INHASSORO, Mozambique--Thirty kilometers off Mozambique's mainland is Bazaruto Island. I could see it plainly from the mainland. The island has sandy hills that reach above the sea's horizon and there is the green of the island's thorn veldt. The island is a place of fable among blue-water anglers.
On our third day at Inhassoro, after a full morning of fishing, which was our best of three days, we cruised to the island to have lunch with our old friend, Edwardo, who is now manager of the Bazaruto Island Resort. The day before I had been sitting on the Seta Hotel patio working on my laptop and writing a story about the fishing along this part of the Mozambique coast, when Edwardo saw me (possibly more familiar with the figure of me sitting on a patio and writing than my face).
It is a warm feeling to be sitting alone on the patio of a strange hotel and hear your name and suddenly see someone who is one of your overseas friends. We shook hands warmly and smiled a lot and told each other truthfully how glad we were to see each other again. Then I told Edwardo our South African friends--Rocco Gioia, Lucky Mahoney, and Mike Hughes, and my hunting partner Carolee Boyles-Sprenkel--were also in Mozambique.
"Unfortunately," I said, "Carolee and Rocco are in Vilanculos buying provisions, but Lucky and Mike are in the chalet."
"Let's get them and drink some beer," Edwardo said.
A few minutes later we were in the hotel's bar toasting each other with cold Castle beer and telling each other what we had been doing in the year since we had fished off Inhaca Island when we had first met Edwardo.
Since then Edwardo has become the manager of hotels on Bazaruto and Inhaca islands for the Portuguese resort group Salvar. Before he left the bar he invited us to visit Bazaruto for a look around and to have lunch with him.
I was glad we accepted his invitation because the island is, as he promised it would be, wonderful. There are 16 chalets in the lodge's complex. The dining room and bar are part of the main complex and it's open-walled atmosphere is an inviting place to relax after a day's fishing or diving.
On one wall are a half-dozen old black-and-white pictures someone found in the original hotel that is now abandoned. The pictures are out of the island's glorious past. They are grainy prints of anglers posing with their catch; the weight of the fish and day it was caught are painted on the fish. The dates on the fish are all from the late sixties when the island was just starting to attract international attention as a sportfishing paradise. When civil war exploded in the countryside, the fishermen abandoned the region and the sportfishing industry died. Edwardo and his bosses in Portugal are bringing the sport fishing back.
It is amazing anyone fishing near Bazaruto caught giant black marlin 30 years ago. The boats were slow wallowing craft ill suited to the sometimes treacherous seas that surround the island, nor were they designed for the demands of big-game fishing.
Edwardo and his bosses have solved the boat problem and today anglers fish from modern, sea-worthy boats that are designed for rough waters and big-game fishing.
Not long ago every fish caught around the island was killed, taken into port, hung up, and photographed. There are still lots of marlin and sailfish in the area, but it is not an unlimited resource and must be protected. After only a few years the fishing around Inhaca Island is strained with uncontrolled fishing pressure.
Edwardo and his staff don't want to see that problem around Bazaruto and the resort's policy is that fish caught on the lodge's boats are tagged, photographed in the water alongside the boat, and released. The majority of these tagged fish will recover and continue to inhabit the waters, giving more sportsmen an opportunity to catch a black marlin.
The Seta Hotel
To make it easier for us to explore the region, our group stayed on the mainland at the Seta Hotel near Inhassoro. The hotel is a combination of new and old. The dining room and bar are both new, as are several of the chalets, but the kitchen dates back to the pre-war era. According to Maria Sousa, manager of the hotel, during the civil war several pitched battles were fought in the area and most of the hotel was reduced to rubble during the fighting.
The Seta Hotel reflects the laid back Caribbean-like attitude of the region. There are no windows or doors in the dining room which allows the sea breeze to swirl through the room and carry away insects and keep the guests cool. The chalets have doors and windows for privacy and security.
We visited the area to investigate the fishing and the accommodations. We found what we wanted to know on both counts. The marlin and sailfish fishing, and the opportunities for saltwater fly fishing, are extraordinary.
The big-game fish are caught throughout the year, and most of them are taken on the seaward side of the island although a number are caught while trolling between the island and mainland. The fly fishing is also year around and several different species are taken on fly gear.
