+++ news +++ news +++ news +++ news +++ news +++

* September 29th: Hello everybody,
as I will have our last charters for this year very soon,
 captain Jose is already back in Spain, captain 
Simon is just gone too, and I will be off for some hunting in mid 
october, I was thinking about to write a short report about this years 
fishing in march. Not that the fishing is over by now, several thunas up
 to 90 kg and some marlin were caught theses days, so not too bad fishing !

As here are many more boats fishing now, some boats started fishing
 in february/march already and ended up with really excellent results. 
Over the last 3 years fishing in march was several times 
better than it was in may! Even the wind was not that bad with 
plenty of calm days!
Therefore I decided not to start fishing as usual in april, 
we will start 2012 in march! 

To make it evenmore tasty to you, we will give you special prices 
and remember it's a great time to come over here 
as the wheather in europe will still be freezing cold and rainy
and here it's warm and like summer already!
 A good time to take a break after a cold winter and travel over here and 
catch some marlin.
There will be several flights direct to Sao Vicente, 
from Lisbon, from Paris, from Amsterdam aso...
For flights via Sal International Airport (SID) I will, as usual, 
make your reservations for the connecting flights to Sao Vicente. 
As well as I will make the reservations for your prefered hotel or pension.
If you are interested in fishing the best blue marlin spot in the world 
somewhat more early the year, just write me an e-mail.
Thanks for everybody fishing with us this year 
and tight lines,

Berno, Simon & Jose

* June 28th: New Video on Youtube made by Captain José:




* June 2nd: Hello everybody,
first of all the fishing was fantastic again
 from february on. up to ten blues were caught while the best fishing 
happened to be at San Nicolao's south bank. Beginning of may we had a 
few days a little slack in the numbers of fish but some quite big ones 
were caught with up to 900 lbs. 
A few days ago even several yellowfin thunas were caught and the 
odd wahoos are around in good numbers to make the lurebuilders happy ...
HAPPY HOOKER 2 was on the dry dock for 3 month and completely overhauled, 
She looks quite good now as we put a lot of money and effort into the job!

Our customer MARTIN FUCHS from germany went out yesterday 
to catch his first marlin ever. 
He and his friend are booked on HAPPY HOOKER for 5 days fishing 
with Capt. JOSÉ,
 who is on the helm since april. After catching a Wahoo early they had another 
bite in shallow water, which was that marlin. 
Only less than 5 minutes after hookup the fish came alongside 
the boat and was leadered by TUTU. 
Now they saw the size of that fish very well and decided to bring it in as a 1000 lbs +. 
But the gaffs were (luckily) not prepered ...
Having that fish on the leader and at the surface of HAPPY HOOKER's cockpit, 
TUTU gave the leader to KAPAI, jumped inside the boat 
and came back with the flying gaff. 
That fish was still easy to hold as it was completely calm 
and relaxed swimming with the boat !!! 
Just that moment the gaff was ready to put it in its shoulder, it must have 
decided that something was wrong and exploded to get away from the boat !! 
Only now she was starting to fight and it took the angler another ~ 2 1/2 hours to 
get the fish back to the leader !
Imagine what would have happened if they would have stucked the gaff 
in its shoulder after a few minutes without the fish having done nothing so far !!!!! 
Anyhow, the fish weighted in at 483 kg or 1065 lbs. 
That is already the 9th grander caught on HAPPY HOOKER in the 
past 14 years here in cape verde, 
which prooves her to be the boat with probably 
the most grander blues caught in the atlantic and pacific!
Big congratulations to Capt. JOSÉ, our local crew TUTU and KAPAI, 
the angler MARTIN FUCHS and of course to good old HAPPY HOOKER !!!!!
The lure, BIG SMOKER, they caught the blue on is from Stephan Kreupl and Robert Rein,
 please check here:
www.bluewaterfishing.eu

Tight lines to all,
Berno

*August 11th: Official Report from Mike Leech from Bluemarlinworldcup.com:

