Boavista (Cape Verde fishing)

Cape Verde is situated just of the West African coast and consists of several islands. We were staying on an island called Boavista. It’s the second time we stayed in this hotel. One hotel and 40km of sand with no other buildings.

The fishing is cracking too. The first day I was soon handing 5 euro to one of the waitress in the restaurant in return for a bag full of fresh prawns and calamari. I did this a few times during the two week stay.

A walk along the beach saw plenty of other anglers fishing mostly for sharks. This was not for me as I only had a short light travel rod. I met Antony and his brother David who were fishing for sharks. They were using full prawns and half a fish as bait and were catching a few sharks.

Now I met another chap in Wilf who had tried to catch some of the fish in the first week however was not successful. I suggested we fish the next morning at 9am for a couple of hours using some scaled down end tackle.

Now having fished there before had me using 8lb line and holding bottom with 1.5oz leads. The low diameter of the line means that the wind and the waves causes less drag on the rod and enables the lead to hold.

Wilf and I met up and Antony was already fishing. He is an early bird for sure.

Well the surf was well and truly crashing in on the beach.

Both Wilf and I were using size 8 hooks and a small piece of prawn. Bites came straight away and soon we were catching fish.

The 2 hours passed very quickly and soon it was time to head for the shade as the temperatures were 30c in the sun however there is always a strong wind blowing which makes it feel fine.

Wilf and I agreed to meet again at 4pm for another session.

This time Antony and David were fishing again for sharks. 3 sharks were landed in quick succession while Wilf and I continued to catch smaller fish.

We had plenty of fun fishing and catching. All of the fish went to the local guys who sat on the beach trying to sell bead bracelets and wooden carvings. They had no shade. I always took a bottle of water for them too. They really did appreciate the fish we gave them. It was between 5-10lb of fish. Enough for a meal or two or perhaps to sell on.

This routine of fishing two short sessions for the next 7 days was so good. Then Antony had to leave for home. His brother David was to stay on for a few more days. Wilf and I continued to land plenty of fish. Plus there was also plenty of other anglers fishing for a mixture of shark and  smaller fish. People are always interested in chatting about the fishing and often I would hook a fish and then pass the rod to a person to play and land.

One such person was Stan from Belgium. He would come down with his girlfriend each day for a chat. He fished back in Belgium so we could have a good talk. Not too sure whether she was impressed.

Soon it was time for Wilf to travel home. However we were fishing on the beach when a person came up behind and said you won’t catch many barbel here. I turned around to find Archie Pike standing there. There was nothing better than giving him a hug and say welcome to Boavista. His wife Carol must have wondered what was going on. Now Archie was in the Tench-fishers and we have fished together for perch and tench.

He had just arrived and was here for another week and that meant we caught the same flight home. What could be better fishing with Archie each day plus talking fishing at night BLISS!

We saw a few birds diving in the sea for fish these were Brown Boobys this is no innuendo, and there a few pair of those too! These were being attacked by a huge bird one day which Archie identified as a great frigatebird. It really was huge.

So the next day we said our goodbye to Wilf and his wife Jo. We had lots of fun playing all sort of games like darts, shuffle board and boules with them. Great company and good fun.

So we said goodbye to them.

I agreed to meet Archie at 9am and sure enough we started to catch fish straight away. Now Archie had bought with him some calamari and prawns which kept relatively well. We caught on both prawn and calamari at various times. The fish though kept taking the prawn off the hook easily.

Each day we fished and caught, this time giving some of the fish to the bar staff in the hotel.

The really sad part of the holiday was the story coming from the terrorist attack in Paris where 130 were killed. Friday 13th was a very sad day.

Later in the week it was good to play for the French team in boules and winning.

So happy holidays always come to a close and so did ours.

Carol and Archie were wonderful company for the second week of our hols and to be fair they made it for us.

Rather than Mrs P  listening to my dribble of conversation she could get some decent stuff from Carol while Archie and I endlessly talked fishing.

Happy days!