News from 2006

News from 2006

April 27th 2006
Harmattan is out of the water and everything is duely put away for the end of our season now. It will spend a few months there waiting for us to return but our good friends from Ascension Island will look after it until we return in mid January 2007. It is always exciting to think what new adventures await us next year but we will keep you informed, as we always have done, once the season starts again. Thank you all for always being there and for your interest in our fishing reports. Stay tuned for more in 2007.
Tight Lines,
Matthias Henningsen

April 16th 2006
We have just finished our season in Ascension. The last 4 days we fished with Franz, Jens and Paul. Paul came all the way from the Gold Coast in Australia. The boys wanted to do some mixed fishing, so we spent half of the time on tuna fishing. During the trolling time  Jens caught 1 Blue Marlin and Franz pulled the hook on another one. We raised also around 20 Sailfish, catching a few of them. There were plenty of tuna between 60 and 100 pound on the mooring. They were all around the boat and we hooked them on bait, jigs and poppers.I have not counted how many we caught of them.
Tight lines,
Matthias Henningsen


April 12th 2006
The last 4 days we have caught 3 Blue Marlin, 6 Sailfish and around 20 tuna up to 100 lb. A lot of small Scad has arrived on the shore. There are plenty of Tuna out on our mooring. It was the last day for our group from Denmark and they all had a great time.
Tight lines
Matthias Henningsen


April 8th 2006
The last 4 days we caught 4 Blue Marlin and 6 Sailfish. Most on the activity is right in front of Georgetown. One day we saw a lot of Sailfish, but they were very hard to tease up to the pitch bait.
Tight lines


April 4th 2006
Yesterday we fished the last day with the jiggers from Spain. Again we caught a lot of fish, including 2 Amberjacks around 60 lb, 1 Yellowfin of 60 lb and 1 Big Eye around 130 lb. Today we were back to trolling with our new anglers from Denmark. Bent caught his first Blue Marlin ever of 300 lb with 30 lb line. Later in the day we saw some tuna jumping, put one lure out and had a 235 lb Big Eye Tuna.
More coming very soon.


April 2nd 2006
At the moment we are  fishing with some Jiggers from Spain. The last 5 days we only fished for 5 hours for Blue Marlin and raised 2 Blues. The rest of the time we have spent Jigging. Our result is around 100 fish per day, mainly Black Jacks and Amberjacks but also a few tuna and wahoo. Yesterday we had around 130 fish, over 50 of them were Amberjack. Today we had the biggest catch so far, a 130 lb Big Eye Tuna on a Jig.
Tight lines,
Matthias Henningsen


March 26th 2006
Yesterday we did not fish. Today we took out an italian film team who is making a report for an italian television fishing channel. We caught 2 Blue Marlin out of 3, 1 Sailfish, 1 Yellowfin and a few jacks and dorados. Our next boys arrive on the 29th, so there are 2 days without fishing now. More coming up soon.
Tight lines,
Matthias Henningsen


March 24th 2006
The last 2 days we only raised 2 Blue Marlin and 2 Sailfish. We got 1 Blue and 1 Sail to eat the pitch bait, but jumped them off. In the evening we caught a few 60 to 80 lb tuna. A few of them were eaten by a shark. We finally saw the shark, a 700 lb tiger, when he swallowed one of our 80 pound tuna in one piece just 1 meter from our boat.
Tight lines


March 22nd 2006
Today we fished the southwest again and caught 1 Blue of 350 lb on 30 lb line. We raised another one of 600, but she did not bite the pitch bait. In the late afternoon our anglers were pushed to their limits fighting two 90 pound tuna on their long popper rods and 8000 Stellas. The fight took over half an hour and we broke the leader on the first tuna and the second was eaten by a shark after 35 minutes.


March 21st 2006
After 4 days without fishing we started yesterday again with our french and italian anglers and caught 2 Blue Marlin and raised 8 Sailfish. Today we caught 1 Blue, 2 Sails and 5 Yellowfin tuna.
Tight lines
Matthias Henningsen




March 15th 2006
During the last 4 days of fishing we ended up catching 2 Blue Marlin, 1 Sail and 1 White Marlin. We raised 6 Blues in total in those days. We also caught a few 60 to 80 pound yellowfintuna
Tight lines
Matthias Henningsen






March 9th 2006
Yesterday we fished the southwest and Englsih Bay, but never saw a fish. Today we spent all the time in the southwest and south and Lars caught his Blue Marlin of 650 lb on 50 lb stand up tackle.