1097 POUND MARLIN TAKES WORLD CUP
For the third time in the 26 year history of the World Cup Blue Marlin Championship 
(World Cup), a grander marlin won the event. In the unique World Cup, only 1 team 
wins the prize. There is no second place in the 1 day world wide tournament which
takes place on the fourth of July annually.
The winning team fishing aboard the Happy Hooker in the Cape Verde Islands 
consisted of Captain Berno Niebuhr from Germany and angler Chris Brand from 
Portugal. It is the first time in the history of the World Cup that a team 
has scored a repeat victory. Niebuhr and Brand also won the event in 
2006 with an 850 lb blue marlin.
Also aboard for the epic catch were gaff man Amilton Gomez Barros,
wire man Antonio Da Cruz Gomez and Vincent Cox who video taped the catch. 

There were 149 teams fishing in 17 locations around the globe. Each team 
fishes from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM in their time zone. Fishing starts on the 
far side of the dateline in Vanuatu and New Guinea and concludes in 
Hawaii and French Polynesia.
Since the heaviest blue marlin over 500 lb wins, as soon as a fish 
is weighed in, the information is spread to the rest of the teams 
so they will know what they have to beat and smaller fish can be released.
The number of teams set a World Cup record for participation 
and generated prize money of well over $350,000. there was a separate
pool called the Big Blue Challenge with 34 teams entered. 
None of those teams caught a 500 lb marlin, so an additional $130,000 
plus will be returned in accordance with World Cup rules.
Three other marlin were landed prior to the Happy Hooker 
calling in the weight of their fish. A team fishing on La Onda Emma 
with captain Wolfgang Maier, also fishing in the Cape Verde Islands, 
landed a 511 lb blue. In the Canary Islands, Hedonist, with captain 
Manuel Ramirez boated a 600 lb marlin, and in Madeira, off the coast 
of Portugal, the team aboard Audaz brought  a 546 lb  marlin to the scales. 
Unfortunately none of these teams were entered in the Big Blue Challenge.

Fishing hot spots Bermuda and Kona, Hawaii were uncharacteristically 
slow on July 4. Each location had produced 6 World Cup winners 
over past years. This year, 49 World Cup teams in Bermuda failed 
to catch a fish over 500 lbs although a few smaller marlin were released. 
In Kona, not a single blue marlin was caught by the 44 boat fleet. Madeira,
with 14 teams entered also reported slower than usual fishing. Three World Cup 
winners have come from Madeira in the past.

The only other 2 World Cup winners over 1000 lb came from Bermuda. 
They were an 1189 lb blue caught by Martin Estis aboard Tripleplay in 
2004 and Don Hunt's 1195 lb winner on Challenger in 1993.

For the first time, World Cup hookup by hookup action
was posted on Facebook and Twitter which produced 
a large following around the world. The real time leading catch, 
sponsored by Black Bart Lures, was also posted on the 
World Cup web site, www.bluemarlinworldcup.com.

* July 5th: Berno did it again!!!!!!
For the second time since 2006 Captain Berno won the Blue Marlin Worldcup:

Hey, thanks so much everybody !!! Vielen Dank an alle !!!
That have been very scary hours for us with of course tons of beers and 
everybody involved in fishing here around us to wait until the final 
minute when boats at hawaii stopped fishing !!
Guess chris and me wrote history, hard to beat! Nobody ever done it 
before in 26 years of 4th july world championship to win twice with the 
same team and same boat.

Thanks old "HAPPY HOOKER" !!
And let me send a big THANKS to my
 local crew; TONI, my old boy who stays with us for 12 years as mate 
allready and TUTU, who worked with me first time this year. both have 
done a more than perfect job yesterday! TONI never dropped the leader, 
even when that fish jumped, all on video! And TUTU setting the gaffs as
 a professional!! It could not have been better done, both are 
worldclass crew !!!!!

