17 minute read
BLISS POINTS
In the making of food products, scientists have developed the ‘bliss point,’ which is the perfect amount required of an ingredient like salt, sugar and fat to optimise a product’s deliciousness (and make you fat). The theory is that combinations of sugar, fat and salt act synergistically and are more rewarding than any one ingredient on its own. When applied to the formula of what makes a brilliant fly fishing trip, you could swop sugar, salt and fat for great fishing, good friends and paradise. On theremote Indian Ocean archipelago of St Brandon’s, Nic Schwerdtfeger hit those bliss points over and over again. It was a trip high on deliciousness.
Photos: Nick Schwerdtfeger, Flycastaway
The alarm went off the second time, exponentially more painful than the first. Root canal on a rum hangover seemed a more pleasant idea than having to get out of bed. The coffee offshore is pretty much the only reason the oil and gas sector in Norway hasn’t collapsed yet. It’s also only down one floor from my cabin to the mess where a 5-star hotel buffet breakfast awaits me every morning. Day 10 of 14 had begun. I could feel I was drained, physically and mentally gatvol*. I needed a break, and soon.
Let me just clear something up off the bat, working on offshore oil rigs in Norway is extremely comfortable, the standard of living, safety, food and welfare is top notch. But you work for it. And we work damn hard around the clock to keep Europe’s energy needs in check. But regardless of how comfortable it is, I had been working more than usual, a lot more. Between guiding on the Gaula river for Atlantic salmon in summer and the odd offshore trip in between guiding, I worked flat out for a six-month period. I knew that I needed to shift gears to avoid a neurotic episode of sorts.
Soon enough, an opportunity came up via the Whippit Wednesday Whatsapp fly tying chat group. One of the Flycastaway guides dropped a hint that there might be some cancellations to St Brandon’s atoll off Mauritius towards the end of the season. There were three rods available.
My imagination immediately floated me away from the drillers’ cabin on a semi-sub in the North Atlantic, to wading along a sand spit tracking down a school of obscenely overweight bonefish. “Fuck,” I thought to myself, “it would be awesome to fish a destination like that some day.” Most of my fly fishing mates have either guided or fished there during some part of their feather chucking career. It seems almost like a right of passage.
Meanwhile back on board, it was only 10:30am and I was set to work until at least 21:00 that night.
Great.
A few weeks went by and in that time my mates Riaan and Warwick had committed. Smokey the Bear (aka Andreas Linz) was on the fence so, sensing weakness, I managed to convince him to surrender his spot.
Deal sealed. Deposit paid. Bang, I was going to St Brandon’s.
Next challenge – flies! Here’s where I had a big problem as, in Norway, I literally can’t get hold of any saltwater materials or hooks. So, I had to order online which is also a shit show
since working offshore most of the time, means I’m hardly ever at home to check the mail. Fellow Whippiter Andre Van Wyk had recently refined a new GT pattern resembling a Beast/Chosen One that I like the look of. Problem is, it’s about the length of my forearm and looks like way too much work. Also ,Wookie hair, Yak pubes and Dolly Parton’s pony tail weren’t materials I could get hold of anytime soon. I tied to the best of my ability and came up with a decent amount of what I would call good quality “BIRBS”. A baitfish/Van Wyk inspired, long tailed hollow fleye-ish thing. It’s got a round profile, great movement and is almost all natural fibre. It also looks like an over-fed small ‘birb’, hence the meme-inspired name. Tying done, after a brief visit back home in Cape Town, Riaan, Warwick and myself were soon on a flight to Mauritius.
Bro! Boet! Jrrrrrjassussfok! High fives, chest bump, wooooohooooo! Sausage party! Bear-fest! Warwick Leslie, Justin Rollinson and theauthor feel the vibe.
