THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

against the concrete above us and had to start palming the boat along, which with the tide rising, was
getting increasingly difficult.
Had we not pushed it free, I dread to think what might have happened. We would have been wedged
there with the water coming up, and way too much current to try to swim for it, besides which I can't
swim anyway.
By that stage in the proceedings, Gambia had started making quite a reputation for itself as a big tarpon
venue, so we bought half a dozen live mullet from one of the local gill netters on a nearby beach to give
that a try.
We could see tarpon topping and tailing inshore, but they weren't having any of it. So it was back off
to the usual marks bottom fishing with slices of bonga and peeled prawns, where we caught a mix of
pompano, kasava and kajele, which were now being called captain fish.
These were the prize fish to be catching. Excellent scrappers, and still reasonably plentiful. But you
could sense by the numbers, mix, and size of what was coming up that the writing was on the wall.
They still get some good fish from the boats, and I hear that there are still good numbers of big guitar
fish to be had from the beaches. But if I'm honest, I think we saw the best of it, as we have at quite a
number of the more exotic venues we've fished over the years.
GERMANY
You could be forgiven for thinking that Germany isn't exactly an automatic stand-out place as an angling
destination, and certainly not for sea angling. But you would be wrong. For along with the other
countries looking out onto the Baltic Sea, it offers opportunities you will find nowhere else in the world,
as I discovered in 2010.
Through Warrior Boats, I was put in touch with Dr.
Sven Hille who is a research scientist at the Leibniz
Institute for Baltic Sea Research at Rostock in
northern Germany. Sven had bought himself a Warrior
165 which he had specially kitted out for deep water
trolling, and was at that time taking it around some of
the big angling shows in Germany to promote trolling
techniques.
Knowing that I had produced a number of
demonstration video's for Warrior, he contacted me,
firstly to see if he could use the Warrior 165 video at
the shows, and secondly, to see if it would be possible
to do a re-edit with all the captions translated into
German, both of which we did.
Then, many emails later, Sven suggested I might like
to take a flight over there to see the trolling project in
action, which sounded like a very good idea indeed.
Sven Hille, Baltic Salmon brace
To get a better picture of what the fishing scene is like
along Germany's Baltic coast, there are a number of
things you need to know about the place.
439