THE EXPLORATION OF DJIBUTI
The exploration of Djibouti is a project that we carry on for a few years without a proper constancy because of our other commitment to our main destinations, but we do believe there is a high potential for fly fishing and to enjoy a unique fishery where challenge Napoleon Wrasse, GT, Triggerfish, and Queenfish. In particular the fishing for Queenfish it’s one the best saltwater fly fishing experience, walking barefoot sight fishing from the beach fish from 5 to 10 kg that jumps like crazy, on a 9-10 wt rod, and potentially having several shots a day. On this trip we have been able to prove the consistency of these species, but we been extremely unlucky with the weather, having clouds most of the days and even rain, in one of the sunniest and dry countries of Africa, and eventually, we manage to fish decently only on 3 days in the spots we wanted to fish, but with great result.
Day 1
On the first day of fishing we get to a spot that I have explored in the past and had a high consistency of Napoleon Wrasse, we split into 2 teams of 2 anglers each, 3 Fly fishermen and 1 spinning guy. During the day I had shots at two big GT, one around 90 cm and one well over 100 cm, both didn’t take the fly on the last second. I manage to hook 3 Napoleon on a crab pattern and land 2, a GT of 70 cm, and lost a nice Titan Trigger, while the other team lost a big Napoleon around 20 kg on the fly that broke the 1 mm leader on a coral bummy, 4 nice Triggers and only landed 1 nice Trigger and one GT of about 70 cm, and saw 3 good GT. The spinning guy with me also landed 2 Napoleon and probably broke one. Johan also had a shot at a beautiful Napoleon close to 20 kg tailing on the beach, the fish followed the crab pattern in the shallow water, tailing on it with all fins out of the water, but eventually, it just turned away, but what a dose of adrenalin to see such fishtailing on a crab.
Total fish saw on the day: 19 Napoleons, 13 Triggers, 5 good GT, and a few smaller
Day 2
Unfortunately, the weather turns very bad and despite we are in the driest country in Africa, we get clouds and rain. On the fly, we manage to see 3 Napoleons and I manage to hook and break one. We lose 1 Triggerfish and by the end of the day I land a nice 80 cm GT sight fishing from some rocks, where I could found a school of GT swimming like trout in the current right under my feet
Day 3
With good weather and a lot of tides, I manage to have shots at 2 good gt and 2 Napoleons, but none of them strike and just flat ignore my fly. Johan and Kenneth have shots at 2 Napoleons and see a very big one in the range of 30-40 kg, Johan also lost 2 Triggers. We decide to end the day sight fishing from the rocks, we have a shot at a nice Bohar Snapper free swimming in the current and to a small pack of solid GT between 90 to 100 cm, also swimming on top in the full current like trout, but none of them decide to strike. Was it eventually a good day of fish watching
Day 4
This day we sail in the morning to change area, and we stop at 13 PM on the way to split the long navigation in 2 days. The place for fly doesn’t look too good, a big endless cliff 3 mt high and a shallow water stretch that runs under it, so in two guys we decide to give it a go on the fly. After 5 minutes of walking on the cliff, I spot 2 nice GT swimming toward us, fast cast my fly, and hook a solid fish that could have been 90 cm, as it starts to run my fly line gets wrapped in my backpack and I snap the leader. Not even the time to be disappointed that another school of GT, this time 4 fish all good size show up, we cast but probably because we are high on the cliff they only follow the flies. What happens in the next 30 minutes is just pure fantasy, GT is showing up just everywhere, a new pack of fishes keep on coming under the cliff, they are all fish from 15 to 20+ kg, we probably see well over 20 fish, we keep on having shots but fish are not committing, they only follow, the reason might be that we are high and they see us, or that flies are not swimming natural because we are high on the water level. Whatever, it was just unbelievable to see such an amount of fish of that size.
Day 5
On day 5 we sailed till 9.30, so we can only get in fishing by 10.30, and we split into two teams, I went to check a rocky shallow area and the other two guys went on the beach where I found queenfish in my previous explorations. Unluckily I didn’t find fish because there was no current at all, but the other guys had an amazing 2 hr session where they saw 15 Queenfish, hooked 2 but lost both. At 1 pm full black clouds came and we couldn’t fish anymore
Day 6
On a fully cloudy day, we couldn’t sight fish at all, but Johan managed to get a Queenfish cast on a chase from the beach, and I have 2 GT and lost one on the 10wt casting from the rocks playing with a clouser fly, the 2 GT landed were around 60 and 70 cm
Day 7
We had a very sunny day finally, but the tide wasn’t really good for the Queenfish, we only saw 6 in the morning session and had 4 shots, 2 refusals and two landed, I guess we are still learning how to get them to take properly. After that, we couldn’t wait for the good tide because we had to pick up other guys we left on an island. We went playing from the rocky island, we had some shots at big Trigger that didn’t commit and a nice GT around 90 cm followed my fly but didn’t take it.
Day 8
We were planning to explore a new place, but the whole day been super raining and we have to, unfortunately, call the end of the trip one day in advance.
In the end, the total hook up on fly was 5 Napoleon, 8 Triggerfish, 7 GT, 5 Queenfish, with only 2 of us fish all-time on the fly, and apart from few fish caught on a cloudy day, we fished properly for 3 days only, which makes me think that this place deserves much more time and explorations to be done, and last but not least, because of the very short time of sun we had we just fished the area I already knew and couldn’t really expand our fishing to new ground, which is the absolute vast majority of the place, unknown flats.