St Brandon’s atoll lies smack bang in the middle of the Indian ocean. From Mauritius it’s a 28-30 hour boat ride on a loud but comfortable supply vessel. I imagined we were like the A-team. Riaan, the hard-as-nails Afrikaans ex-military type (now financial guru) would definitely deal with any pirates we might encounter. He probably knew first aid and could shoot the beak off a pigeon from 200m with a .22. Warwick, the MD of pimp-my-bakkie specialists Alu-Cab, would definitely be the MacGyver in the trio, fixing the 9000 DB diesel motor should it fry a piston, or fashion a life raft if we hit a reef and sank the vessel. Me? Well I was terrified, but took comfort in knowing that should the boat sink, I had a luminous orange bag that floated, so that could buy me some time until the plethora of pelagic shark species got hold of me. I’m used to big seas and rough weather on boats, but there was something about a crossing of that distance and how remote we were that didn’t sit well with me. I also don’t react well to sleeping tablets and all the other pharmaceutical cocktails the rest of the guys were slamming. I would be awake and on edge for most of the voyage.
I won’t bore you with the misery of what a 30-hour boat trip in shitty weather is like, but the final few hours of the evening before we anchored were pretty electric. Everyone had woken up in time to catch the last rays of sun as we started to see land masses and some shipwrecks
again. The atoll system is pretty big, with a few permanent islands in the north and south and never-ending flats and sand spits that make up a massive lagoon in between. As we arrived, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a massive splash and the unmistakable sound of a large something slapping the the water. At first I thought it was a large billfish, since we had just hauled out a few bonito on the back lines we had dangling over the stern. Immediately, it broke the surface again. A massive manta ray. It did a few backflops in quick succession before disappearing into the deep indigo abyss. Seeing things like that makes you remember two things: we must be pretty far from civilization, and, since these creatures are here and the ecosystem seems intact, we have not destroyed it yet.
Golden trevally and a sneaky door knob.
Arriving at Raphael Island where we would spend the next week living, we were greeted by guides Craig and Justin in the skiffs. We swiftly grabbed our hand luggage and jumped aboard, high 5’s all round hugs and general stoke as we met the rest of the team. We would fish two rods on a boat per guide, and rotate throughout the week until we had all fished with each other. I prefer this strategy as opposed to fishing with one partner and guide for the week.
The first day I was with Warwick and the silent, but deadly, Justin Rollinson as our guide for the day. We went to a little sand spit on the low tide first, to warm up on some schooling bonefish and maybe scope out a crab-eating sickle fin thing (aka permit). The drive there was nuts, the flats, bommies, turtle grass patches and bits of reef outcrop were endless. The only thing that breaks them up is an odd channel of wide, deeper water here and there that is obviously essential for letting the mass of water move around on the inside of the lagoon. One of the first things I noticed after anchoring the skiff on the sand, was the amount of life in the water. I waded past a turtle, then another one. Then I saw an absolute unit of a lemon shark cruising on the outskirts of the sand I was standing on. I struggled at first, my casting was off, probably being self conscious in front of the other two, I missed more shots than Bruce Willis in the early 90’s. Knots in my running line, too little line out, too much line out, I was just plain hacking. Justin also isn’t the kind of guy to “coach”. He just gave me a look every time I botched it. Eventually I wandered off on my own and stalked a school of not so intelligent looking bonefish. I took cover behind a few bigger rocks and made a cast into the channel they were moving through. The light was hard and I didn’t see where the fly landed. I let the spawning shrimp sink for a brief second before stripping the line steadily and slowly. I felt the fly get picked up, and I moved the rod to set the hook, pulling the fly out. A second later the fish picked it up again, and intuitively I paused, paused a little longer and then set the hook properly. BANG ON! I wasn’t interested in tiring the fish out and having a good old one to one, I just wanted to land the damn thing so that I could get a score on the board and be done with it. So I got him to my feet within a minute. The sheer disappointment at not seeing a bonefish was immeasureable. Some snotty little Spangled Emperor had decided to engulf the shrimp and had me hooting and dancing around for no reason. I didn’t bother
taking a picture or even inspecting this obstreperous little punk. I cursed in Norwegian as he swam away. (Swearing in Norway always has a biblical connotation, making it that much more dramatic). A few moments later while walking back to the others, it struck me. That was a stunning looking fish and, I later found out, a decent size for the species. Had this been almost anywhere else in the world, he would have been a prize. I had taken it for granted and would later realise I should have taken a picture, because this was the only one I would land in my week at St Brandon’s.
