Swift action last night after our Providence trip cancelled due to the cyclone got four of my guests out on an 11:55 PM flight on Emirates. Today Yellow Dog got two of my guests willing to spend some serious extra dollars down to Alphonse Atoll. And a couple more went home. Now there’s five of us left and we all fly to Dubai tomorrow night.
The storm has left this area and will be a dead strike on the southern atolls of the Seychelles (Providence included) by tomorrow this time. That’s about 450 miles away and believe it or not, it’s now beautiful here. Such bad luck! But rather than stew about it, I went fishing on the overfished flat right here in Mahe.
When I say overfished I’m not exaggerating. I watched two boats netting coral heads not far from where I was wading. Nonetheless it was good to get out. I’ve been stuck at the hotel waiting for calls, emails and texts all week and haven’t enjoyed a minute of being here. Its been one of my toughest weeks.
Best of all I caught a few fish. None were new species and none were big. But it’s a tug and entertaining at least. This picture is of a type of thornfish. They are incredibly pretty and he hammered my crab fly. The last place I caught them was Sudan a few years ago. One of the others was a type of cornetfish in the picture below. I catch cornetfish in Baja often.
Incredibly, I fished to a gigantic bonefish. I got three casts. My heart stopped on my third cast when he veered from his lane for a look at my fly. Unfortunately he was a wise one and he refused and took off for Africa at full throttle.
That’s all for now. Time to continue decompressing after this draining week. The five of us are heading out for dinner and beers. Stay tuned, I don’t fly to Dubai till tomorrow night so I suspect I’ll search for that big bonefish again.