* May 23th: Well, marlin were and are still around, but
funny to watch how the luck goes around. Nowadays there are an average
of 8 to 10 boats fishing the same area and some boats catching up to 8
blues a day and some don't even see one! Anyhow, we had to cancel two
days due to extremely strong winds and bad sea conditions, but over all
the wheather has been fantastic until now. The big run of marlin so far
has been somewhat slow compared to the last three years in may, but
still everybody caught some nice fish, so nobody can blame. And again
the last two fullmoons produced fantastic fishing, and I really
wondered why nobody claimed the "bad" fullmoon fishing ??????!!!!!
Additionally 3 thunas were caught allready and Simon and me caught 4 or 5 dorados
for some sashimi and excellent dinner. Also spearfish and some good
size wahoos over 20 kg were caught. Biggest blue marlin so far were
called ~850 lbs. Plenty of double, triple and quadriple headers were
hooked!
If you still want to go jigging for the big amberjacks, we have some dates 
free in august and september for lower prices.

Hi everybody,
 it took me a long time, but now I decided to sell
 one boat of the HAPPY HOOKER FISHING TEAM, the HAPPY HOOKER, 
the 33foot bertram. after 13 years of successful fishing in the worlds best
 destination for atl. Blue Marlin, on that boat the most granders ever
 were caught here, a total of 7 so far! Three times won the title
 "Captain Of The Year" for most releases worldwide and won the "4th of
 july blue marlin world championship", the HAPPY HOOKER is for sale now.
 If you are seriously interested to buy that boat, please send me a mail to

 marlinberno@capeverde-fishing.com

I have a fix price for the boat, no bargain! Already booked 21 days
fishing for next year, so catch the boat now or I will take her out
next year again.

Berno 

* April 26th: 



* April 24th: Fishing was just great since beginning of april
with unusal calm seas for this month! 
Okay, some days have been quite and it was hard to find a blue, 
but all over we had some great  marlin fishing. 
I decided to go to San Nicolao for a three days trip as some
boats have seen up to 10 blues a day there! 
On arrival first day we only fished for another 1 1/2 hours and had one strike
 but no hook up that late afternoon. Another boat caught 6 out of 11 that day. Next day
we ended up like 2 for 7, around 300 to 350 lbs and the day after there
were no more fish on the bank so we decided to go back to Sao Vicente
as Simon didn't see that many fish but caught daily quite better sizes
over 400 lbs.

On the way we caught one in the deep of 400 lbs and another one at San Pedro bank.

Next days we had new clients from Germany and that 5 days fishing we ended up 4 for 6. 

One 350, a 550, a 600 and a 650 lbs, 

most all on bonze lures. Simon just caught the biggest blue so far this year, he called 

it carefully 750, but crew and clients called that one 800 lbs.

* April 5th: Fishing was excellent the last weeks with boats
catching up to 5 blues a day! The last week was going a little slower,
the water turned green and strong winds don't make it easy these days,
but I guess that will change soon.

HAPPY HOOKER 1 was all renewed in the saloon 
and looks great by now, hope that will pay out and I hope
to find another old lady over 1000 lbs again this year ?????? 

( Would be nr. 8 since I fish the cape verde waters )

Capt. Bonze will not be back for this season, so I will take control of HH1 again.

tight lines,

+ 

* February 3rd: 
+++ 2010 Season started !!!!! +++ All boats are reporting good catches of 3 and more a day! 
+++ Perfect weather conditions. +++ Almost no wind. +++ very calm sea. +++ 

* January 1st: 01.01.2010  A HAPPY NEW YEAR to all ! 
We had the next reason to party as we were just informed by 
“The BILLFISH FOUNDATION“ that CAPT. BONZE won his second Title for
“Captain of the year 2009 in the Atlantic“ for most ATl. Blue Marlin releases !!! 
Our Compliments and well done Bonze !

The other good news are that finally the international airport of Sao Vicente was officially opened on 22. 12. just before X-mas !
So far there are no international flights directly to us from europe,

but that should change within 2 to 3 month. We will keep you informed as soon as we have more news about that.

Only one boat went out two weeks ago, caught one blue, pulled hooks on another one and saw 2 more.