There’s so much going on on the flats, that it’s a bit overwhelming. You have to pay attention to pick things up early, and you get into a different gear walking down the beach with your rods in hand. Without sounding cliched, it really is a different state of awareness. You are also constantly reminded that by entering the water here, you are part of the food chain. As we spotted a school of bones that I had a good shot on, I ran ahead to try to increase my chances by not having to cast into the wind. As I got somewhere in between knee and waist deep and was sorting the line out, I looked up to see where the fish were moving and two large black dorsal fins caught my eye. I squinted and tried to make out the shapes in the wave, sharks. Big ones. They were surfing the wave in towards the island, probably swatting reef fish as they glided behind the face of the roller. I realised what I was doing and slowed down, a lot. “Hey Justin! What are those?” I gestured with my rod tip in the general direction of the two organic meat grinders. He hesitated for a moment and looked up and down through his polarised sunnies. “Tigers bru, big ones.” I was sort of in no man’s land. If they had locked on to me and made
Proud parents in the bonefish delivery room.
an effort, I was done. But they looked preoccupied, so I changed my trajectory to put some distance between us. I had faith in my small but stout-bearded guide. Surely if he felt I was in danger, he would give me some sort of heads up? So if he was chilled, I should be chilled? Right? Right. Onwards.
I lost track of the school of bones I was stalking. After landing his next fish, Warwick was back on the beach, changing flies and talking to Justin. I had given up for the time being. These bonefish were getting the better of me. I was also making my way to the beach to get my life together and drink some much needed water. I had, by now, made a habit of checking over my shoulders when exiting the water and just as I got to about knee deep I did a quick final scan before the last stretch.
GEEEEEEEETTT!!!! I screamed hard as I felt my mouth go dry. Sheer panic for a few seconds as I went through the “fight or flight” mechanism. The question was could I get a shot on this? Justin immediately shifted a gear and started walking into the surf towards me. “Drop your rod, grab your 12!” I chucked the 9-weight where I stood, understanding he would take care of it. Racing back to get on to the shelf before the fish saw me, I could feel my legs going weak. I wasn’t breathing, I had lost control of basic bodily functions in the madness of it all. I was mumbling to myself. I had become some sort of gibbering imbecile. Frantically stripping line off the reel, I sped up.
“Cast now, cast now!” Justin was shouting in the background. I was within a long cast length of the fish. It was a slob of a fish, an overfed, zoo-kept Bengal tiger of a fish. The line was in the air and the tan concoction on the end was getting the ride of its life. The first cast landed shy of the fish and I could feel myself stripping at a ridiculous pace to get the line back in so I could get a second shot at him. I paused for just a second to read the fish and manage one and a half deep breaths, before lifting the rod again to get the line airborne. The cast was good, straight enough, and the fly landed a few metres off the fish’s nose. I waited just a second before I gave it a violent short strip. And another, and another. He turned, his pecs flared out and he sped up. He had seen the fly and was racing towards it at a frightening pace. I had done this part before, I knew what was going to happen next. I had about 3-4m of flyline out still, and it all went apeshit.
