Fishing & a story about a hat

As this blog started off as a diary of Ken's fishing business it will probably come as no surprise that there is a post about fishing.  In fact fishing was the reason we first went to Gambia for holiday back in 2001.  We had been talking about taking an off the beaten track holiday and were at the Chatsworth Country Show when we found a stall promoting fishing holidays to Gambia when asked what there was to to for the non-fisherman or in this case woman the chap said birdwatching, we took the brochure away with us and had a good look through, for me this would have been the most exotic place I'd visited and I quite liked the look of it. We have since heard people say of Gambia that you either love it or hate it, as this last trip out there was our 8th you can tell which camp we fall into.

From that first trip (with a couple of exceptions) Ken has always booked his fishing trips through the same people, Mark and Tracy Longster, who are English based in Gambia, some of you may think the price of £140.00 per trip is a bit steep and indeed it probably is, however during the year we don't do much apart from the occasional visit to see Big Al - my nickname for the landlord of our village pub - so when we are on holiday we like to spend money on doing things we enjoy.

The price includes boat hire and boat man's wages, bait, and cold drinks and taxi to pick up at the hotel and drop back off after fishing,  tackle is also provided but Ken sometimes takes his own stuff - something I don't add to The List I let him sort that out himself. So an exchange of emails from here to Gambia and the first trip was booked for the Wednesday after our arrival.  The price is for booking the boat if you have more than one person obviously you share the cost but Ken likes to be on his own, I could go if I wanted but I'm more than happy to stay by the pool reading or take a walk on the beach.

The fishing trips depart from Dentons Bridge which is not too far from our hotel, the taxi picks up at 0915,

The boat is loaded up and then off out of the creek on to the Gambia River, depending on what sort of days fishing, the first stop is usually to buy live bait which is used for catching (can't remember what species and if I ask him again he'll get stroppy!!).  Mostly the fishing is over the reef down at Bakau and the target species are captain fish, grouper, snapper, but as any fishermen reading this will testify 'fishing' and 'catching' are two very different words ! The following pictures were all taken during one of our many holidays I'll identify which are from the current trip,

this was from our most recent trip,

The first time back in 2001 the captain of the boat was a very nice man called Famara ( not to be confused with our bird guide who is also Famara) he then left Mark's employ and was not seen for several years as he was doing his own thing so it was a pleasant surprise that he was back skippering this year 

Famara and a fish -this looks like it was in the creeks so I think it will be a  barracuda  will edit once The Expert has confirmed !

Theoretically the fish that is caught belongs to the person who paid for the boat however 99% of the time Ken always gives the fish to the boat skipper, they can then sell them in the fish market, or sometimes the people at Dentons bridge buy them, there have been a couple of times when we have taken one or two of the fish - always making sure the boat skipper has the best - we have then taken them to a beach bar and had them cooked for us - from sea to plate in a couple of hours !

Usually the fishing is out on the reef and it can be a bit 'uppy and downy' with the swell and a bit chilly with the wind even in Gambia so as I said I don't go however I do like to go up the creek on one of the pirogues so last time (2011) we booked for that 

picture from BoatDesign.net

This is the sort of boats I like, they have cushions and seats and shelter from the sun and they go slowly !

I caught a fish !

so did he, but it was a bit too strenuous for some in fact I don't think the other chap woke up the whole time we were out - he still shared the end of day tip tho!

But real men like BIG fish ! 

Ken, Ninja (no not his real name) and a PROPER fish ! - snapper I think (again I'll check with The Oracle) from our 2011 trip.

another big one, captain fish and Buba Gambia's most punctual taxi driver, again from 2011

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post the fishing trips depart from a place called Dentons Bridge, 

picture from Flikr 

There are a lot of sellers here selling anything from 'silver' jewellery to wooden carvings, I usually end up buying necklaces - stone ones not 'silver' However one time I made a very expensive purchase - it was our second trip, we arrived at Dentons Bridge to go fishing - this was back in the day when I used to go too, I didn't have a sun hat and they are 100% a necessity - prevent sun stroke etc, so I ran into the first hut selling hats and emerged a couple of minutes later with a rather fetching straw hat, we jumped onto the fishing boat and off we went. A while later Ken commented on my hat and asked me how much I'd paid for it, it was the equivalent of £10.00 Ken and the boat man nearly fainted - that is probably more than the seller makes in a week, I had paid the first price he had asked for and not done the 'proper' thing of haggling him down to at least half of the first price.  At the end of our holiday I carefully packed The Hat in to my suitcase and unpacked it when I got home, The Hat was one of the first things to go back in the case for our next trip. I arrived at Dentons Bridge the following holiday proudly wearing my hat and heard a voice booming from one of huts :

 "I recognise that hat" 

 it was the seller I had bought it from the previous year! however I think I get the last laugh, I still  have The Hat and it has accompanied me on each trip since, so working out that it cost £10.00 and we've done 6 more trips since I think I got my monies worth ! ! 

a bit like this one but without the ribbon - picture from Orvis, 

A helping hand

Sometime last year I saw an ad in on one of the fishing trade sites asking for skippers of under 10mt inshore fishing boats to take part in a survey for CEFAS (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science - doesn't exactly trip of the tongue does it !! hence CEFAS) the best part of the survey is that a fee is paid - as they say every little helps ! It mainly involves listing where the boat was fishing what they caught etc  the returns are submitted to CEFAS and then paid a fixed sum per submission.  Occasionally members of the CEFAS staff like to come out on the boat with the fisherman. Below is Sam & her colleague Gary.

The fish is a common Ray, not allowed to land this species, it was alive so went back to swim free !

Now, own up, who out there when watching nature programmes featuring seals immediately goes "aaahhhh cute" ? yes me too, however the following picture shows the utter devastation they cause.

These are (were) monkfish, the seals get into the fishing nets and eat the monkfish tails leaving the unsaleable heads, as you can see there are 6 monks the tails of which can fetch up to £10/kg each and each tail is about 3kg - you can do the maths it makes one heck of a dent in the accounts! Once fed the seals swim off to rest before finding another net to feed on.

From SimonPW3 skipper of fishing boat Sparkling Line - another Cornish fishing boat via Twitter

"1trip alone we have lost 600 monkfish to seals” ouch, that's about £15k worth"

I usually get text messages when the boat is landing back in port to let me know all is safe, usually the text are just "landed" etc but sometimes it's "I've been Gweek'ed" which means the seals have won and the Gweek reference to the Seal Sanctuary at the nearby village of Gweek.


This weeks fishing has mainly been mackerel. Can you name the one that's not mackerel?

and do you know what is unusual about it? - answers at the bottom !

Typically the best mackerels were caught on Friday and there is no market now till Tuesday because of the Bank Holiday weekend - our friend Eric had a couple but mainly they will be used for baiting the lobster pots - there hasn't been much success in that line either so far - the sea is still far too cold - where the heck is this global warming when you need it ? !

This was a nice bonus it is a Brill also known as Poor Man's Turbot - very nice, I like this fish, and readers may like to be reassured that the hat and sweatshirt are now in the washing machine !

In case you were thinking that Skipper had gone all techy and managed to set the timer on the camera Jim a.k.a. Dolphin Man and Free Labour was on board on as well and he took the photo.


Back to that fish - it is a Garfish and what's unusual about it is that it has green bones - yes honestly GREEN ! not one that I'd eat.

"no more fish thanks I'm full"

Bye for now from me and the seals !