Californian John Paul, Floridian Nigel Cosans, my videographer Steve Jam, and I ventured back to Brazil in late January hoping to improve on our somewhat poor performance of last year. JP and I each caught but one fish during our trip of 1999 despite spending 6 days on the water. Steve’s plane from Los Angeles was late due to a storm in Atlanta and he missed our connection in Miami. Consequently it was 2 days later before he could catch up with us in Brazil. That inauspicious start was a bit of an omen.

 Tim Choate’s Artmarina operation routed us slightly differently this year. Rather than a direct flight to Salvador and a short charter flight to Canavieiras we had a much more circuitous trip. We flew via VASP airlines from Miami to Sao Paulo, from Sao Paulo to Salvador, and from Salvador to Ilheus. There we were picked up by a charter van and driven the one hour south to Canavieiras. That added at least 6 hours of travel time and was nowhere near as comfortable a trip as we had enjoyed the previous year.

 Once in Canavieiras things improved as we had a lovely lunch on the beach at the restaurant owned by our hostess Maria’s mother and had time to unpack leisurely and prepare for our first day of fishing. The next morning we were to leave the dock at 8 a.m. Unfortunately when we arrived there was a problem with the boat. We were fishing on the Coyote III, a 37-foot Rio Star, with Captain Jeff Anderson and Captain/mate Randy Baker of Madam and the Hooker fame and local mate Gilton Sena da Mota. They had broken several motor mounts the previous day and had somehow managed to get them replaced overnight. There were a few minor adjustments that needed to be finished though before we could head out. Finally about 11 a.m. we shoved off and motored down the river toward the inlet. We didn’t get far though before we had to turn back since the stuffing box was getting very hot. That problem was fixed in about an hour and we headed out again. This time we got all the way out across the bar before discovering another problem that forced us to go back to the dock again. Finally about 1:30 p.m. we seemed to have all the problems addressed and hit the water again. We were nearly to the west end of Charlotte Bank when we discovered we were taking on water. After fixing the leak and repairing a bad float switch on a bilge pump we finally got to start fishing at 3 p.m. It was a quiet day and the only action we saw was an 80-pound sailfish that flirted with our lures for several minutes before getting bored and slipping away.
 Our second day started off much better. It was a beautiful sunny day and we got off from the dock at the appointed time. We forsook the Charlotte Bank headed north to Comandatuba where there had been several nice fish lost by a local charter boat the previous few days. We didn’t seem to have the same Karma as they did though seeing no billfish the entire day. I did catch a 30-pound Dorado that we had later for dinner and JP caught a “spotted Wahoo” (barracuda).

 Day three we decided to try the bank again since our trip north the previous day had met with less than sterling results. Two boats had come down from Salvador and one went out fishing with us. We had our lines in the water barely an hour when the other boat hooked a fish of about 400 pounds right behind us. They fought it for nearly 4 hours before breaking their rod at the end of the fight. Somehow they did not cut the line on the jagged rod tip and were able to tie the line to another rod. Eventually the fish died down deep forcing them to hand-line it to the surface. Its estimated weight at the dock based on the measurements was 427 pounds. At about 1 p.m. I hooked a fish on the long rigger bait (a pink and white Moldcraft wide-range). The marlin made several early jumps but for the most part dug down deep. After a ten-minute fight we tagged and released the 350 to 400-pound blue. The remainder of the day was without action.
 
 
 

Coyote III at the dock	Canavieiras from the river

Terry fighting his marlin	Blue marlin at the transom

We headed back to the bank on our fourth day; it was a long hot slow day with barely a breath of breeze. No billfish were to be even seen that day let alone hooked or caught. We did catch several more Dorado and a Wahoo.

 Our last chance to catch a Brazilian billfish was limited to a half-day since we had to catch a plane out of Ilheus late that afternoon. It was another gorgeous sunny and hot summer day and we all realized we really did not want to leave that evening. It seemed we had just arrived and we really hadn’t got into the fish. We had one knockdown early in the morning but never saw the fish. JP caught another Dorado shortly thereafter. And late in the morning we ran onto a pod of about 12 killer whales that swam with us playfully like a pod of dolphin. We got some great video footage of this action. Later we realized that the presence of the killer whales might have been the reason that the fishing shut down so drastically the last 2 days of our journey. The killer whale is one of very few natural predators of blue marlin. Before the morning was over we also saw a 60-pound loggerhead sea turtle but none of the beaked critters we had come so far to catch. We headed in at about two o’clock giving us just enough time to finish packing and catch our flight.

 We had a great time while in Canavieiras as they had a fiesta going that week which allowed us to see a part of their culture we had not here-to-for had an opportunity to witness. But the marlin fishing had been even worse than the previous year. We caught only one fish this year and it wasn’t even a large one. “That’s why they call it fishing.” Looking over the last few years’ catch records suggests that a better time to fish that area may be in December. It is a bit hard to tell though since the el nino and la nina water current conditions have changed the fishing in so many locations the last few years.
 
 

JP and Terry	Dugout canoe on the river

Mate Gilton	Captain/mate Randy Baker

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