The thunas were here end of october in good numbers and the pros had smiles on their faces as the could make some money. 

The fishmarket was loaded with thunas in the 50 to 80 kg size.

* June 4th: The fishing during april until now was full of highs and some downs between. 
Capt. Bonze had one day when he caught 10 blues again! 
As well as Capt. Simons best day was 6 releases so far 
and he managed to catch allready 2 triple-headers!
Even when we've seen some days without flags on the riggers, 
the fishing is consistently good. 
So far there are allmost no thunas caught this year, 
but we all hope that that will change soon.

There are also some new pics on our photo-page, 
check out.



* April 6th: The HAPPY HOOKER FISHING TEAM is complete by now, 
CAPTAIN BONZE is also back and ready to go for the 2009 season.
 He braught hundreds of his lures and his new models look very promising !
The fishing is HOT by now; all boats are catching blues 
and some good sizes with them up to 800 lbs ! 
Even the hoo's are around in good numbers.
We still have some days FREE in june, 
one of the hottest period for marlin, 
so don't think too long and ask for possibilities !

* February 3rd: Hello everybody,
I'm more than proud to inform you about the next 
TBF captain-trophy winner for most tagged and released atlantic Blue Marlin in 2008:
CAPTAIN BONZE, fishing on HAPPY HOOKER 1 !!!!
He is the third of the "HAPPY HOOKER FISHING TEAM" 
after Captain Simon and myself, to win that trophy !! 
Our very best congratulations to him !

Here is what the TBF sent him a day ago:


Captain Fleet- 
I am pleased to inform you that you are the top tagging captain for Atlantic blue marlin for 2008. 
Attached is a letter of congratulations with information about our awards ceremony
 which will take place on February 12 at the Miami Boat Show. 
 In recognition of your achievement, we would like to provide you 
with an award. If you can attend the event or cover the cost of shipping, we will provide 
you with a trophy manufactured by King Sailfish Mounts, otherwise we can ship you
 a certificate for your display. To be eligible for an award, TBF membership is required. 
 Membership levels start at $25 per year. Please feel free to contact me 
should you have any questions or considerations.

Regards,
 
Elliott Stark
Science and Policy Specialist
PO Box 8787
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33310-8787
 

*January 16th: Hello everybody, a Happy New Year and plenty of fish for this year !
After a very successful marlin-catching year 2008, with catches up to ten blues 
a day per boat, we are looking foreward for the comming season 2009.
Still working on both HOOKER'S, repaintings, overhauls and maintainces, 
we are quite busy these days. 
Capt. Simon and capt. Bonze will be back again very soon to take you out 
to catch your fish(es), both have caught far over 100 blues last year and are allready hot 
to see what this year will bring us !
Due that the fuel prices didn't go down here, we had to raise prices, 
but that shouldn't worry you. For that we will offer SPECIAL CHARTER RATES for 
speed-jigging for august and september with capt. Simon, who showed everybody 
the last two years that we don't have only marlin to catch. The biggest amberjacks 
were caught wheighting in at ~ 50 kg, and some better ones lost 
after long and hard fights....... So when will he come back with one of 80 kg ? 
As we have seen them allready beeing caught by pros here ?
We still have some weeks for charter in the hot period, 
so don't think that long and book now to make sure you won't miss the hot bite!


*July 23th: Marlin fishing was a bit slow the last week / 10 days, with only few fish seen 
and caught, and no more thunas either, but the sailfish are already here
 and three were caught so far trawling for Marlin. 
As everybody here is completely spoiled seeing that many marlin, I just want to mention; 
I would call that fair or normal blue marlin fishing anywhere else in the world ! 
So Capt. Simon tried something else in calm seas, he went speed-jigging
 with his italian group and they had some fantastic days; 
they caught plenty of Amberjacks, biggest so far 36 kg but lost some bigger 
fish due to they don't fish stronger lines. So we will work on that ! 
Additionally they caught Horse-Eye-Jacks up to 12 kg, Black-Jacks up to 15 kg, 
Grouper up to 10 kg, Wahoos and some smaller size bottom fish! Anyhow, all very hard fighting fish !

