ALEX QUATRE

IF YOU HAVEN’T HAD THE PLEASURE OF FISHING WITH HIM, YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN ALEX QUATRE OF ALPHONSE FISHING COMPANY IN THE FILM COSMO. ONE OF THE MOST EXPERIENCED GUIDES IN THE SEYCHELLES IS THIS ISSUE’S HIGH FIVES GUIDE.

5 best destinations where you guide?

1. St François Atoll is good for the bonefishing. There’s a lot of life for the bonefish.

2. Cosmoledo, mostly for GT fishing.

3. St Joseph Atoll for permit fishing.

4. Farquhar for bumpies and big GTs. Big GTs.

5. Astove mostly for triggers on the east side, going to North Point. Also, in the lagoon, when the water is milky, there is good permit fishing.

5 fishing-connected items you don’t leave home without before making a mission?

1. Costa sunglasses with blue 580 lenses.

2. A Leatherman, the jack-of-all-trades tool.

3. Chewing gum.

4. A packet of smokes in case of emergency. You never know when you need to deal with some stress.

5. My GoPro. I like to take short release videos of any species that I catch.

5 bands to listen to while on a road trip?

1. Bob Marley.

2. Chronixx.

3. Celine Dion.

4. Jimmy Buffett (“It’s Five O’clock Somewhere”).

5. Local Seychelles singer François Havelock.

5 of the best things you’ve picked up from guiding?

1. I have learned a lot about the nature of saltwater and the behaviour of the fish. You can read the fish by watching their body language when you see them in shallow water.

2. Being a guide and having a nice office. You don’t get good water and good sunlight all over the world. I love my office. Some anglers tell me, “Dude, you’ve got the best office ever.” My office is on the water. Being able to be in places that people pay a shitload of money to visit. I can be there for free even though I am guiding. It’s still amazing, seeing different atolls. There are people who have been waiting for five to 10 years for their chance to see those places. I can be there for months or years at a time.

3. How to fish with your mouth and not with your rod. When I guide, I’m fishing the whole time but I don’t have a rod in my hand. I am fishing by speaking. I still enjoy it when the angler catches the fish, because that means a plan came together.

4. Seeing triggers very close, like a metre away, seeing them tailing happily and you know they are still dumb. Those ones you can catch.

5. Seeing tiger sharks up close. I have been very close to one. We were fighting a nice GT, maybe a 90cm specimen, and the shark swam so close to us we could actually see its eyes. Its head was a metre away from my feet. I shat myself, trust me.

5 indispensable flies for where you fish?

1. Out here in the Indian Ocean, the Alphlexo has to be the number one fly for bonefish, triggers and permit.

2. I prefer sempers to brush flies, but both of them work. When a GT wants to eat, it’s going to eat no matter what.

3. For bonefish flies, I like Gotchas and Christmas Island Specials.

4. The Reaper popper just to spice things up a little bit when the fishing is slow. Get up on a bommie and do some species bashing for GTs, bohar snappers, etc.

5. Spawning shrimp. I like these a lot and fish them a lot for golden trevallies, big triggers, and sometimes I throw them to permit. It’s one of the flies I love fishing with the most.

5 of the most difficult guiding experiences so far?

1. When you see a nice fish on the white sand, in fact the only black thing on the sand, and you tell the guest, “There’s a black GT on the white sand!” and he says he doesn’t see it.

2. Casting on a fish. When you tell the guest to cast a metre away from the fish and he puts the fly on its head. It just doesn’t work.

3. Asking the guest, “Do you know the clock system on a skiff?”, and they say they know it well, 12, 9, 10, 11, etc. Then, when you see a fish and tell them “Nine o’clock!” but your guest is looking at three o’clock and can’t see the fish. This is very frustrating.

4. When you get a new guide in for training and you spend a week trying to explain to him how to do something. Then two weeks later he asks you how to do that very same thing because he didn’t write anything down. I don’t have time to babysit for the whole season.

5. When you tell a guide that you’re making a move to a specific area and just, “Give me a wide berth on the water of at least 150m.” He moves away, but the next thing you look and he’s 10m away from you, checking you out, spooking your fish. Then he comes at the end of the day and asks, “How did it go today?” Also, when you’re shadow-guiding a new guide and you tell them it’s time to move and they tell you they are still waiting. I find that difficult, because I know they are standing in a desert. On the sea, we look for fish, we don’t look for camels.

5 fishing goals in your local waters?

