Aardvark McLeod

I had a conversation with a client on Friday evening who had just returned from Argentina and told me a harrowing story. While fishing on one of the rivers in Southern Patagonia for sea trout he had taken off his glasses for a while and continued fishing.

While Spey casting the wind caught the line and flicked the fly up into his eye. The hook embedded itself in the lower part of the eyeball along the line of the lower eyelid. Nightmare situation, and when you are in the middle of no where,what do you do. He immediately returned to the lodge,and it just so happened that one member of the party was in fact a trauma doctor and was travelling with a mini surgical kit. He anaesthetised him and removed the hook, and apart from some evil bruising he has had no side effects. He was one of the lucky ones.

I have written this up as a reminder to all of us that it is ESSENTIAL to wear glasses when we are fishing with no exceptions. It is not worth losing one’s sight for a silly mistake which we have all committed on occasions. The gentlemen in question was incredibly lucky, and it does not matter how good a caster you are, the conditions can very easily work against you for that one second. Please make this a lesson we can all learn from.

Attaching the leader to the fly line is down to personal preference, but my favoured technique is to use a braided loop. However, it is best to make the braided loops yourself with 20 or 30lb braid, as most manufacturers don’t run the braid right back although the way through itself. These are fine for trout and small species, but they will not cut it in the salt.

You will need a spool of 30lbs or 50lbs hollow braid,normally used as braided running line. I prefer Cortland or Gudebrod if you can get it as it is less waxy. You will also need a spool of 15lbs leader, nippers, scissors, a piece of thin wire or bobbin threader, a rug makers tool and some fishing glue or Aquasure. The rug makers tool is one of the most useful tools I have ever found for this task and makes the job so simple! The small blunt hook has a moving arm on it that closes as you pull it back.

You want your loop to be about 9cm in length, so you need to cut off about 18cm from the braid. You then feed the rug makers (you can use a piece of wire for this or even heavy nylon in an emergency) up to the half way point. As you compress the braid it opens up, so the technique is to push it together, then push the tool up the centre without it splaying out.

At about half way push the tool out through the side of the braid. Take the end of the braid and insert it into the hook, then simply pull it back through itself. Hay presto, one loop. By pulling the inner braid you can adjust the size of the loop. Trim the end with a pair of scissors.

Take the end of the fly line and using the same technique feed the fly line up through the inside. Leave a centimetre or so below the loop to allow the braid to grip the fly line.

The braid needs to be locked down on to the fly line, and to accomplish this we utilise two nail knots with the 15lbs leader. I have found the fastest way to do nail knots is to wrap the leader over a loop of wire as then you can quickly pull the tag back through itself.

Move the knot you have made down to the end of the braid, and then lock it down. Use the nippers to cut the tags off nice and close, and the frayed braid at the end. Repeat the process about one centimetre below where the fly line tip is.

To finish the process fully, you can either dab a drop of fishing glue on the tip of the fly line (not all of it as it becomes rigid, or full the full monty, use Aquasure. The Aquasure is applied with a pin and smeared up and down the loop. Then pull it through a piece of paper. This removes excess and penetrates right into the braid. When dry it bonds the loop to the fly line coating, and also becomes slippery when wet.

You should put loops on both ends of your lines, and with a large loop in your backing (I use a loop made with a bimini twist for 100% knot strength) it is possible to change lines over very quickly, even in a rocking boat.

• Phil Mellor kindly put this togther as a demonstration of how to fight a trevally. With a 12# rod and 130lbs leader that we use in the Indian Ocean it is possible to really take the fight to the fish. Keep the rod low and in the opposite direction that it is swimming, always keeping the fish off balance and pump it as soon as you hook up. DO NOT move your hand any further up the blank than the fighting grip OR YOU WILL BREAK IT!
• Trevally like most other Caranx species will quite happily swim around you all day unless fought very hard. More importantly this also increases the chance of survival for the fish.

• A week ago I again found myself in the Seychelles heading out to the outer islands. After a day of meeting up at the Barbarons Hotel in Mahe, our merry band of ten fisherman and myself boarded the IDC charter flight out to Assumption Atoll. On arrival we were pleasantly surprised to find out that our vessel had been upgraded to the Sea Bird. At 300 tons and 9 en suite cabins she was extremely comfortable and a good start to the week! As we emerged from the interior of the aircraft into the blinding sunlight the Fly Castaway guides headed up by Arno Mathee were there to welcome us. After settling in on board and frantically assembling gear the party headed onto the beach for our first session. A great way to get the kit organised and the shoulders moving. Apart from Ian Hodge baiting a small lemon shark into nearly beaching itself the afternoon passed without incident.

