Bazaruto light tackle & poppin'

Bazaruto light tackle & poppin‘

Post author:Shonalanga
Post published:December 3, 2022
Post category:2022 / Captains Log
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Bazaruto light tackle & poppin‘

We have had some pretty awful weather the last few days with rain, wind and some thunderstorm activity’s all-over southern Mozambique, but a few days ago we got a weather gap when the sea was flat and the rain gave us a gap and went out for a short but fast and awesome Bazaruto´s light tackle and popping…

Weather Gap

We had awoken at sunrise to the sound of thunder and heavy rain so met up for breakfast a couple hours later where we planned to meet up for lunch at Clube Naval and go out for a short afternoon session if the weather gave us a gap…

It started clearing just then so after a very quick fish & chips we were rolling out of the resort just after 2pm and headed out in absolutely flat calm seas and highly overcast skies.

As we got to the area, we wanted to fish. The absolutely flat calm seas allowed us to see a lot of bait fish activity on the surface and literally within the first casts the guys were on.

Fast start…

We had two guys on light 50-pound braid drop shot rods and two light spinning tackle outfits and on the first two drifts we caught a bunch of nice size quennies and unfortunately lost our most productive lure, the slow slim 40 grs jack eye jig, to a cuta.

Double up

I decided to put a live quennie on a cuta trace on the second drift and between quennies and small trevally all of a sudden Craig went VAS and the live bait rod also got taken and Andre got to it…double up.

Amazingly they were both sharks but good sport and not usual to get one on drop shot.

Craig and Andre on a double up on sharks in flat calm seas of the Bazaruto Archipelago. One on a live bait and the other on drop shot which is pretty rare…

Insane action…

Decided to do a drift on the northern side of the ledge and then all hell broke loose…

We were getting into cuta, rainbow runner´s, quennies, trevally´s, small GT´s and when Dylan GT ice cream got smashed and then reefed by a very respectable GT we tough it was time to bring the only Popping rod out.

In between action on the light tackle on the first drift we worked the popper missed a nice Geet and then hooked a nice Yellowpotted at the end of the drift.

Great fun was had on yet another one of Bazaruto´s light tackle & popping sessions.

Lourenço with a foul hooked by catch on the popper, Andre smiling, Craig working and Dylan showing off a nice Yellowspotted Kingfish on the popper!!!

Dylan hit gold!

The next drift started with two cuta breakoff´s and another raibow runner.

Then Craig hooked something substantial on his dropshot that took him to the rocks and goit jammed there. While trying to sort this out Dylan working the popper on the bow went VAS and this time hooked up solid.

Great fight and really nice fish of 98cm for his first ever GT!

We got smashed by a couple other fish that might have been bigger but on this particular short but sweet Bazaruto´s light tackle & popping session Dylan come out with the best fish, his first GT at 98 cm

Two hours had passed like lighting, absolute none stop action but with rai coming in from all sides and the bite slowing down with the high approaching and thus easing on the current we left to try and make it back to the resort before the rains…not before a short stop at the Gap which produced yet another GT…