about one hour.

The camp is at present being renovated and was pretty run down, but if you are there only to fish and can do without the luxuries of hot water, it’s more than adequate. Power is supplied by generator and all huts have electricity, a cold water shower, basics and flush toilet. They sell water and soft drinks, as well as beer, wine and spirits at the camp (at European prices…), but you have to buy the water as drinking tap water in Gabon will most definitely cut short your holiday.

The camp staff besides Jean-Pierre and his Dutch business partner Robert, speak no English, which is a problem for us from Southern Africa, but you guys from Europe all seem to be able to at least get by with key French phrases so you’ll be fine. The entire Gabonese population, no matter what tribe, speaks fluent French.

The camp serves three meals per day in typical French style. (Francious was a chef in one of the restaurants that Jean-Pierre used to own so you’ll eat well, as long as you like fish dishes).

Okay, now for the important part – the fishing

Included in the package is the use of a river boat with a local guide. I say guide but he’s really a boat operator who’ll take you wherever, whenever, but it’s not the place to go if you want to be spoon fed, as these guys know nothing about fishing and provide no assistance in selecting fishing spots and landing catches.

Your main species are kingfish (trevally), threadfin (or capataine as the call it there), barracuda, cubera (red) snapper, cob similar to those of South Africa, garrick and most importantly, tarpon.

In the Eastern Cape we are accustomed to casting lures off the beach into the surf, especially Rapala, at river mouths for large cob. This type of fishing is tough but produces very good results at Iguela, with cobs, kingfish, threadfin, barracuda and tarpon caught this way by Rob and myself.

The estuary mouth had a deep channel about 8 meters wide running within casting distance from the beach. We would cast the lure over the channel, then retrieve as fast as we can against the surging current back through the width of the channel, with excellent results. If you cross to the opposite bank and walk along the beach, you’d meet some rocky ledges were I landed a cubera snapper on a plug of the chisel type. I dropped two and Rob got reefed by a big one as well. Surface lures produce good results for all species, except cob, which feed at the bottom thus Rapala the lure of choice. In our case, Rapala produced the best results overall for all targeted species.

To get the big tarpon you have to fish before first light and at sunset into darkness. This is a problem as you’re in a reserve and they are touchy about fishing at night. Also the fact that wild animals such as elephants and leopards often leave tracks on the sand at night makes convincing your guide to stay after dark a problem. A few French Franks normally helps with the latter.

We got smashed many times by big fish and I lost a 70kg-plus tarpon after 90 minutes on the hook at the mouth of the estuary. After hooking it before first light in the mouth it swam out to sea at first, before returning to recover strength in the strong channel current, before stripping 200 metres in one run up river to cut me on some underwater branches around the first corner of the estuary.

I did however land one slightly smaller and Rob landed a fish of 60kg – the fish of the week! We met up with three others who were already at the camp – light tackle specialists and owners of Tackleshack in JHB – Craig & Colin. Craig landed a tarpon on 19lb line, the same night that I landed my fish. Olaf, another Eastern Cape ex-pat now resident in Malawi, landed one similar in size to Rob’s tarpon on the same morning.

All tarpon were hooked and caught at the river mouth off the beach. You get them throughout the estuary, but the mouth seems to be most productive (maybe we just fished it extensively on our trip). A lot of people fish with a live mullet from a boat anchored in the mouth, but we preferred the more sporting option with lures from the side, also making the release of most fish easier and no gaff is needed to land fish. Unless badly hooked, we released all fish.

Some barracuda and snappers were caught trolling shad raps behind the boat on the way back from the mouth to camp for lunch or dinner. I landed a cubera of 12kg this way and Olaf a barracuda of 17kg. You’ll catch plenty fish trolling the estuary, but there is so much water you’ll never know where to fish and it’s just not the same as fighting a big fish off the beach.

It was a fantastic trip and I’ll definitely be back at the end of next year.