Game Fishing In Vilankulo, Mozambique: Day 1
Intro
My biggest passion in life is a passion that is one of the most expensive in the world: game fishing. The main reason for visiting Mozambique is that I had been in contact with a legendary fishing captain, Duarte Rato, and we had planned on heading out fishing for a couple of days out of Vilankulo.
During the off-season, Duarte operates a 38-foot sportfishing cat out of Vilankulo. However, during the heavy tackle black marlin season (Sep-Dec), Duarte is located at Anantara in Bazartuto running a 31-foot boot named "Vamizi."
As this was June, we would be out fishing onboard the beautiful 38-foot "drop your rods". I've gotta say, I have seen some fantastic fishing in my time, but Mozambique might be the best in the world.
The Experience
As with most game fishing experiences (minus Madeira and the GBR), the day tends to start quite early. Duarte picked me up at my accommodation, and we made our way over to the launch point for the morning (about 5 minutes away).
With tackle and rods loaded up, it was minutes before we were on our way out to the fishing grounds. From Vilankulo, the run out to the grounds is about an hour, depending on the day, and it's not an easy one. The sandbanks mean that it's a challenge to maneuver the boat unless you have been working the area a lot.
Needless to say, we arrived about an hour later at the start of the pinnacles, and we saw immediate life in the area. During the winter months, Duarte runs a spread of about 8 rods, looking for anything that's hungry. A couple of rapalas, a couple of lures, some ballyhoos, and more.
It wasn't longer than 15 minutes before we had our first strike: a Cuta (what they call it in Mozambique). My gosh: these fu*kers are a good fight on light tackle. Put the rods back out, and bang, a nice Yellowfin Tuna.
However, this was when things got interesting. Duarte spotted a pile of Jube Jubes, and we ran them over, catching a couple to put out as live bait. I've never had so much success fishing. You drop a live bait or two, and within a minute, you get a bite. We caught Jobfish. Cuta, Wahoo, and more on these live Jube Jubes.
When we ran out, we would deploy the lures for a couple of minutes until we caught more, and then rinse and repeat.
By lunchtime, we must have landed 8 or 9 gamefish, as the fish box was filling up quickly 😂. With fresh yellowfin tuna and a jobfish (I've never eaten it before), we opted to throw some on the grill and have some fresh sashimi.
I'm sorry, but what more could you want in life than fishing while eating the fish you just caught? I know what more I could want: Boom! 50-pound wahoo on the crappie mid-bite. I thought to myself, "Is it actually possible to get a break to rest my arms?".
After lunch, Duarte asked me if I wanted to keep using this same method or look more towards billfish. While I was having fun, I wanted a billfish, so we decided to put back out the lures.
It wasn't long before we raised our first sailfish, but my word, these fish were lazy. Really, if a sloth was a fish, that's what these sailfish were like. They refused to actually hit any of the lures, just wack them with their bill. We even tried pitching but remained sh*t out of luck. It's fishing: we laugh and cry at the same time.
Heck, the other day, I was fishing in Sri Lanka and went 2-17 on sails. Ridiculous.
We ended up raising another 6 sails through the afternoon and landing another decent-sized wahoo. Unfortunately, we lost another one to the Taxman after a bull shark came up and ate the whole fish.
By 3 pm, we decided that was enough for the day and packed in our rods to head home. We had tried our luck a little further north of the pinnacles to the end of the day and even saw a couple of nice marks, meaning it was a slightly shorter run back to VNX.
Cold beers were shared on the ride home, and a couple of laughs. Mac Mahon is the fuel for fishing 😉. 0-7 on sailfish: 100%. 7-7 on beers: 100%.
Final Thoughts
My number one rule in life is to treat others with respect. However, there are few people I respect as much as Duarte. If you love game fishing, I cannot recommend fishing with Duarte enough. An unbelievable fisherman and a great guy. This first day was a perfect way to start the first of seven days of fishing in Mozambique. From Wahoo to Jobfish, to Yellowfin, to Jube Jube, to a sailfish pack attack, it was just perfect. Heck, we even finished off the day watching the Portugal game.
Stay tuned for day 2, as we might have even caught a billfish.
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