Anybody interested in exploring more jigging ? 
We still have two weeks free in august, in calm waters, 
from 16th to 31st of august. Send me a mail and i will give you a special price for that time.

tight lines, 

berno

*June 21th: Fishing is a liitle bit slower the last days compared to the number of marlin 
being caught the past weeks, but some big blues between 750 and 900 lbs were caught. 
Capt. Bonze caught another yellowfin thuna of 130 lbs which made an excellent sashimi for us. 

*June 9th: Yesterday Simon came back to Marina Mindelo with 3 marlin and one wahoo 
flag flying. Bonze caught 2 blues and a 50 kg yellowfin thuna. 
Still lots of marlin around and thunas been seen hunting the surface.

*June 5th: Fishing is still HOT HOT HOT!!! Boats having
up to 10+ marlin bites a day with always some fish over 600 lbs up to
900 lbs with them! Capt. Simon caught the first white marlin the other
day for this year. Capt. Bonze is close to 100 caught Blues, only 3
missing! And this morning he caught allready 2 in just two hours
fishing ...

*May 13th: Boats still raising up to 12+ blues a day in the south of Sao Vicente. 
The first two grander size blues were lost already, one on the leader and another one 
died and dove deep before the line broke. 
The fishing is still absolutely unbelievable fantastic 
with boats flying several T-flags every day. 
Yesterday was another of those mad days here, the fleet fishing 
with 7 boats caught a total of 42 blues up to 600 lbs !!!!! 
Simon on HAPPY HOOKER 2 scored 8 for 12 all on stand up !
Bonze had a triple on and caught them all!! Finally he caught 10 for 12 !!!





*April 25th: The strong winds the last days are back down to normal, 
the sea is dark clean blue and boats raising up to 11 blues a day
 in the south of Sao Vicente. 
Simon caught one of 600 lbs yesterday just outside Mindelo harbour
 and pulled the hooks on another 2.
 Today he caught 3 for 4, one of 450 lbs and two smaller ones.
 Bonze had a triple on and caught 2 of them. 
A total of 4 strikes he ended up with 3 caught: 
one of 750 lbs, one of 500 lbs and the third of 250 lbs.

*April 18th: Last weeks fishing the fleet had good action out there 
and caught marlin up to 800 lbs ! 
Capt. bonze had a rare catch for cape verde apart from marlin; 
he caught a 113 kg BIG-EYE THUNA on one of his lures !


Last three days the fishing was slow, maybe due to the very strong winds, 
for two days all boats came back early as it was impossible to keep on fishing in those sea conditions. 
And captain simon is back, so the crew is complete again. 
We still have some weeks free in july, august and september ....

*April 9th: When CAPT. BONZE with his two dutch clients came 
back to Mindelo harbour yesterday afternoon,
 the outrigger was bent by all the flags! 
He ended up with 2 Blues of 220 lbs & 330 lbs released and caught one Wahoo. 
But the most interesting was the 4th catch: a in Cape Verde rare 113 kg BIG EYE THUNA !! 
All fish caught on his own "BONZE" lures. This lures work pretty well 
and lots of fish were caught already here on them!

*April 8th: Hi, due to the water around Sao Nicolao 
turned into a dirty green, the fishing turned into slow for the whole 
fleet fishing there after some really fantastic days too. I've made a 
round on HAPPY HOOKER 2 on saturday here out of Sao Vicente and 
tried the north first: Blue water, little wind and baitfish, 
but couldn't find a blue, so I decided to go down to the south
 and have a look there. Same conditions, blue water, baitfish, 
skippies and birds, but the only small fish was raised was by Zak coming 
back from Sao Nicolao that afternoon.
Less Ferdy and Bonze, the fleet came back on saturday and when they headed out to
 Sao Vicente's south on sunday, the blues were back! 
Zak went 4 for 5 on blues and caught a spearfish too, Calu went 1 for 3. So Ferdy 
and Bonze came back as quick as possible and yesterday every boat caught 
at least one blue. 
Today only Ferdy and Bonze are fishing and I could talk 
to Bonze on HAPPY HOOKER 1 early before I went home 
and he was allready 1 for 1, and that was around 10.30 o'clock !
tight lines,
Berno

