October, 2023

10/4-16:  This was my seventh trip to Alphonse Island in the Seychelles - and it was another successful excursion.

As usual, the only maddening and discouraging part of the trip is getting to and returning from the fine island resort.  It's difficult to guestimate the actual travel hours due to the many lengthy layovers that are required both ways.  But it's likely at some point that I won't be willing to deal with that kind of pain any longer.  Suffice it to say, if you look at the dates noted above, I was only on the island from 10/7 - 10/14.

OK. Enough with the complaining.  As usual, I was able to stay in my favorite beach bungalow and do all the fishing on my own without having to use the services of any of the (yes, they are outstanding) guides who work the island.

Tides and weather were both a bit of an issue as they always have been.  The week started on a very "neapy" note and ended with a moderately "springy" bang.  As it turned out, I actually had better success during the neap tides than the other.   That was partially due to the timing of each of the highs and lows and not worth discussing further.  Wednesday's ferocious rainstorm was truly ugly.  Despite releasing a few bones that day, it was clearly the worst day of the trip.,

General comments about the resort.  The staff is still great - friendly and helpful.  Food was fine as usual too - breakfasts and lunches were great, and the single dinner I attended was well done too.  My kick about dinner is that it's later than I normally eat, so I commonly order a takeout from the kitchen and haul it back on my bike to the room to eat.  I also always pick up a few snacking provisions at the market across from the IDC flight base of operations and did so again this time.  Should have bought a couple more bottles of wine there as well, as even the low end ones at the resort are in my opinion, vastly overpriced.

How about the fishing?  It was pretty much normal although down for trevally species and a few other of the exotics that swim around the place.  Three of the bones I released were in the record book for me - all were estimated in the nine pound range and up.  I don't weigh or measure any of them, but have been guessing at their sizes for many years now and check the diameters of their eyes as a verification of their weights.  As for quantities of the overall catch (and release), I'm again guessing that I hooked and released roughly two "good" fish for every hour of casting along with several times that many of some of the 40 different odd species that I've played.

These two short videos pretty much describe the first two days of the trip which were the best catching days.  Since I was able to coarsely edit them and upload them from the island, their quality is as usual, fairly rotten.  When I get some time later, I'll do a potpourri of some of the other parts of the trip, but that's it for now.

OK - the deed is done.  Here are the balance of the clips for the trip:

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