Sometimes things don’t work out quiet as you planned… Actually, in my experience, it rarely does, when traveling with rods and reels… My latest trip to the Mediterranean was exactly one of those trips, but in the end we toke what mother nature offered us and stroked gold!
A delayed flight, a locked apartment in the middle of the night and a speed ticket was just some of the bumps on the road our trip started with, but now we where finally here… Our 14wt rods where rigged and reels where loaded with hundreds of meters of backing… We where ready! ready to battle the mighty Bluefin tunas of the Mediterranean with our fly rods… We had done it before so we knew what waited out there for us… at least we thought!…
Finally our Guide Sam picked us up at the dock and we could start our quest for one of the biggest and fastest fish in the ocean… Earlier this morning Sam already warned us about the rough sea due to very unstable weather the day before and that we might had to go back to shore in about 4hour due to a new storm pushing in… Not exactly the news you wanna hear when you have prepared a trip, tuned your tackle and tied flies for almost a year… Earlier this year a thunderstorm shutted down an other tuna trip for me in Greece, so I really was determined to take any possible chance to make it happen this time…
The sea was rough, and both us and the boat toke some beating on our way out to the feeding grounds… Spotting the feeding tuna was difficult between the high waves and the white foam on top of them… Despite the conditions Sam spotted a splash in the distance after a while… As we got closer we where witnessing an impressive shoal of sardines pushed almost a meter above the surface by the tuna below… A massive mas of sardines just kept getting pushed out of the water while the shoal moved with a phase there where impossible to keep up with in the high sea!… There where so many sardines that the tuna never really got the bait pushed together in a ball and never really got a consistent feeding going… After following this scenery around a few hours the wind closed us down and we had to go back to shore…
The next two days the storm continued with no chance for going out…
On our 4th day on our journey the weather was finally for the better… The swells where still high but the forecast looked okay until late afternoon… After more than 4hours of searching without any signs of the tuna we realized, that due to the unusual unstable weather the tuna might where pushed fare out at sea and out of our reach… not the easiest pill to swallow, who can controle the weather!
Dorado, Mahi Mahi, Dolphinfish… Mahi Mahi means “strong, strong” in Hawaiian and even it´s a very strong and agile fighter! its strength is nothing compared to its beauty!
” Wanna try for mahi mahi?” Sam asked… 4 days into our trip without a hookup we decided to take what mother nature was offering us! or in this case what Sam was bringing us!… Few minutes later Same placed the boat close to at big buoy and immediately a Dorado jumped out of the water… I felt the adrenaline kick in when I placed the fist cast close to the buoy… Within the first few strips a group of blue, green and yellow glowing fish chased my fly down and during the first cast I had 3 strikes without any of them sticking to the hook!… “They got hard mouths! you have to hit them hard” Sam yelled… Next cast! as soon as the fly toke the water I stripped it as fast as I could and immediately felt a hit on the fly… Again the hook didn’t sticked!… A few strips later I could see 3 dorados coming for the fly! almost surfing in the waves and just in front of me smash the grey and white opossum fly!… I strip striked hard and the fish was on! It immediately jumped, with all the colors reflecting the sun in all its prime… It had been a dream for years to land one of those beauties of the sea so when Sam a few minuts later finally got the fish into the net the mood on board got euphorically!…
In the “chaos” my buddy “Fusk” broke his rod on the very first cast, so after releasing my very first Mahi Mahi back into the water I handled over my rod to him… A few cast later he was hooked up and could land his first salty gold bar too!… My farther who was fishing from back of the boat went trough all the flies in our box but the Mahi´s wouldn’t do anything but follow the flies… with both Fusk and my self tagging of the dorado of the list, we extended his leader and tied on the gray opossum fly… Few cast after his was hooked up and few minutes later Sam netted my farther very first Mahi Mahi too!…
It was great to finally get some action! and to be blessed with these beauties was hard to beat!…
Even these fish where willing to chase our flies almost each cast(as long we stripped it as fast possible) they seemed quiet picky… In the bottom of the box I found another opossum baitfish. same pattern but in light pink… I tied it on and again the line came tight within a few casts!… we now got us keyed into what they wanted and for the next 1,5hours we followed the shoal around and landed several of these beautiful fish until the weather again forced us to shore…
When hunting in the water the dorado almost glow in all possible green, blue and yellow shades!… This fish was just one out of a shoal of 8-10 chasing the fly all the way to the rod tip
5th and last day on water was a short but eventful day… Started out scouting for tuna but after 1,5hours without any feedings in sight and with the wind picking up we decided to give the Mahi Mahi a last go before we would close down the trip… Sam skillfully, as usual, found the fish again, and with the experience from yesterday we got our lines tight immediately…
We toke turns on the two rods, fighted fish, howled when we saw them follow the flies and for a while we totally forgot that our Bluefin dreams where blown away this time… I placed the fly just in front of the shoal an stripped… After two strip and the line came tight… But this time it got really tight and the line got ripped out of my hands! this was a big fish!… It went straight down and I realized that this was not a mahi mahi!… What the mahi´s have in speed and agility, was this fish having in pure strength! My RSi 9wt bended al the way down to the cork when I finally stopped the run… “Amberjack!” Sam smiled and shouted… My first worry was that my line was dangerously close to the anchor chain of the buoy and how the 30pound leader would stand up against it, not to mention the rocks on the bottom or how my size 2 hook would stand the pressure… For a while the fish and I just muscled each other in what seemed like a tie with me bring a to small stick for this beast… My adrenalin was pumping, I really love when something unexpected takes the fly!… I felt a glimpse of hope, and was starting to think that I might could battle this fish on the light gear, when suddenly the line went slack…
You never know what lurks in the deep blue!…
I felt the disappointment rush through the emptiness in my body… I handed the rod over to Fusk… I just had to sit down for brief moment and take it all in, to this day I still think of that fish!… We continued to chase the Mahi´s for another hour… Despite the disappointment of the lost giant I was still amazed by the beauty each time I got a glimpse of these magnificent creatures chasing down the fly, all lit up in green, yellow and colors!…
It must be one of the Absolut most beautiful game fish in the ocean!…
Even our goal for this adventure was one of the biggest, strongest and fastest game fish on the planet we found us self all worked up, laughing, “high five-ing” and just having a really good time with our 9wt rod bended and with jumping gold at the end of our lines…
Things rarely goes as written in the books, but if you always try to be prepared for the unexpected and keeps an open mind… Mother nature sometimes offers you some great experiences! All you have to do is reach out for them!…
If you may have any questions about bluewater flyfishing in the Mediterranean!.. Please contact me at skovby@skjernriverguiding.com
or contact Samuel Elgrishi from Roussoillon fishing
Life like baitfish flies tied of opossum and baitfish fiber fished at the end of an intermediate line on a long fluorocarbon leader really made the deference!
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Marc Skovby
In his home waters, salmon, pike and seabass are among the favorites and these are the species that responseble for most of the days countedon the water during the year...
Marc like to combine techniques, styles and experincefrom different species and fisheries into his flies which often shows out in some untraditional but effective patterns...
Marc is also a part of the Guideline ambassadur team
For Marc, being a flyfisher and flytyer is not just a titel... it´s an identity...
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