*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. bernou
*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.........
