My 6 day Gambia fishing adventure day 6

[SIMPLE MAN]

So after breakfast we are off on our last days fishing,it was very windy this morning so at least we would be a lot more comfortable today,bait collected and today Fafa was moaning that the bonga fish had gone up in price and also said that there was hardly any fish on the market for sale and to be honest i really didn't give it a lot of thought at the time and it was only until yesterday when i got a email from angling direct holidays with a fishing report from Costa Rica which commented that the sailfish and marlin fishing had been fantastic all month and then that terrible earthquake and tsunami hit Japan and all the fish seemed to just vanish off the face of the planet and a week later they all reappeared as if by magic and i am not saying this is why our trip seemed to take a nose dive but i emailed Fafa and he told me that the local fisherman had had a really bad seven days in fact he said that they were all saying it was the worst it had ever been he then went on to say that a week later and everything was back to normal so maybe just maybe there is something in it after all (who knows)
we were soon down by the river and before we set off we all have to give our driver a helping hand as he got the van stuck in the sand lol,anyway we are trolling back down to the sea as usual before turning and heading back up the river,about 30min later i thought my lure had snagged on the bottom and on reeling in it was a pleasant surprise to find a 3.3/4lb red snapper,i am not sure if i took a picture of it but if i did it was something like this

After we had anchored up a couple of times Brian had a white snapper of 1lb and a red snapper of 8oz,i then had one of those frogfish just before lunch but as yesterday although not as hot the fish were hard to come by and after trying a few more places i eventually get a small grouper of 8oz


And as we were trolling back to the swim where we had caught the captainfish we see something running across the plain at a right old rate of knots and it looked the size of a greyhound after pointing it out to Fafa he said it was a male brown monkey and good eating too !!!!!
And just before we arrived at our swim a small white snapper jumped straight into the boat so not to miss a opportunity it went straight on the hook as live bait and 30sec later some little blighter ripped it off again,Brian did manage a small red snapper of 6oz and that was to be the last fish we caught of our holiday so back to the camp and goodbyes and good lucks exchanged and back to the rainbow and tonight Fafa seemed very very quiet and as we arrived back we were met by almost all of the staff and some ex pats and a few locals that we had had the honour and pleasure to meet and wow they had organised a party in our honour,Fafa and a couple of his mates got the drums out and we hard a right old knees up on the beach fire and barbecue of fish and prawns and so many julebrews that they had to send a guy out to buy some more to replenish the fridge,what a send off so again we have made many new friends and my email list grows even longer i know i really am a lucky guy (and all for the love of fishing) in fact i have just received a email from a friend that i met in Guinea Bissau fishing and he has invited me to go to Norway with him in the summer and speaking of Guinea Bissau i am back out there in November and for all you sea fishing guys this place is fishing paradise,last time we were out there we had so many barracudas to 55lb we lost count,jacks by the dozen averaging 20lb tarpon of 240-176 and 170lb a 101lb stingray cubera snapper to 20lb blacktip shark,leerfish,ladyfish dr fish,cobia,pompano,bone fish and stacks of other species and that's just what us (3 in a boat) caught let alone the other two boats let me know if you guys would like to see some pictures and i will try to find my notes from the trip,i hope you enjoyed reading these reports sorry there were no monsters this time but i did say before we left that i didn't expect to catch much over the 5lb mark
tight lines and please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions tight lines John SIMPLE MAN

[pingu]

nice end to the trip and good repors thank you

dave

[MRG2000]

A fun filled weeks fishing John ,and less arm ache than Thailand !!!!......

Where are you planning on going next holiday ??

[bassmanrob]

Thanks for these reports, have enjoyed them.

I'm off to the Gambia for 2 weeks in November, it's with my girlfriend so not a fishing holiday but I will fish for a couple of days out there. Do the guides there have decent tackle you can hire or is it best to bring your own gear with you?

[SIMPLE MAN]

Thankyou bassman i have sent you a pm which should help you
regards SIMPLE