Cape Verde - 380 Miles West of Senegal, West Africa

My partner video producer Bob Unvert and fellow angler John Paul from southern California joined me on an exploration of the waters off Cape Verde. We had the distinct pleasure of being among the few able to charter Jean-Paul Richard's French Look II mothership and its 40-foot G & S gameboat. Only just recently has Miseur Richard allowed his boat to be chartered. Lance Glaser with Goldon Fishing Expeditions has garnered the booking rights with Captain Skip Smith being in charge. French Look II is a 165-foot converted supply vessel which is luxuriously appointed and manned by a crew of 6 under the direction of Captain Kevin Woods. The talented crew includes a genuine French chef Roger who prepares three and four course meals that rival anything one might get in the best gourmet restaurants worldwide! So much for losing some weight on the trip.

The gameboat, French Look III, was built in Destin, Florida and was specially designed with a reverse chine at the stern such that it can actually get up on a plane in reverse. Jean-Paul was interested in light tackle world records which required backing aggressively on fish thus explaining the unique design. The talented and seasoned Jody Whitworth from south Florida was the boat's skipper and he was ably assisted by fellow Floridian first mate/wireman Jason "Tiny" Walcott with Costa Rican Mario Loria acting as second mate. Getting to fish with such an experienced team added an extra touch to an already incredible adventure. And even that was soon to be topped when we learned that Stewart Campbell along with his wife Nicki and crew of Barkey, C.P., and Hamish would be sharing the French Look II with us. Stewart was using the boat as a mothership for his boat Chunda, a 48-foot custom-built Merritt express and had already been fishing the islands for nearly three weeks.

Getting to Cabo Verde was surprisingly easy. South African Airways has a direct flight from JFK airport in New York to Sal, Cape Verde every Tuesday morning. It is only a 6 1/2 hour flight and was quite comfortable. We arrived on the island of Sal in the early evening just after dusk. That proved to be a blessing as Sal is one of the two flat islands of the archipelago and is extremely barren with its landscape looking like a cross between the moon and the Sahara desert. After overnighting in a small hotel at the somewhat more appealing south end of the island we caught a commuter flight with Cabo Verde Airways early the next morning to Sao Vicente where the French Look was at anchor in Mindelo harbor.

We arrived in Sao Vicente at 11:00 a.m. and as we got off of the aircraft we were greeted by a northeasterly wind blowing nearly forty knots. We actually were forced to walk at a 45 degree angle to make any headway as we ambulated from the tarmac to the terminal. After collecting our baggage Captain Jody greeted us and took us to the dock where we grabbed the tender and went out to the mothership. We dropped off our gear in the staterooms, enjoyed a lovely lunch, and went out fishing, leaving about 2:00 p.m. The wind was howling even in the harbor so we expected to be fishing in 15-20-foot seas. Much to our surprise we fished the south or lee side of the island after a 40-minute rough water run and the sea was almost as flat as Madeira. Fortunately this was the region where both the French Look and Hooker had enjoyed their best fishing.

Shortly after deploying our spread of Black Bart and Pakula lures we had a short strike but the fish did not catch steel. While I was still reeling in the lure to check the hook-set the second half of that double-header ate the long rigger bait. I set the hook and took a seat in the chair. After a tough 15-minute fight the fish pulled hook. We had him to the wire but the transom-door flew open preventing Tiny from reaching the leader and the 250-pounder took off. It wasn't long though before we had our second double-header. This time J.P. took the chair and I had the pleasure of fighting the second fish stand-up style with an 80-pound bent-butt chair outfit. We tagged and released my fish in about 15 minutes and J.P. followed suit with his shortly thereafter. Both marlin were in the 250-pound class. What a great start for the trip with 4 shots in only three hours of fishing!

French Look II & III	Sao Vicente Lighthouse

Terry Hooked-Up	450-pounder Boat-side

Day two dawned with much less of a breeze and considerably calmer water. We had a short strike early that was probably a spearfish that avoided the hook. There was no more billfish action for the rest of the day but I did catch a 40-pound wahoo that made great fish-salad sandwiches the next day. The Chunda had much better luck than did we, releasing 3 fish between 200 and 400 pounds.

