Eygypt was my first ever serious forage into destination angling and looking back I don't know how I survived it.. I was in my thirties already overweight and hopelessly naive about this this type of thing. The ideas stemmed from daydreams I had as a child, like many of us, looking through the eagerly awaited free copy of Abu 's Tight Lines.. Released every year.
In the front of the magazine.. There was usually a short blog,if that word was even invented then, involving a party of derring do Swedish anglers armed to the teeth with Abu' s latest tackle on a quest to subdue some of the world's greatest fish. One such article was the trip to Lake Victoria and Murchison Falls,probably circa early 1970's. This stayed with me for over thirty years... such is the power fishing can have over one.
Fast forward thirty year's or so and several extra pounds in weight.
After many phone calls faxes etc I was booked on a trip with The African Angler, to Lake Nasser, the current mecca for Nile Perch. Nasser had been created in the seventies when the Nile was Dammed at Aswan, this created a massive lake stretching all the way down to the Sudan. The indigenous fish already in the Nile at that point thrived and grew in great size and numbers.
Sadly Lake Victoria, through poor management had become a thin shadow of its former self and was no longer a viable prospect for nile Perch.
The Amount of information on tackle and lures was limited and the outfitter was more concerned that his trip was oversold rather than helping with the specifics of things, like lure types colour's,, rods reels leaders etc. only saying bring this lure, that lure lots of line, tips for the guides.. Etc.
I was paired with a Welsh man who had fished Lake Nasser several times and I don't think he was too keen to have a greenhorn with him.
The whole ten days was like cutting new teeth,he had hardly any sense of humour and was miserable as sin..
The guide.. Muhammad.. Was even worse.. He seemed to resent the fact he would have to work! He was very rude at times, abrupt and moody.
He took us out the contracted eight hours a day.. No more.. No less...
Day 1
As we reached our first prospective spot I was so excited I could hardly tie my knots and as the lure disappeared behind the boat I expected it to be gobbled down before it had started to troll. Sadly I was to be disappointed.. Trolling all day at several spots for 8 eight hours gave is nothing.
Back to camp.. Camp being a house boat the staff lived on and where we ate. We slept in bunks on our own boats.. So there was no getting away from my partner at all.
Apparently I can snore for England.... What a shame..
Some of the other boats on the party had caught fish in the fifty to sixty pound mark but not in any numbers,so the fish were definitely there.
Day 2
Same as day 1 except for a couple of suicidal baby nile Perch unceremoniously dragged in on hopelessly over gunned tackle by my boat partner on a perch coloured Rapala Super Shad.
I may have been naive, unattractive and a soft touch for a bit of skirt, but I am not a stupid angler and noticed that other catches were made on the same lure type and particularly colour. A perch patterned rapala super shad.
I had a shad rap.. Two in fact.. One gold and one silver.. I had been using them all day.. Not a sniff.
My partner had the perch flavour and both fish fell to this lure.
I had experienced fish showing a preference for colour several times previously. When fly fishing it is not unusual for trout to want one particular colour on any given day.I reasoned that the nile perch, whilst obviously there, we're not ravenous and being a little picky,or more likely preoccupied on a certain type of prey fish.
Back to camp.. Sleeping in the desert under the stars is a beautiful way to spend a night and I can honestly say I enjoyed every night's sleep immensely.. I was beginning to love the desert..and although I had not caught anything yet I was working hard trying to figure out what the fish wanted.
Day 3
I figured out what what the fish wanted.. It was a shad rap in perch colour... NOTHING ELSE.
I tried blue, silver, firetiger, red head, yellow.. Nothing.. Other anglers lent me other colours to try.. No one would lend me a perch pattern.. There were now only four of these lures on the lake and were locked away in a safe at night with armed guards surrounding them.the owners of these lures unspeakably smug.. As they were beginning to catch fish and some good ones too.
My boat partner had three fish today to about 40 lbs.. I watched on with puppy dog eyes.
Day 4
Ssme scenario as day three, 4 fish for my partner.. None for me.. I was hoping he would let me use his lure for an hour or two to maybe break my blank but he didn't. You can learn to hate a person quickly.. Particularly if he's Welsh. Must be the desert sun.
The other boats all catching fish. The biggest today was 80 lb.
One highlight was during the day we pulled up to some rocks and were told to fish from the shore while our surly guide summoned Allah. .. I enjoyed this, catching juvenile nile Perch, tilapia and tiger fish on a mepps spinner.. It was great fun.. Felt rejuvenation. Went for a desert poo, tried to avoid getting stung by scorpions up bum.
Day 5
A small 3 lb nile Perch took my silver shad rap.. I skull dragged it in on 50 lb line and semi congradulated myself.
It was my only perch caught from the boat whilst trolling on the whole trip.
I insisted we shore fished a bit today.. Much to my partners disdain and I had a fun time with the smaller species.. Being broken off twice by large nile perch and losing a cracking tiger fish... The downside.. I only brought 3 mepps lures as an afterthought and was down to my last one.
Day six
Tried dead bait from the shore.. Horrible way to fish, but hooked a nile Perch of about thirty pounds which shredded my line on a rock and left me shaking my head on the shore wondering what I was doing wrong.
At lunch time today I amused myself by looking for snakes and scorpion s in the hope that I would get bitten, die and be relieved of the misery of watching everyone else catch..
I couldn't find a snake and lifted loads of rocks up and saw tons of scorpions but none of them attacked me, they just ran under the nearest vacant rock.
The locals were convinced I was mad.. Or stupid or both.
