**Exploring Gabon: A Fishing Expedition Amidst Nature's Grandeur** SECOND WEEK
The second week of our Gabon session started with high hopes for Tarpon, as the moon was getting in the best phase for those big guys. Our first contact with Gabon on our first session has been nothing but great, with plenty of hook up of Threadfin and Cuberas, and a solid Cubera lost at the end of the fighting. Late in the session we saw plenty of Tarpon rolling but just out of casting range.
The highlight of the trip happened on the 2nd day when Richard landed in the morning a titanic Threadfin like i’ve never seen before, showing us the real potential of the place and getting his catch of the trip achieved. As we went toward the full moon, but also possibly because of the lack of rain, the activity of Threadfin decreased from day 3, but in exchange Tarpon started to show off. The first appearance been on day 4 in the morning, when in a session the guys had about 20 bites of big fish, without being able to land any, fish jumped and ran, every sort of hook setting have been tried but with no success. On the same day following the suggestion of the lodge manager Mathieu who’s also a great fisherman, we went for a light Jigging session that turned out to be one of the most insane session of all our years of work, four anglers from a boat landed 80-100 fish in an afternoon, Grunters, Jack Crevalle, Longfin Jacks, Threadfin, Kob and Cuberas, with a couple of serious fish that managed to broke the line. We definitely have been hooked up with this type of fishing, and in my opinion is the perfect match with the physically hard shore fishing, it’s light, it’s relaxed and it’s super effective!
As the Tarpon started to be around we started to expect to have good action at sunset and at night, so we made two team to try the Tarpon by boat at the lagoon entrance, and again we had an amazing session with plenty of strikes and hook up, a couple of fish that broke the line but yet none landed. Since then we had 3 nights of fire from the shore with multiple Tarpon attacks as from the boat at sunset and later in the night from the beach, we got cut off by some big ones and finally managed to land a couple of nice fish in the 20-30 kg range. The light jigging been providing great action almost every afternoon except a pretty slow one, and as another highlight i landed a West African Permit on UL jigging, possibly a Trachinotus Maxillosus, a very uncommon catch on artificial lure, but in according with Mathieu not too rare here, and they grow well over 10 kg!
Overall our stay and fishing exceeded our expectations, and all of us enjoyed this place a lot and are already planning the next trip, especially because having been beaten up so badly by Tarpon we need a revenge!
