One of the things we did today, in Maputo, Mozambique, was buy shoes for the “gillie,” whom I have not met yet, as we have to fly to Bazaruto tomorrow.  

We also went through our tackle a bit, and I was glad I had brought two of my heavy rods from Cairns. We will use one of Luis’ 130 rods as an 80 backup. We are pretty well set up now with everything from bait-catching gear to AFTCO wiring gloves and their GBR harness, both of which I helped design and recommend highly.

It was a long trip: Orlando to Washington D.C. to Dakar, Senegal, to Johannesburg, South Africa, to Maputo, Mozambique. I left early one day and got here late the next day. Even after a good sleep on the plane, I crashed after a most welcome shower. The only real hassle came when I was misdirected to the wrong terminal while trying to pick up my boarding pass for Air Mozambique. For a while I thought I was going to miss my flight!

The more I find out about the fishing off Mozambique, the more it sounds like the Great Barrier Reef off Cairns. They even have a big run of tiny juvenile black marlin inside the maze of coral reef, which we fish outside of for the giant black marlin for which the GBR is famous. I only found out about that recently, and I am excited about getting started. There have been some nice fish caught up there in the last few days, including some full-grown ones they called 800- and 900-pound class, released; there was even one I said from photos could well be a grander!

Good fishing,

Peter B.