News from 2003

News from 2003

6th. December 2003
Our friends of Spain and the Canary islands enjoyed their stay on Ascension.The firsst day we saw plenty of bait,small yellowfin tuna, but only had one bite in the late afternoon of a 400 lb Blue.The next day it was looking similar and we saw a small Blue and had one 600 lb Blue coming on our live bait, but never got interested to eat it.Day three was slow with no bait seen. On day four we pulled the hooks on a 400 and 600lb Blue. Day 5 we finally caught a 250 lb Blue on a live skippie.The last day continued with our bad luck with pulling hooks on a 350 and 400 lb Blues , but finally we caught a 150lb tuna on a live skipjack. Activity was starting again in the afternoon and we got another tuna of 165 lb on a lure and pulled the hook on a similar seize tuna a little bit later.

30th. November 2003
Our dutch anglers had some good fishing the last 3 days, catching their dream fish , a 245 lb yellowfin tuna. They also had a 400 lb Blue and pulled the hooks on 2 more fish of 400 and 600.

25th. November 2003
Yesterday we made an interesting catch at our mooring a 600 lb tiger shark, probably the first one caught in these waters. Today we had a 450 lb Blue Marlin

23rd. November 2003
Hans, Gerald and Jan from Holland are since 3 days ago back in Ascension and we are so happy to have those keen fishermen on board. After having fished together in March here in Ascension, they are still fascinated with the variety of fish to be found here. Our first half day of Marlin fishing ended with one bite of a small billfish around 100lb. The following day we spent half a day in shore fishing catching different species of Jacks and Wahoo. The night drift ended with 6 Yellowfin Tuna around 60 lb mark.

Today we did like other days, half a day Marlin fishing and the other half at the mooring. Our day couldn’t be any better, catching 3 Dorados of 20lb and Hans had his 800+ Blue Marlin on 80lb stand up gear. The night produced the odd Yellowfintuna and 3 60lb Oilfish

18th. November 2003
For Christian and Robert from Munich in Germany, Ascension is their first serious Game Fishing Trip. We have spent 2 nights of 5 hours each at the mooring to get the boys familiar with the tackle and they had a great time catching over 20 tuna between 40 and 70 pound. Their first day of Marlin fishing ended with 1 Wahoo of 40 lb but on their second day Christian managed to catch his first Blue Marlin of 300 lb on a live skipjack. Later in the day we had another bite of a Blue of the same seize but that fish again did not show agressive and just knocked the lure out of the rigger.
Shy and Andromeda did not see any Marlin but during a night fishing session Shy took a 160 lb plus Big Eye Tuna

13th. November 2003
Our good friends Franz Thuer from Germany and Morten Ruud from Norway have just finished their first fishing trip in Ascension. Apart from the unlucky Marlin fishing, in 4 days we raised 3 Blue Marlin, got a bite out of 2 and saw another 2 tailing , they were amazed of the amount of fish caught and seen here in Ascension.
The conditions remain the same with a sea loaded with scad and yellowfin tuna between 30 to 80 lb. Apart from the countless tuna, Franz and Morten saw some good Wahoo fishing with 14 Wahoo caught in just a few hours and they both got their six gill shark of 700lb and 1000lb plus in one night on the mooring.
For the next 3 weeks all the 3 boats fishing here at the moment hope that our luck will change and we will catch some of those huge Blue Marlin swimming around

4th. November  2003
After a week of work to get the Harmattan ready for the season, we finally had the chance to do some test fishing. Andromeda has already been fishing for 6 days and they have caught a 500lb Blue and pulled the hok on another 2 , one of them estimated around the 1000lb. Today we trolled for Marlin for 4 hours, but just had a bite of a Yellowfin around 80 lb. The previous days we fished 2 hours for Wahoo and released 8 out of 25 bites. Our anglers were fishing lite line on spinning gear and we broke off a few.
On our 2 night trips we caught some 45 yellowfin tuna betweeen 30 and 80lb. We tried to get bait out for swordfish, but everything going in the water was eaten by the tuna. Apart from the yellowfin there are good numbers of skipjack around. Conditions are looking good and we hope to see some good fishing during the next 4 weeks

Final Report of this Summer  2003
All the boats have now been prepared to stay in Ascension from May to October without fishing. There is still fish in Ascension and it seems that we have a year around season for Blue Marlin. At the moment Blues have been caught every month except May, July, August and September, probably because nobody has fished those months. We are planning to start fishing again in November.
What we have seen between November 2002 and April 2003 was very promising. Blue Marlin fishing was good every month but November, December and January have produced the biggest fish. The marlin during that time had an average weight of around 600 lb. 3 grander of 1337lb, 1145lb and 1095lb were weighed, another 3 were released and 3 or 4 more were lost. In February , March and April more Marlin showed up and the boats had an average of 2 to 3 strikes a day. The average seize during these month went down, most of them being in the 200 to 400lb range with some nice fish in between. Sailfish were also caught every month with peak numbers in April.
The fishing from the anchored boat produced consistent catches all through. Yellowfintuna up to 150lb, Oilfish averaging 60lb and Sixgill Sharks of 1000lb + are the norm during a night. Swordfish season seems to be more in October and November, when the water is cooler ( 75 degrees ) , but we also caught some Broadbills in February and March.
The conditions were very good throughout the whole time I was down in Ascension. There was always plenty of bait, Skipjack, school seize Yellowfin and plenty of flying fish. Only very few days produced slow fishing without a Blue Marlin to be seen. That was very positive because not one angler left without having caught a Blue Marlin