There is a healthy bonefish population in the region, with fish over 20 pounds being fairly common, but so far the bonefish have eluded the fly fishermen by refusing every fly they've been offered to date; which has kept the area from developing into a major bonefish angling destination. A lot of people want to see the area's bonefishing developed but until someone figures out how to catch the local bonefish on anything but bait that fishery will remain a frustration.
I admit that I had high hopes of being one of the first Americans to successfully catch a Mozambique bonefish on a fly. I brought over two Loomis fly rods, one a nine weight and the other a 12 weight, and equipped both rods with Quantum fly reels and loaded the reels with 3M's saltwater fly lines.
Unfortunately high winds and rough seas kept me from doing much fly fishing. When the sea turned flat on the afternoon of the second day of fishing, I stood on the bow of Lucky and Rocco's boat, the LR-TWO, and cast streamers into Bonita boils, and at the Seta Hotel's beach I cast streamers into the surf. Unfortunately I managed to lose the hook-ups I got on the streamers but it did prove Mozambique saltwater fish will take flies.
While high winds kept my fly fishing to a minimum, they didn't slow our trolling and we gave the Shimano TLD 20s and 30s on our trolling rods a serious workout. The morning of the third day was incredible as we trolled the reef off BeBe Point where the Save (pronounced Sah-Ve) River flows into sea.
Every 10 minutes one of the reels screamed with another hook-up, and by the time we headed for the island to have lunch with Edwardo our supply of Rapala magnum lures and Bill Lewis Salt Water Rattle Traps had been either lost by break-offs or chewed to pieces by the needle-sharp teeth of the barracuda we were catching.
Changes
This was my fourth trip to Mozambique in as many years. The first time I came through we followed the sand road and stayed in the tracks of the vehicles in front of us to avoid land mines. (As we drove up the coast road on this trip we heard a land mine explode in one of the villages as we drove through. There was nothing to be done so we kept going as none of us wanted to be a volunteer land-mine detector.)
The second year we drove the pot-holed and nearly impassable semi-paved road between Koomtipoort, South Africa, and Maputo. The trip from the border to Maputo was nearly four hours of kidney pounding and bladder busting misery.
On this trip the entire road to Maputo is repaired, and the trip was just over an hour. Instead of small groups of disenchanted AK-armed former soldiers looking for someone to ambush, there are women selling fruit.
Every province still has its own checkpoint, and because we were towing a big boat we were stopped at each one and had to produce papers for the boat and tell the local official where we were going and why. In the past, the Napoleon wanna-be officials wanted cash bribes before we could continue. On this trip they were happy with a sandwich and cold soft drink, and they seemed more interested in the paperwork and boat than taking something from us.
Mozambique is obviously returning to the modern world. The infrastructure that was destroyed in the war is being slowly rebuilt and both the government and the people are sorting themselves out and learning how to deal with tourists and tourism. There is a real effort to recover some of the former glory that was Mozambique when it was the "Riviera of Africa."
Back at the Ranch
While I was chasing fish in the waters around Bazaruto, several hunters I had booked were at the ranch. Dr. Lynn Greenlee, and Ken Moberg had been hunting in South Africa's Cape region and after finishing up their hunts had flown to Hoedspruit to spend a week hunting at Casketts Ranch. Ken wanted to hunt bush buck and Doc was after leopard.
Both men were successful, and at one point professional hunter Adrian Anderson had five different leopards feeding on baits around the ranch, proving that Casketts Ranch may be one of the best leopard hunting areas in South Africa.
As soon as this report is written I'll be packing the laptop and putting away the notebooks to return to the States. I've been roaming around Africa for more than a month and no matter how exciting the fishing or hunting becomes I am still an American and find myself thinking of the States and going home. In a few days I'll be there, planning another trip.
Best,
Galen L. Geer
Readers who would like information on hunting Casketts Ranch or fishing in Mozambique can contact the author or his booking agency, B&B Adventures, via E-Mail at 73737.2466@compuserve.com.
Copyright (c) 1996 Galen Geer. All rights reserved.
Home | Library | Fishing | Saltwater Fishing