*March 31th: We are looking for a fishing partner to share 
charter with one client, 
who's two partners canceled the fishing trip 
on HAPPY HOOKER 1 from 25th to 31th of april.
 If you are interested, please contact me for further details.
If you want to fish the week alone or with your friends, 
and without the one client,
he would give the boat to you without sharing with him. 
Also we wish to Chris, the 4th of july winner 2006, 
all the best and hope he will recover from his car 
accident very soon ! 
Also his booked week is free now from 14th to 18th of april.
Both weeks are the last ones now free until july, 
so take your chance, the blues are already here and waiting for you !!!


*February 23th: Ooops, Simon did it again ...
We are very happy and proud to tell everybody,
 that Captain Simon Bracey became again 
AFTCO Captain of the Year!
It is the second time for him already after 2005. 
The absolutely perfect season in 2007 finally ended with this wonderful trophy.
"Let's go for 2008!"

*January 24th: Hello everybody, 
and we wish you all a successful fishing and catching year 2008.
After stopping our brilliant season in 2007 there will be some changes for you:
Captain berno will handle the jobs of the company regarding the management 
and all around it as I've done it in the past 11 years, but I will not be out fishing as a captain. 
I am more than happy that I found another very skilled captain who will take over the helm of the 
HAPPY HOOKER 1. 
CAPT. SIMON will run the HAPPY HOOKER 2 as usual.

I am very pleased to introduce you our new captain, comming to cape verde all the way from 
new zealand: Captain BONZE grew up in the Bay of Islands of New Zealand and has been fishing 
since he can remember. He started crewing on the local charter boats part time when he was 
at school and this lead him to become a full time crewman and captain when he left school. 
He has been lucky enough in the last 4 years to fish as a crewman in Kona Hawaii for the 
summer season learning from some of the best captains around then returning to New Zealand 
where he has been able to use these new skills as a captain himself. All the time while he has 
been crewing and captaining he created a successful lure brand in New Zealand that has become
 one of the most recognised in the country. http://www.bonzelures.com/
He is now looking forward to furthering his career in other parts of the world, 
so we welcome him to take over the HAPPY HOOKER 1 as "her" Captain 
and wish him a very successful season 2008 in the rich waters of cape verde. 

tight lines to all of you,
yours sincerely,
capt. berno


*June 23th: The blue marlin fishing for tis year was the best we have ever seen 
in the last 10 years and it is still going on. 
Boats reporting 30+ strikes a day 
with plenty of catches up to 14 blues a day ! 
Quite a lot of good size fish 
with 750 lbs + between the average size fish as usual. 
Since last week we 
additionally catch yellowfin-thunas now, which makes a good sashimi ! 
So far there are 4 boats registered for the 4th of july blue marlin worldcup 
to fish the cape verdes ... cross your fingers !! 
We still have some free weeks for fishing the calm waters in august, 
ask me and i might give you a good price just to keep the boats busy. 

tight lines, 
berno

*April 11th: I was out today first day and fished the south of sao vicente, 
tons of baitfish everywhere, 
birds-action all over and some blues were also around. unfortunately i went 0 for 3, 
but chre tcheu made it 2 for 5. That are the bad news..............but now: 
capt. simon on happy hooker II left this morning on his way with 4th of july winning 
angler chris and his friends to sao nicolao were bebiche caught 10 blues out of 22 bites 
in a half days fishing yesterday. on his way down there he caught a small y-fin thuna 
and when i called him late afternoon at tarafal harbour / sao nicolao 
he had 6 blue marlin release flags and a thuna flag bending his outrigger ! 
he reported 9 bites and all good size to big fish again, 400 lbs to 800 lbs ! 
after talking to simon, i called ferdy on bebiche, and they broke the record 
on that boat catching an amasing 14 blues out of 29 or 30 bites !!!!!! *