3rd. April 2003
Fishing stays consistant with an average of 2 to 3 bites of blue marlin a day. Geoffry Iacobucci and his wife Maria caught 4 blues in 4 days of marlin fishing on Andromeda. Our second night of drifting brought our second swordfish of 70 lb. We had a second bite but lost the fish. In the last few days bigger fish seem to show up. On wednesday, 2nd April, our anglers from England David West, Richard and Peter started their fishing trip by pulling the hook on a 600+ and catching one of 300lb. On that same day Harmattan lost one of 800+ and saw another one of similar size. Roddy hays had 3 fish of 1000 lb up the previous day, one of them he called "the biggest blue he has ever seen". Today we missed one around 400 lb on bait and witch and managed to get our pitch bait in a 600lb blue, which Richard caught on 50lb test stand up after a tremendous fight

20th. March  2003
The fishing stays pretty much consistent with 2 bites a day. Andromeda fished with Jan, Gerald and Hans from Holland and they left happy with 4 blue marlin 2 sailfish a 1000 lb six gill and a 350 lb tresher shark on the list of their captures. The group spent half of their trip light tackle and night fishing. Night fishing shows very consistent results on oilfish averaging 70 lb and six gill of 800 to 1500 lb. Andromeda spent 5 nights (4 hours each night ) for six gills and caught 3 out of 8 of 800,1000+, 1000+.

The chance to catch a 1000 lb six gill is around 50% on a night trip

11th. March  2003
Action continious with average 2 raised blue marlin per day and boat. Andromeda went 3 for 7 (250,250,550) and had 2 sailfish. God's Favor had good days and Shy went 3 for 6 on the 8th march

6th. March 2003
Uli Laux and his friend Gunter have just finished their 9 days fishing. Gunter, as it has already been said, managed to catch his first blue marlin ever of 450 lb practising bait and switch and Uli caught another 4 of 150, 200, 300 and 850 lb, all on 50 lb tackle practising bait and switch also. All together they raised 21 Blue marlin.The other boats had big times too. A bonus for Uli was his 100 lb swordfish which he caught on his only and first attempt during his stay

27th. Feburary 2003
The fishing turns better now. After a week of regular fishing with Don Tyson and Fred Cameron, where we caught 3 blue marlin out of 8, all boats are seeing 2 to 4 blue marlin a day. Today God´s Favor had a great day catching 4 for 8. Shy nada and we caught 2 of 200 lb and 450 lb on Andromeda. For angler Gunter from Germany, it was his first big game fishing trip and the 450 lb blue his first blue marlin ever. He was really happy, especially because he caught his fish practising bait and switch. Congratulations Gunter for a very good job

15th. February 2003
Clemens Rump and Helmut Baer from Germany had a great time fishing on Andromeda from 7th to 14th February . They caught 6 blue marlin out of 13 ( 200, 200, 300, 600, 700, 800lb).All the other boats had action too, seeing 1-2 blue Marlin a day.

28th. January  2003
Ascension has got its third big Blue marlin. After 2 grander in november and december caught by God's Favor, today dutch angler Bas Kanters managed to catch a 1095 lb blue marlin fishing on Andromeda with Capt. Matthias Henningsen and mates Zak Conde and Raiko Santana. The fish was hooked on a live skippjack and a gamakatsu circle hook. In 25 minutes the marlin was on the leader estimated at 800 lb. The fish was bleeding from the gills, nevertheless we tagged and released it. The marlin stayed on the surface putting his belly up so a rope was put around the bill and the fish was towed 15 minutes through the water in hope he comes back to life. This never happened so we boated the marlin, took some measurements and decided to weigh the fish. Scales showed 1095 lb and Ascension is going to see a celebration party tonight

23rd. January
All the boats are fishing since middle of January. The first ten days here showed us rather regular fishing. The weather is fine and there are plenty of Wahoos and sharks in the shallow water, but the Blue Marlin bite is not real hot. All the boats have seen some 8 to 10 Blues for the last ten days but the catch rate is very poor. Shy went 1 out of 8, God's Favor caught 3 fish and Andromeda 4 Blue Marlin. Apart from the Blue Marlin, Andromeda caught 2 Yellowfin Tuna of 100 and 150 pound on live Skippies and 1 Sailfish of 60 lb. Our first charter guest on Andromeda was Javier Esquivel from Gran Canaria who caught 3 Blue Marlin of 450, 500 and 700 pound, 2 yellowfin tuna of 100 and 150 lb, 1 Sailfish and a couple of Wahoos and sharks which were eating our live baits. The next anglers were first time big game anglers from Sweden and they had their first Blue Marlin of 450 lb and also a bunch of wahoos and sharks