1. I want to catch a GT over 140cm. My biggest is a 138cm, so I want to beat that by 2cm. I know, it’s not easy.

2. I want to catch another big permit. My biggest is 72cm. I have seen 80cm permit around and I want to pick up one of those. It’s like chasing a woman that always says no. I like impossible stuff.

3. Catching a 75cm bonefish, but on a 7-weight on 12lb tippet.

4. I want to catch a Napoleon wrasse of over a metre. My best is like 60cm. A wrasse is a wrasse, but at that size it’s still green. I want a blue one. I want one that’s going to put you in the coral and make you fight for it.

5. My biggest one is that I want to catch a marlin on fly. I have hooked one before. I want to land one, but I don’t want to do it on just any kind of rod, I want to do it on a G. Loomis Crosscurrent 11-weight. Not a 12-weight or a 16-weight, but an 11-weight. We’ll see who is the boss, even if it takes me four hours.

5 things that keep you busy when you’re not on the water?

1. I spend most of my time with my kids when I come back home. I take them to the beach a lot and go swimming.

We bump into a couple of permit every now and then. Showing them those fish and seeing how much they love it, that makes me really proud. I’m teaching my son a bit about fly fishing and he likes it a lot.

2. Sitting down, mostly with my kids, looking at photos and videos I have taken of the guests, showing them what I do and where I have been. My little girl especially loves the stingrays and sharks.

3. Chilling with friends, having a beer, talking shit after the season has closed. A couple of them ask a lot of questions about flats fishing because they have seen videos on YouTube. When I explain what it’s like they tend to remark how cool it is for me to see it in real life. It is special. Not everybody sees what I see every day.

4. Sharing my knowledge with people. I am proud to be me, to do what I do, and that there are people who are getting into fly fishing now because of me.

5. I am showing my son how to tie flies, explaining which fly is for which fish. They aren’t perfect but will still catch a bonefish!

5 things about fly fishing that you may never understand?

1. Sometimes you get the right tides, right moon phase, beautiful water level, right temperature, and you know you are going to see something. But you get there and there’s nothing. Actually nothing. Everything is perfect; you’ve been there at times exactly like that and the plan worked and you found fish. But this time you are standing in an ocean of emptiness. Nothing. Not even a turtle. Next time you go there – same tides, same conditions – and it is full of fish.

2. Being out there on a flat and showing people things that you do not see every day. Maybe you see a pack of permit and you tell the guest and he doesn’t want to cast to them. I know that if you put the fly there, one of them is going to turn its head to check it out, while another is going to try get to the fly before the first fish. This is a special situation and every now and then you get an angler who doesn’t get it.

3. You see a GT and it’s 50m away from you. Your engine is not on, you’re just poling and yet the fish goes off the flats in seconds. I don’t understand how a fish can be far away from you and it swims off while another one comes and eats whatever you throw in the water.

4. The opposite is also true. You get an angler who is not that good at fishing and so you get him within range of a fish, but his cast is too short, so you get him closer. Again, he is too short, so you get him even closer, within three or four metres of the fish, and it still doesn’t know you are there. You make a cast, the fly lands right and you get a GT to eat right in front of you, looking at you. Seeing those things, I don’t know how to explain something like that.

5. Sometimes you see 50 triggers at one time, cast at the first one, he destroys the fly and you get him in for a photo. Mostly, when you’re fishing for triggers, they don’t know you’re there because they are doing headstands. But, with the next 49 fish that you see, you put the fly two metres away from them and they speed off like they’ve seen a ghost. I don’t understand why that is. What makes those fish change their behaviour in seconds?

5 fish on your bucket list?

1. Tarpon. 100%. It doesn’t have to be huge. I just want to hook one of those things and make it jump and tail walk.

I want to see it with my own eyes and take it off my list.

2. Like I said, I want to pick up a marlin. A blue marlin. I don’t want a 500kg marlin. I’d like something that can teach me a lesson, like a 150kg fish that I can put next to a boat and have a photo with. I’m planning to do this in December when I am back home. Go for a run, a couple of beers, take a friend to drive my boat while I tease up a marlin.

3. Atlantic salmon.

4. Roosterfish.

5. I want to catch a rainbow trout. I know it’s going to be hard for me to trout set because most of my time fly fishing I have been strip striking.

My last five casts were to GTs on Farquhar just before the season closed. I was helping a guide find his way around and he was poling for a bit. He poled me into a good position, I made a good cast, the fly landed right, I started stripping and then, as soon as the fish was about to eat the fly, I missed the strip. As guides we are pros at what we do, but we also make mistakes. We might get grumpy with the guests because they miss the strip or trout set, but sometimes we do the same things.