• After my last trip in 2005 to these outer island I have been desperate to get back and explore this pristine fishery further. There is nothing that pulls quite as hard as a Giant Trevally! After eight months of preparing my kit and having in depth nerdy tackle conversations with those I would be travelling with we were finally here! This is one trip where making sure you have the right gear is absolutely necessary as the GT’s destroy anything that is not up to scratch.
• On the first day I was not disappointed. After a relatively calm crossing from Assumption Atoll to Cosmoledo we headed straight round the corner of Menai island and almost immediately Phil Mellor hooked and landed his first GT.

• As the tide was very low in the afternoon we decided to do a little teasing of the edge of the drop off around the entrance to the South West Passage. With Brian on one side and Ian on the other (it was definitely handy having a coupe of lefties with Brian and Ian!) John threw the teaser out…. As the teaser flipped along the surface it suddenly disappeared in a hole in the water as a huge GT exploded onto it. The fish continued to follow it in, but Brian unfortunately had a tangle and could not make the cast. Good thing too as when this fish turned sideways it had to be the largest GT any of us had ever seen! Pushing 160cm the fish was well over 100lbs and charged towards the boat. It was not to be.. A little later after a double hook up and we had landed Ian’s fish Brian managed to bring it along side the boat, It took both John and I to gently cradle it into the boat to carefully remove the fly, grab a quick shot and release it. What a fish! We estimated it at around the 100lb mark with a measure length of 135cm.

• Due to the large swell that was heading up from the depression in Madagascar we were limited slightly in terms of reaching the entire Atoll. The neap tide that is normally perfect for bonefish remained caught on the Atoll and became quite warm, driving the fish into deeper cleaner water. By the third day the tidal fluctuation was moving more vigorously and we bumped into a reasonable number of bonefish on the Menai Flat. After I finally hooked a real bus of about 10lbs the last loop of line jumped up around the rod but and the bone snapped me cleanly on 17lb leader…. Gutted…..
• That night Sea Bird motored over to Astove. This extraordinary Atoll has a drop of about 2km no more than 300 yards from the beach. This unique topography means that it is possible to bump into the pelagic species literally from the edge of the flat. That afternoon Ian Hodge, Phil Mellor and Brian Newton thought we would see what we could tempt in the blue water. Phil managed to hit a huge barracuda that did its best impression of a tarpon….spending some time on its tail, and while using a small pattern of teasers we raised a sailfish and also and small black marlin of about 250lbs…. all within 300 yards of the beach! Further persistence also teased up this fabulous dog toothed tuna that Phil also managed to hold on to. Poor Owen Jones had not been so lucky and his half an hour battle with a yellow fin tuna was brought abruptly to a close when something substantially larger bit it in half.. there is always a big fish in the sea!

• “The Pathfinders” (Phil and Claire Davis, Eric Roberts and Richard Meigh) in the mean time had been reeking havoc amongst the trigger fish and bonefish population along the ocean side flat. This area is particularly tricky to land fish in as there are small coral bonnets throughout and even the barest touch parts fish from fishermen. Eric managed to catch the largest Picasso trigger fish I have ever seen.

• Phil Davis however had been building up over the week to try for a large barracuda on the fly. He had even taken to wearing a flashy profile on a wire trace in the Velcro of his cap. While wandering along the beach with guide and guru Arno Mathee they found a large Barry the Cuda hunting in shallows… “Imagine hooking that ‘cuda from the shore, in 2 feet of water, on a 15 foot cast, having that fish absolutely blow up. Several fantastic tarpon like jumps and 100 yards of line out of the reel in 10 seconds. Like fighting a sailfish from shore in 3 feet of water…..”

• Mention must also be made of Claire Davis, Phil’s daughter who at the tender age of 12 has now been to Cosmoledo twice and made the rest of us feel meek. Not only is she a fantastic fisher woman, she also is tough enough to cut it with the lads. She should be praised for showing the rest of us how it is done, and may be this trip is not as tough physically as we all thought…. or something.

• In summation, I have come back from this trip feeling slightly humbled. What did I manage to catch? I caught some great GT’s, some really good sized bonefish, my first landed Moustache trigger fish…… and everything else I hooked smoked me…… I lost three GT’s which were in the 60 - 80lbs size, I lost two blue fin trevally that were mid teens or more, and a coupled of bonefish in the double figure range… oww…. When counting the cost I think we destroyed 4 or 5 rods, had a good number of lines cut, and a number of other serious tackle failures. I am going back with more bigger gear! Who is coming????

We are please to say that we are launching the Aardvark McLeod Blog. In the daily running of an International fishing company we have the opportunity to chat to clients that are at the cutting edge of the international fishing community. Combined with our own experiences and our association within the fishing industry we thought we might actually have something to say! This obviously remains to be seen…..