*April 7th: Fishing the last days was quite good with the smallest blue 
caught & released estimated at 350 lbs, and the biggest 
that unfortunately pulled the hooks was estimated around 800 lbs. 
The other fishes capt. simon released he called them  450, 550, 550 and 700 lbs ! 
additionally he caught some Wahoos up to 65 lbs. 
Quite some good sized fish for the beginning of this season. 
Still we have some weeks free for charter in may and june; should be hot that time ! 
And we are looking for one angler to share the "HAPPY HOOKER I"
in the week from may 25th to may 29th. If you are interested, send me a quick note to 
marlinberno@capeverde-fishing.com 

tight lines, 
berno 

Sept. 25th: hi everybody,
yep, i had a really lucky year so far, but still have another two days fishing from tomorrow on 
and than i will be off to germany for 2 month or so. i was studying since january for to make 
my hunting license and will be in a hunting school for the next three weeks.
........hope i can make it !!

ok, here is what happened last sunday:
**1241 lbs or 563 kg atl. Blue marlin catch of cape verde / sao vicente on 24th September,
*lengh over all, (the tip of its bill was broken in earlier years), 458 cm,*
*short length was 378 cm,*
*girth was 220 cm.*
*Angler: BARRY SILLEMAN
Capt:: BERNO NIEBUHR
Boat: HAPPY HOOKER
**
*We had 4 dutch clients on the boat, all were 65 years or older, so the first angler sat 
down in the chair, but gave up 15 minutes later and his friend, BARRY SILLEMAN, 
took over. he runs a gym and made a really good job on this fish ! we were 
fishing lures on 80 pounds rod and reels spooled with 130 lbs line for some extra safety 
which payed out on this fish again. please don't ask me, what made the lure was; 
I DON'T KNOW, i have not even seen that damned lure ! 
i only know it was a big resin head, pink coloured. one of my deckies got that thing from 
somebody the day before and rigged it up and put it out in the spread without showing me 
what he braught to the boat !! guess he was afraid i would have said ;NO !!, 
that bloody ugly old thing i don' want to see in my spread, i want to catch fish and not 
scare them !! anyhow, we cut the lure off after we had 
gaffed the marlin and tied her up alongside the boat, so nobody will ever know
.................but finally that "pink thing" did its work!
*When I first saw that blue under the boat two hours after hook-up, we had almost the 
double line knot up, I told my boys to prepare the flying gaffs, 
I was sure that fish was much better than a 1000……….*
remeber i only braught 3 grander to the docks here in cape verde so far; my very first one in 
1998 a 1093 pounder, another one that died tailroped with 1024 lbs (still alive i would 
have released it as 850 to 900 lbs) and this one with 1241 lbs now. but i caught 
and released at least a handfull more, including one blue last year that was even bigger than 
this last one ! i can not count how many more we lost during the last 9 years here, due to
 most of them died and we were not able to bring them up ! 
once we faught one for allmost 5 hours and broke the 130 lbs line when the dead fish was as
 close up to the surface as approx 50 meters..................
*Still we had no chance to grab the leader, but after some more tries, 
we got hold of the leader first time and got her up to the surface. My crewman are not 
experienced in gaffing fish, as everybody knows that I tag & release almost all the 
billfish we catch. So we missed her on the first try and had to drop the leader. 
Still she was swimming just 15 meters under the boat and with the help of the anglers 
fingers giving some extra pressure on the reel, suddenly the rod broke with a loud “crack” ! 
but luckily the blue stayed connected, and the line did not brake.
we connected the “fish-extractor” to a second rod and let it down to the fish, 
which was still close and i could see her. With that rod connected to the leader 
now and the help of one of the mates on the line of the broken rod we managed to bring her up 
again but had to drop the leader again for several times.
having those big fish on the leader, even if you can not bring them up, 
just holding them and still following them backwards with the boat, 
they become really tired trying to swim away from the boat, but the pressure on them 
exhausts them. so a few tries later she showed "white" and that was what i was waiting for.
This time we set one gaff, than the second and the third, the fish was safe.
the biggest blue officially weighted in in cape verde ever so far ! and i 
guess the biggest one this year (so far) worldwide caught by rod and reel, 
even if not caught by IGFA rules.
tight lines,
berno