The next morning the wind was once again blowing hard in the anchorage and the seas built throughout the day. We had a good start though with our first hook-up at 10:30 a.m. This proved to be a 250-pounder that I tagged and released in 4 minutes with the 130-pound bent-butt chair outfit. We had pulled out the heavier tackle that morning so that we would be better equipped for larger fish. We hooked up a second time just an hour later and J.P. wrestled that similar sized marlin to the boat in about 8 minutes. It went ballistic on the wire though, crashing into the starboard freeboard, then diving under the boat, cutting itself free on the rudder. We therefore were unable to get a tag into it. In less than an hour I was hooked-up again, this time with a larger fish in the 450-pound range. She had eaten my large blue, black, and purple softhead Marlin Magic "Henry" that I had just put out on the short corner. The marlin put up an excellent fight for about 15 minutes but abruptly pulled hook right below the boat. We had another zip without a hook-up several hours later. Then as the day was coming to an end we had two fish tease us into a frenzy and then leave us frustrated as try as they might, neither managed to find a hook. The smaller of the two grabbed the left rigger bait but quickly dropped it. He then swam over and took the lure on the right rigger but dropped it as well. He came back to the left and then to the right and then dropped back only to treat the stinger bait in the same fashion. The larger fish then joined in the fun and played ping-pong with the two short baits. These two fish took at least two shots at each of the lures and never hooked-up. They also had the audacity to totally ignore the two drop-back natural baits that we added to the mix when we couldn't hook them with the plastic. They followed our spread for at least ten to fifteen minutes before finally just sinking out, leaving us cockpit dwellers dumbfounded!

We started an hour later on our fourth day due to some video we needed to shoot and therefore didn't get out to the drop-off until about 10:30 a.m. We had a few early knock-downs but there were no bill marks present on the lures. We presumed these were wahoo since we were fairly close to the ledge. Then about 1:00 p.m. we got a solid hook-up on the Black Bart Prowler with a nice fish that pulled us well into the dacron backing on the first run. Despite backing down very hard we were still losing line rapidly. So Jody turned and ran on the marlin early to minimize the amount of line in the water. I was in the chair and kept the drag light because of the frequent pulled hooks we had experienced. We ran on her twice and then settled into a "down and dirty" fight. Jody changed angles on her a number of times to try to get her to come up and to make her swim up current to tire her more quickly. Eventually after a fun-filled 37-minute battle we had her to the wire. Unfortunately she was exhausted and we were unable to resuscitate her. After quite a struggle we finally got her into the boat. This fish was very fat with the largest head and shoulders of any marlin I had caught including the 944-pound blue I had taken in Bom Bom. She had a 73-inch girth at the pectoral fin and carried her weight well back to the anal fin and had a 19-inch circumference at the tail stump with a 5-foot tail span. She was short though with a lower jaw to fork of tail measurement of only 10 feet 7 inches. When we got her back to the mothership she tipped the scales at 801 pounds.   

801# Blue Marlin	This is a big fish!

The next morning we elected to change our fishing technique to bait-and-switch so that we might get better underwater footage of the strike. Our first fish followed the hookless teaser all the way to the boat before striking the pitch bait. The 300-pounder dropped the bait though after a short run. We were able to tease him back to the boat several times but he would not take the hooked bait again and simply sank out of site after about five minutes. It wasn't long before we had another marlin all over the short teaser. This smaller fish took no interest in the pitch bait and disappeared when we pulled the teaser out of the water. We raised our third fish shortly thereafter. Like the previous marlin this male was about 200 pounds but unlike the first fish he grabbed the pitch bait as soon as it hit the water and ran off jumping only to dislodge the hook after the third jump. He had forced us to lock up early by going skyward as soon as he picked up the bait thus explaining the early disconnection. We had raised three fish in less than 90 minutes and by 11:30 in the morning. It looked like it was to be a great day! After lunch though the wind switched directions so that there was no lee and picked up drastically. By 3:00 p.m. we were experiencing a gale force blow and all five boats on the water were forced to return to the harbor. The ride in was no picnic especially as we rounded Devil's point, knick-named "Maytag corner" by Chunda's Captain Barkey Garnsey.

Monday was our last day on the water so we started slightly earlier even though we had not experienced a strike before 10:00 a.m. the entire trip. Our approach proved to be prophetic as we had our first strike at 9:20. This was a spearfish that only briefly grabbed the teaser before departing. But at 9:35 another fish appeared and jumped all over the hook-less lure on the right rigger. We pulled in the teaser, slipped the pitch bait (a one-pound skipjack we had caught earlier in the morning) into the water, and watched the 300-pound blue swim up and inhale it. After a short drop-back I set the hook and the battle was on. Although the fish fought gallantly he was subdued and sporting a Billfish Foundation tag in his right shoulder in about 12 minutes. Again with such an active start we felt we were in for a spectacular day. As it turned out though we would have absolutely no more action despite fishing until after 7:00 p.m. It was by far the flattest day on the water with no more than a five knot wind even in the channel. We fished the majority of the day well out of the lee and even ventured out to a sea mound some 20 miles offshore. We could not have done this on any other day we fished due to the rough seas. According to Captain Whitworth this was actually the calmest day the French Look had seen since they had arrived at the island some 5 weeks earlier.

As we packed up to return home we all reflected on our trip and unanimously concluded this had been one of the best trips we had ever experienced. We had been treated like royalty, the food was spectacular, and the fishing was wonderful. In 5 1/2 days of fishing we had raised 17 marlin, hooked nine, and caught six in addition to losing two others just out of reach of the leader. That is an average of three raised fish per day, two hook-ups, and one blue marlin catch per day. And the marlin averaged 350 pounds with one quality fish in excess of 800 pounds!