March 7th 2006


Today we fished the southwest again. First we raised a small Blue but pulled the pitch bait out of his mouth. Around noon, we raised a Sailfish and 2 hours later we had a triple header of Blue Marlin between 200 and 350 pound. We pitched 2 baits to them, but jumped one off right away. The other one stayed hooked on 30 lb tackle. After 5 minutes Steve had the leader and the fish did 2 jumps near the boat. We were quite lucky on the second jump, because the Marlin landed on the transom bord of Harmattan but then slided right back to the water and not into the cockpit. A few minutes later we released this Marlin. Late afternoon we raised one more Blue, but the fish never took the pitch bait. In the evening we caught 2 yellowfins and broke the leader on a six gill.
Tight Lines
Matthias Henningsen




March 6th 2006
Today was the first day for Morten and his friends from Norway. After arriving from 15 below 0 of temperature, the guys are very happy to get some sunshine and action on the boat. We raised 4 Blues between 300 and 500 pound and caught 2. Morten and Wiggo both had their first Blue Marlin ever. They both caught their fish on stand up tackle using pitch baits. The second Marlin gave a real good fight with some spectacular jumps close to the boat. More very soon.
Tight Lines
Matthias Henningsen








March 2nd 2006


It was the first trip to Ascension for Sascha and Bjoern from Germany. We fished 2 evenings and they caught 13 tuna, most of them around 60 pounds, and each had a Six Gill around the 1000 lb mark. We spent the rest of the week Marlin fishing. We raised 10 Blues in total but only caught 2. We were fishing teasers only, so we had crash bites, pulling hooks etc, etc. However, in spite the bad hook up ratio this time, Sascha and Bjoern enjoyed fishing teasers for Marlin. It is the most exciting way to catch Blues. We will have 3 days off now and start again beginning of next week.
Tight Lines
Matthias Henningsen




February 22nd 2006
The day after their great catch, a grander of 1038lb, Josep, Jordi and Alberto caught a Blue Marlin and pulled the hooks on another. They also had one Sailfish and some more bites. The following 3 days we raised 5 Blues but pulled the hooks on 3 of them...2 only came up but did not get to the pitch bait. In 2 evenings they caught a few 60 pound yellowfintuna. Shy had a good day yesterday catching 3 Blues of 150, 600 and 900 pounds.

Ascension Grander!!! February 16th 2006
Another great day for Harmattan and its crew! It was the second day fishing for Alberto, Jordi and Josep from Barcelona. We had been trolling for just an hour in the south west when I saw a nice fish smoking in the spread. She disappeared for a second and once again showed up in the middle of the spread. Eventhough she had not yet attacked any lure at that point, she was showing a very aggresive behavior. Only a moment later the fish switched to the right rigger and everyone on bord saw an awesome bite. She missed the lure on her first try but, on the second attempt, crashed it and took off with 400 yards of line pealing off the reel. After a short while, the Blue Marlin settled down and, after 1 hour 10 minutes, with up to 60 lb of drag, the fish came very tired to the boat. After having taken a very good look at her, I thought she could make the mark so we pulled the fish in the boat. Back at the pierhead the scales showed 1038 Lb! I would like to thank our angler Josep, who did a great job, and my mates Steve and Marty. For Josep it was not only the biggest fish he has ever caught, but also his first Blue Marlin!!


February 15th 2006
Our first week of fishing ist just over. There is not much life out there but we still managed to raise 6 Blues and catch 2 of them, one of 500 and one of 600 pound. We also saw a few Sailfish and released one on one of our marlin lures. There are plenty of 40 to 80 pound tuna around and we had quite a few of those on our mooring. We also caught a 700 pound tiger shark, which is quite a rare catch on Ascension. Today our new anglers from Spain arrived for their first visit to Ascension.