Spear fishing Cape Verde Islands, Sal

[cubanoperdido]

thenks boys, i'm on it!! been runnin round the site too, startin to look more familiar... happy huntin...
z-ya

[Old Man Dave]

Welcome then and waiting to hear about your experience and catches. What's Cost Rica like for spearing or are you a world traveller (Cape Verde)?

Dave

[cubanoperdido]

ai-eee patrao,

dave, thanks for the info. yeah, i'm a nomad, bouncin round the planet for some ten years...been all over....when i was in cape green, i was on a sailboat that parted from canary islands, did cape green for a month or so, crossed the atlantic, hit all the islands till got to venezuela..margarita & los roques, got off the boat and headed to costa rica. i've been in guanacaste, north pacific of costa rica, good fishin....small schools of tuna, some jacks (my favorite....i eat em but its not my favorite dish, but yes my favorite catch), stingrays all over the place, which is real good eatin, tons of meat, and not so easy to land.. i keep away from reef fish, at least i try, unless i see a beast or i'm real hungry and havent eaten in days.. been to dominican republic, puerto rico, brazil, thailand....a few other places... what you got round your way??
z-ya

[pauldeclercq]

To Cubanoperdido,
Thanks for the useful info. I am really looking forward to diving in Cape Verde, I have read a lot about wrecks and have found maps with the reefs around and between the islands. I hop to get some good pics, although I usually to busy and always forget to take pics.

Cheers,
P

Next Trip ??? CUBA

[pauldeclercq]

Cape Verde.....

Before going to Cape Verde i did a little planning. I needed info, so I searched the net for someone who had been there.
finally I found Paul Maxwell on spearfishing.co.za and emailed him, he very kindly sent some mouth watering pics and told me to contact Armando, who lives in Portugal. Armando sent me some more fantastic pics and told me co get hold of Bafa when I get there.
So off to cape verde with a charter flight and 20kg's of spearing gear.
(Always stock up on some spare stuff for local spearo's. a 70 euro pair of fins can get you on a boat.)
I got to Ilha do Sal, and took a taxi to the hotel.
I went to get a local phone card and called Bafa, He lived next door top my hotel and after meeting him and his family, I was invited to a baptism of his nice the next day. Crazy party lasting 12 hours, i met every fisherman in Sta Maria. the next day was a write off.
After this I spent the next four days diving in the open blue water for 8 to 9 hours a day, Magic.
Bafa's father was the boat captain and we went out to the Bo-ras reef 45mins south east of Sta Maria, depth 40-50m.
Bafa has one occupation, he shoots Wahoo and any other fish that come to his flasher. I had before this only been blue water hunting twice north zanzibar and had never seen wahoo. Time to learn.
I spent the first day getting frustrated with my new multiband gun + drop head after loosing 5 big Wahoo. Too difficult to aim with precision and the drop head's cable sliced out of the soft wahoo each time the fish was on.
I soon realised my error, I had always used RA guns and had never considered that other guns are just far less accurate.
So the next day I left my teak gun in the boat and asked Befe for his spare RA 150, the same gun I had in SA.
From this moment on no fish escaped with exception to those that where further than I thought and out of range despite their apparent huge size.
We each dove about 100m apart with flashers and chum, with Bafa's Dad regularly picking us up and dropping us up current. He would also spend his day putting wahoo in the boat and catching flying to chum with.
I really wanted to dive down the reef below and did some dives down to 30m, but being alone I decided not too push it too far. diving down above the reef revealed large schools(100+) of jacks 4-5kg and some very nice looking big AJ with them, but these will be for a next time.
I did not take too many pics, putting the gun down was difficult.

YouTube - wahoo, spearfishing cape verde

enjoy.

[pauldeclercq]

Important tips for Cape verde.
Take A visa card, not a Master card.
Take enough cash in euro's, the banks are a rip off
Exchange money with the local internet shop, best
Change your accomodation for the best you can find when you are there

[Old Man Dave]

Looks like a great trip. Excellent pictures. What depth did you spear the fish at and what did that big one in the photo weigh?

Dave

[pauldeclercq]

The one's in the photo's were the 2 smallest of the day, I did not weigh them, but i guess them to be around 20-25kg. The biggest that day was 44kg.
I had unplanned spinal surgery 2.5 weeks before going, so I was not allowed to pick up stuff. Still my back held out fine.
Got to be a doc not to listen to a doc.

[MaxKuper]

2 FoxFish - thanx for redirecting to this page!!!

2 pauldeclercq, Hi Paul, looks like you really enjoyed your trip! Would you mind giving me the contact details of BAfa or his dad. We are planning to come over to Cape Verde for one week and we think it would really useful for us to know someone local who for reasonable money will help us with the boat and show us good spearfishing spots.

I found a very old thread Spearfishing in Cape Verde???? Help! and there was the guy Seal. He mentioned that he moves to Cape Verde and is going to run a boat there. Has anyone heard of him anything. Maybe he will also be able to assist us in arranging our spearfishing week in this beautiful place.
Thanx to all in advance!

[foxfish]

Max you might find something to interest you here - DeeperBlue Forums - Search Results