Last Day
NO fish.
Apart from the odd small fish or two ALL the notable nile perch had come out on the perch pattern shad rap. For me bad luck, others with the right lure had totally different trips and caught fish every day.... Now I know what your saying.. I was blaming my poor angling skills on not having the right lure. You may be right but would have been have to be there to see first hand.. That perch shad rap was dynamite.
The voyage back was uneventful and apart from the fact that when I returned to civilisation, my body irrevently reminded me that i had not seen a woman in almost two weeks.. I was amazed that my already low standards could drop even further.
An half decent pizza in the Aswan Moon restaurant preceded a quite run of the mill airport expierience. Glad to get home.i vowed never to return to Lake Nasser again...
By the end of the week I was looking at ways to get back to Lake Nasser again.. I know.. What can I say.. I am weak... So it was arranged to revisit the following November.
There are many advantages as I have said in my previous blogs about going back to a previous destination.. You have the benefits of expierience gained on your first trip plus the added ability to call the trip company out first hand if he says its always brilliant.
Armed with no less than six perch flavoured shad raps and a bucket full of ideas.. I set out for my local airport for a connecting flight to Heathrow.. Then Heathrow to Cairo then onto the Lake.
My thoughts were, as soon as the perch raps started to work I could sell the spare ones to my fellow anglers for one million dollars.. And make my fortune..
The flight was cancelled.
I missed the Heathrow connection.. And all transit to the lake.. And so it starts I thought to myself.. There followed two days of agony before I got to Cairo then Luxor by bus. African Angler could not meet me until the next day so I had a free day. I decided to do the Egypt stuff.Sphinx , Pyramids and Cleoptras special house for lonely men....
All the sights of Eygpt were a disappointment, except Cleopatra(real name Tracy) who although a bit on the old side, was fully functioning and still had some teeth.
The sphinx and Pyraminds are a mess and in a shocking state.. In fact although the pyramids look smooth from a distance, the blocks making up their construction are clearly visible close up.
Sat on one of these was a small Egyptian boy with a rock, smashing it on one of the building blocks trying to get to an Egyptian pound coin (20 uk pence) wedged in a crack..so much for heritage..
I then decided to take a camel ride round the pyramids.
I agreed a price.. Paid.. Mounted camel and was silently lead on a sandy path round the back of the pyramids.
Once round the back it was a different story. It was like bombed Beruit and littered with debris litter and shopping trollies etc.. I think it has been cleaned up now but in those days it was tragic.
He asked me to dismount for a photo of me, a pyramid and an asda trolley, then told me he needed £20.00 or he was going to be shot tonight. I tried to shrug this off.. But he then went on like a maniac.. Accusing me of ending his life because I would not give him the cash.. He then became very aggressive and said he would have to leave me behind the pyramid to make my own was back as his camel was sick.. Fearful of being attacked or robbed walking back I am sad to say I bargained with him and he got a tenner.. Which was all I had... And I was free.. From him at least.
Another similar experience happened in the taxi back home where I was taken to just about every rug shop, Egyptian tat shop and tailors in Cairo. I eventually got sick and threatened not to pay him if I didn't get straight back..
Day 1
Was met at Aswan by my guide Hani, who was a lot more positive than the previous one and as I was late there was just me and him to the boat so no partners, no smell of leeks, or the incessant humming of the theme music from Ivor the Engine.. Great. Bonus.
This meant we could fish two rods, one I put on the perch Shap rap the other on a rapala CD 22 in red head.. Twenty minutes into the troll the red head was taken and a 25 lb nile Perch landed.. What a great start.
Soon to be followed by several more of a similar size.. I was elated.. And this only the first day.
Day2
Lots of trolling and about five or six fish up to around thirty pounds on every type of lure except the perch shad rap.
Managed to get a nice one from the shore on a CD 18.
My guide could not have been more different than Muhammad.. He was really motivated and even had some sense of humour.
Day 3
Early start.. Bathe in the lake.. Egyptian bread for breakfast.. Sun on legs.. Even a few fish...
still nothing on the perch shad rap though.. Caught on rapala cds, Halco laser pros, depth raiders, manns stretch 30s reef diggers, I could go on.. Nothing over 50 lbs in weight though.
Great day.. Lovely weather plenty of fish.
Day 4
Fairly much of the same thing until around twelve when the left hand rod with a silver shad rap was taken... At first I thought it was a rock. But the rock shook its head and shot off at a rate of knots then jumped.
A massive nile Perch.. After half an hour playing the fish it was finally landed and weighed at 108 lbs.. By far the biggest fish of the trip and up to that point the biggest freshwater fish I had ever caught.
the fish was released and we headed back to the house boat catching a few small ones on the way.
Last day
Today I didn't really want to catch any more nile Perch but wanted to concentrate on getting a big tiger fish and have some fun with the small species.. This was a lot tougher than it was on my previous trip,but lady luck was with us and I managed two super tiger fish.
this finished the trip off so well I decided not to fish again and finish on a high note.. Home tomorrow and back to work.
I'm really glad I went back for the second trip, I caught as many fish as I wanted to catch, had a great time with a great guide and although my trip was shortened by the initial problems with the airline,i do not feel I missed out on anything.
As a footnote, Lake Nasser has now gone the way of Lake Victoria and is largely a poor prospect for large nile Perch. This is due to poor fishery management and subsistence fishing by the locals.
Funnily enough Lake Victoria has started to make a comeback due to better management and is now fishing well.. Hopefully Nasser will recover likewise.
No comments:
Post a Comment