*July 5th: Hi everybody, 
We are happy to say that we won the "4th of July Blue Marlin Worldcup 2006" 
on the "HAPPY HOOKER I" with our angler Christopher Brand and Captain Berno Niebuhr. 
We caught the winning fish of 850 lbs ! 
Here you can find more infos about the Blue Marlin Worldchampionship, 
hold every year on the 4th of July from Australia to Hawaii: 
www.bluemarlinworldcup.com
and the story of our catch you will find here: www.legendlures.com

*May 11th: Hi everybody, 
I have a day off from fishing today and so I have a little time 
to report you about the fishing situation of cape verde. 
We fished only sao vicente the last days and the fishing was a mixture between 
slow and some good days. Several days we never could catch a marlin, 
but on other days we were lucky and caught up to 4 blues a day a boat. 
Some boats tried our neighbour island sao nicolao and 
found several days with fantastic marlin fishing; 
best day was reported with 9 (nine) blues caught out of 16 (sixteen) strikes !!!! 
Since two days we have better fishing again out of sao vicente 
with up to 4 marlin strikes a day, just called captain simon 
on his mobile phone and he reported allready 2 for 2 by midday ! 

Some good size fish are around with weights up to 300 kilo 
and even the average size is around 150 ! 

tight lines to all, 
Berno

*April 17th: sunday was one of "these" capeverdian marlin days:
three boats fishing saw a total of 23 !! blues in the spread !
BIBICHE: 3 for 7
SIMON HH2: 2 for 6 ( 600 & 450 lbs )
BERNO HH1: 2 for 10* 
*April, 13th: last week we didn't fish, but two boats caught up to 4 blues on 
the best day. friday we started fishing: last four days were quite slow for here, 
first day we had 4 marlin bites, but none stuck to the hooks, and
a fifth marlin we had up that never bite. next three days was only wahoo, 
no more marlin seen.............
today we caught one of approx. 400 lbs and released him, than we 
had a double-header on, but unfortunately one marlin jumped over the line of 
the other marlin and cut the line and even more unfortunately
the second marlin pulled the hooks.

*we went out on wednesday the 15th march for a trial 
and unfortunately we couldn't catch a marlin, but the numbers of marlin we've 
seen was just great: first to happen was a double header in the spread 
and we got a bite out of the bigger approx 500 lbs fish but pulled the 
hooks after a few jumps. the next marlin was a "window shopper" 
without getting a bite out of him. next bite was a small blue but didn't stay 
connected. then we had another knockdown but didn't see the fish, 
but we believe it must have been another marlin as we fished 
in deep water. all in all we've seen 4 marlin and had another 
possibly bite ! the water is quite warm with between 23,4°C to 24°C and 
the edge shows plenty of baitfish ! on our way back to mindelo 
we caught two wahoos out of 4 bites. another boat fishing the same day reported 1 
release out of 3 bites and on saturday the 18th that boat fished again 
and ended up with 2 releases out of 6 bites ! what a shame we 
do not have clients here right now................*

*_we fished in january 2 and a half days for marlin, but wheather was 
bad and we never saw a marlin, but caught quite some nice dorados and 
the odd wahoos, the professionals caught smaller size thuna, approx 20 
to 40 kg.
on the 8th of february we tried again and caught the first blue this 
year, 200 kg and had two bites of white marlin ! could have been the 
same fish or two fish, i'm not sure. on the second bite the whity took 
30 mtr of line and unluckily pulled the hooks on the first jump.........