If I had previously thought this was a big GT, the gaping maw that opened and swallowed the tan Birb made me realise this was a truly sizeable creature. He took the fly, turned, and my brain told my left hand to hold the line as firmly as I could with my now non-existent strength. I set the hook, ONE, TWO, THREE left hooks to the jaw. It felt as I though I’d flattened the rod and yanked the line downwards. On three I felt something wrong. The fish had made a massive splash and was headed for the surf, but I was standing there on the shelf, very unamused and with a slack fly line in my left hand. I turned around and found Justin staring back at me with an open mouth. He just gave me a look.
The most remarkable part of this trip was “The Day”. The GT day. Or to give it it’s full name, what Milan Germishuizen described as “The wildest GT fishing day in St Brandon’s in a while”.
From my prime position in the front of the skiff, faaaaaaaar in the distance I made out the dorsal of a shark. We got a little closer and spotted fish on the back of the nurse shark that was now headed towards us. I jumped out of the boat and got my line ready to make a cast. The fly landed short of the fish, but he saw it, he turned, flared out his pecs and made a half-assed attempt to chase it before he gave me a very clear signal of “NOT INTERESTED PAL”.
Our luck changed dramatically when we came up on a small sand spit and saw a few fish holding on the split between the bommies and beach sand. I went right and cast at a fish that was moving way too fast to be in feeding mode. Warwick, on the other hand, went left and two casts later hooked on to his first GT of the trip. The school was still around, but I was on the wrong side to make a cast, I started aqua-jogging as fast as I could to a spot where I could get an angle on the fish. I looked at Warwick trying desperately to keep his fish out of the minefield of bommies and noticed the parabolic shape of his rod. As I marveled at this, the unforgettable sound of a small firearm going off broke the silence as Warwick’s rod did its best 5-piece impression. Luckily, with some quick thinking from Milan and some team work, they got the fish to hand shortly afterwards . After the high 5’s, hugs and selfies were done, we headed further up the reef to the surf zone. We saw a few fish on the way, including a big school of smaller GTs cruising around the reef like a flock of geese on meth. With face tattoos.
The definite highlight of the day was at around 11am when things just got nuts. I have never in my life seen that many GTs swimming on a flat. It was sheer chaos. Almost all of them looked 100cm if not bigger. I chased one pod of large fish cruising behind a shark, sent a tan Birb at Mach1 into the fray, got them all to turn, and out of nowhere a large bluefin T-boned the fly as I was leading it out of the pack. FUUUUUCK!!!!!!! Milan was on my shoulder screaming at the little blue goblin. I remember distinctly shouting, “Please God let one of these sharks or a Geet eat that damn bluefin.” While straight sticking him with a locked up SL7, the feeding frenzy had subsided and the martyr of a bluefin had not been eaten.
I would love to give you a detailed day-by-day account of where, who, how many, how big and so forth, but instead I’ll sum up the trip like this: it was a massive success. We fished every day, we saw wild shit happen every day. We caught plenty of fish in all shapes and sizes every day. Success right? Well. I’ll let you in on a secret. I didn’t go to St Brandon’s with a single goal in mind, which means I didn’t set myself up to fail. I see it fairly often on my home waters when I’m guiding… the expectation. Guests that have an opportunity to fish an amazing fishery, but who get so caught up in the fishing and the micro details of it all, that they miss the big picture of being in the moment. It’s cool to nerd out and to take it seriously. But sometimes you have to enjoy the nature, the scenery and the people you spend your days with talking rubbish, discussing techniques and arguing over which 12 weight line is less shite.
Instead of carrying the burden of expectation everywhere with me, I went to have a good time with two of my close fishing mates, and we had an absolute jol. Every cast on the boat or on the flats together was a memorable one, high 5s and smiles for every fish we landed and vloeking for every one we lost. I banked a few fish early on in the trip, landed a good geet on the second day, and caught my first ever bonefish.
Halfway through that first day I opened my metaphorical cheque book and gave carte blanche to the guides.
They would ask, “What you wanna try for tomorrow?” to which I would usually answer, “Whatever. Let’s just have a jol”.
*gatvol = over it * vloeking = swearing * jol = good time
