Hi Mat
Well, just got back from Alphonse and difficult to describe how good the trip was. After two days resting up in Mahe (the main island of the Seychelles) after the long trip down, I met up with the rest of the group for the flight down to Alphonse. This takes around an hour as Alphonse is some 250 miles southwest of Mahe.
The group comprised eight anglers including me -- a Spanish lawyer and his wife, an American author and his wife, two South African guys, an expat Brit based in Hong Kong and me. I was paired up with John Mitchell the expat in the boats, although all rooms were single occupancy except for the married couples. So, there is no fear of having to share with someone who snores like a gorilla, or vice versa!
The guides are of various nationalities -- South African, Norwegian, American, Seychellois and are highly competent and experienced. Their boat handling is fantastic and needs to be, particularly when fishing outside the reef for milkfish. The day starts with a trip over from Alphonse the resort island, to St François where the fishing takes place. Once inside the reef the anglers are deployed from the big boat with their guides in the skiffs. The trip over takes around 30 minutes and it is a good time to put on your sunblock and make minor kit adjustments.
On the first day, John and I were teamed up with Vaughn who trains the guides and we had a trainee named Andrew, who was very good. We were very soon into the bonefish and both had fish to seven pounds by lunchtime with many specimens of around four to five pounds. There were very few juvenile fish and although we did see some, there were some real hogs of bonefish mixed in with the average size of around three pounds. We rounded off the day by species bashing over the edge of the coral and had some interesting fish -- juvenile bluefin, various snapper and spangled emperors. Indeed, even bonefishing you are quite likely to catch small bluefin, junior GT and that first day I picked up a small golden trevally, only the third that Vaughn had seen in his long involvement with the fishery.
Both John and I were keen to get stuck into the GTs and we spent much of the rest of the week chasing up GTs. We finished the week with John on two fish to my one, although we both had other hook ups and numerous sightings of fish. Of the eight anglers, and it must be said some were novices, five landed GT’s.
We had a shot at milkfish one morning when the tide was right outside the reef. The technique is to dead drift a weed fly through a school of milkfish and hopefully the two will connect. Not so in our case as we swam the fly through the school many times with no luck. Vaughn, of course, managed to hook and land a milkfish as well as catch the largest GT. The American author managed to hook up but parted company with the milkfish after 15 minutes, a kilometre from where he started.
There’s lots of fishing although more than the maximum of 10 anglers would cause a problem. The species diversity gladdens my heart as I find bone fishing great the first 2-3 days but I yearn something different after that. You can certainly find that at Alfonse. In the evenings you can fish right outside your chalet and depending on the tide you can reasonably hope for five or six bonefish and 10 or 12 fish of different species in the hour or so before dinner.
The accommodation and food is at the luxury end of the spectrum. Although it can cater for up to 90 guests the resort is only being used at the moment for anglers and this of course is to our benefit. There is a well equipped fishing centre where you can buy kit or tackle, or borrow equipment if you are unlucky to break a rod as I was.
It’s about the only destination in the Seychelles currently operating and compared to other visits to the Seychelles I have undertaken, the fishing has been of higher quality with a greater range of species -- I had never till this trip fished for milkfish. It’s on my radar for a return trip next year maybe coupled with a trip down to Cosmoledo.
Regards
Mike.
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