THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

inside edge of the reef. As the storm hadn't yet arrived,
conditions there were not too bad, particularly with the reef
breaking up any incoming wave patterns.
On our first venture we out set off in day light, but ended up
fishing well on into the dark in this battered old boat with
an eight hp outboard motor that was literally nailed in place
on the transom to be used in conjunction with a battered old
patched up sail.
At one point it started raining, putting it down like you've
never seen it back home. So we spent an hour or so huddled
under a plastic sheet waiting for it to pass. Then when it got
dark, we felt completely lost. No lights on the shore nor any
other signs of land for comfort.
Thankfully, the fisherman seemed to know where he was,
and as a result we fished two or three times from his battered
little boat, catching a whole raft of weird and wonderful
things, and regularly getting bitten off too, probably by
barracuda, while retrieving some small reef fish or other.
Actually, it was quite enjoyable. But having spent so much
Fishing the inner reef
money and travelled so far, not exactly what we had
originally planned on doing. And all the while, cyclone
Bella as it was now officially called, was creeping ever closer, to the point that even the inside of the
reef was no longer safe to venture out on.
Then suddenly, almost within battering range of us, it inexplicably veered off along a slightly different
path, ripping eighty percent of the vegetation off the adjacent island of Rodrigues just to the east of us.
We still got some 'weather' from it, but missed out on the worst of it, which when things started to settle
down a bit, left us with a couple of days at the very end which were just about fishable in terms of swell,
but which unfortunately produced very little.
One of the abiding memories I have of the place is the water colour and clarity. It was everything you'd
expect from a tropical paradise, and on one particular occasion, we found ourselves surrounded by small
tuna at the surface in every direction for as far as the eye could see.
What an amazing sight, and needless to say we were quickly into action knocking out small yellow fins
and skipjacks as fast as you could get a lure in front of them.
Some of these were again used as live-baits. But as interesting as this was in that moment, it was still a
far cry from the main objective of the trip, both for us and for everyone else concerned.
So un-impressive was the fishing that I can't honestly remember if our marlin competition even ended
up with a winner. I don't recall seeing any more marlin brought in, though I did hear of a small spearfish,
and Pete Sharples on our boat managed to sneak out a bonus sailfish right at the death.
So disappointment all round, and a hard hitting lesson that even if things had turned out better in terms
of the weather, I still don't rate dragging lumps of plastic around the ocean for hours on end, then if
you're lucky, being handed a rod with a fish on the line that the crew have hooked up for you as being
in the true spirit of fishing anyway.
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