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Feature Film: The Marlin of Santa Carolina

Feature Film: The Marlin of Santa Carolina – We just came across a gem of an old-time video from The Marlin of Santa Carolina, proper old school footage from the birth of what would become Africa´s and one of the World´s premier Black Marlin destinations…

Enjoy it, but first a small brief into this fishery and the small Island where it all started!!!

THE MARLIN OF SANTA CAROLINA

While the once exceptional fishery for giant Black Marlin off Cabo Blanco in Peru was at its peak, and Australia’s ‘grander’ black marlin grounds off Cairns were but a distant dream, a group of pioneering anglers were turning their attention to the offshore waters on the eastern coastline of the dark continent, specifically to a small group of islands off the Mozambique coast, just north of the tropic of Capricorn.

It was men like Alfredo Esteves de Sousa, Jorge Brum do Canto, Vitorino Martins and Joao Sacadura Botte from Mozambique; Albert van der Riet, Mike Youngleson and Ralph Hulett from South Africa; and Basil Hill, Doug Dryden and Jim Mortleman from Rhodesia, to name a few, who first plied these waters and ultimately discovered and established what has become Africa’s and one of the World´s Big-Game fishing mecca for Giant Black Marlin.

Alfredo Esteves de Sousa on a typical Black Marlin Season day in early November of 1973 in the old gantry at Santa Carolina Island.

The area’s game fishing history seriously started when local Portuguese entrepreneur Joaquim Alves built a hotel on Santa Carolina Island (better known as Paradise Island) in 1955. Fishing from the hotel’s small and basic fleet of single-screw wooden boats with rudimentary fighting chairs and tackle, pioneer big-game anglers from colonial Mozambique, Rhodesia and South Africa soon started catching very big marlin.

On 28 October 1960, after an epic eight-hour battle, Ralph Hullet boated a 454.5kg (1002lb) black marlin, Africa’s first ‘grander’. Over the following 15 years, leading up to Mozambique’s independence from Portugal in 1974, many other giants were caught. Sandy Sanderson reset the African record at 516.6kg (1139lb) in October 1970.

Ralph Hullet with the area’s first 1000 plus Black Marlin which was caught after an 8 hour battle on the 28th October 1960…

The Mozambican civil war that erupted soon after literally put these fertile waters out of bounds for two decades. But despite the lack of infrastructure, by the mid- to late 1990s the area lured a few adventurous anglers back. They soon discovered that the war years had left the resources virtually untouched. In November 1998, while fishing from his 25ft trailer boat, the late Johnny Harrel broke the African all-tackle black marlin record with a mammoth fish of 588.76kg (1298lb).

Johnny Harrel with his All African all tackle Black Marlin record of 1 298 lbs

Paradise Island is one of the most iconic places on the Bazaruto Archipelago. Born out of a coral mushroom, a visit to the Island with the ruins of its old colonial hotel, broken down chapel, exquisite snorkeling and amazing vistas, it is still today a must visit and where we normally go when we take our fishing guests on blowout day´s a beach barbecue…

Here’s the old vintage video of;

The Marlin of Santa Carolina

The old and the new – in recent years many Grander Black Marlin are caught and mostly released from the Bazaruto Archipelago. The fish above was tail wrapped and thus had to be boated by charter boat VAMIZI Captained by Duarte Rato in November 2010. The angler was Carl Jankowitz and the fish weighed 1098 pounds.

Duarte A. M. Rato

Fishbazaruto.com

Sportfishing Charters @ Vilankulos & Bazaruto Archipelago

MOZAMBIQUE

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