20
RIO LONGA REVISITED - NOVEMBER 2003

Our return to the lodge at Rio Longa coincided with the first anniversary of the lodge opening for guests, and some 10 months after our first trip. Since then it has certainly matured and developed from the 'raw, just finished' state into a smooth operating lodge, with all the staff well aware of the needs of the guests. Refinements have been introduced, like solar powered lights on the elevated walkways, heated water systems in the guest bungalows for the showers, a small landing platform for the lodge boats and other small adjustments.



The popularity of the lodge, brought about by greater angling public awareness of the fishing potential at the lodge, and the increased availability of travel in Angola, lead the Wildside Adventure team to build two further guest bungalows. These have been 'slotted in' between existing bungalows, without seeming to infringe of the privacy of each bungalow.



While we were there during this past trip, the diversity of nationalities staying for varying periods was truly amazing. English, French, South Africans, Angolans, Portuguese, Panamanians, and Namibians. A real international mix, all enjoying the resource of wild, unspoilt beaches, the river and its wildlife, and just 'chilling out'. The core activity of sea fishing is still foremost, though with the arrival of serious sea going boats, the range of angling activities is no longer restricted to the shoreline. Indeed, this was the purpose of our visit, timed to coincide with the start of the warm water season, and the arrival of the migratory species from the north.



The sea area off Rio Longa is at the transition zone between the rich and cold waters of the Benguela Current from the south, and the warm waters of the Guinean Current from the north. The seasonal ebb and flow of these two currents bring the wealth of species from both systems to the waters off Rio Longa, and this is perhaps the ultimate source of the lodge's overall success - its location. The seasonal movements of fish species is as active as mammals and birds, and usually driven by the changes in climatic environment and food - it is just that we cannot see this with our own eyes, except through the results of fishing activity.

The past 'winter' period at Rio Longa saw changes in the prevalent species change from Tarpon, Snapper and Threadfin to Kob, Garrick and Bluefish, along with all the necessary changes in fishing technique that are associated with different species. The beach anglers changed their prime choice venue from the river mouth to further along the beach, where gullies and channels of the more open beach system prevail. Here, they fished more with baits rather than lures, and found additional species like African Pompano and a Queenfish species. While the Jack Crevalle seemed to remain throughout the year, they also found Tripletail and some of the smaller tuna species like Atlantic Bonito and Little Tunny.



Our trip was planned for the earliest part of the 'summer' season, with reports coming through the email of the Tarpon having been sighted in the bay, increasing water temperatures, and early catches of Blue Marlin and Dorado from the larger game boats stationed up at Luanda. We boarded our flight to Luanda (via Johannesburg) with high hopes of having some very fine fishing. However, 'nature' should never be assumed to be compliant with ones plans, the fact that the prevailing winds for the 'summer' season had not switched round from south-westerlies to north-westerlies, seemed to induce a biological effect on the fishing - the fish seemed to have developed 'lockjaw'. All through our stay we saw very many sightings of fish activity, feeding Jacks, rolling Tarpon and huge shoals of bait fish, but the fishing still remained very hard.

Whether the effect was just due to the late swing of the winds, or a result of a period of unusually high solar flare activity, or just a result of unusual weather patterns (similar to those we had been experiencing in the UK during 2003), we will probably never know. What we did find though was that we had to work harder for the fish that we did catch, and on the whole they were of good quality, and were certainly in the upper size range of the species. The first inkling of unusual weather conditions met us as we got off the plane in Luanda, it was very hot and humid, where the usual weather for that time of the year is warm and dry, and there had been exceptionally early rains both inland, and on the coast. We had further rain during the 2 weeks we were there, though this did not affect our fishing, it certainly had an effect on the river, and the shore fishing near the river entrance.

The river entrance should be considered a 'living entity', as it had certainly changed during the intervening 10 months since our last visit, it had moved significantly further south, and taken in most of a small lagoon that was present in February. During our stay, the entrance changed almost daily, with the spring tides, and the additional river flow. Low water islands were created, that offered the shore fishermen the opportunity to get significantly closer to the areas beyond the backline where small schools of Jack Crevalle were feeding. The introduction of defined channels, and the forming of the outer sandbar were all changing every time we left the entrance in the boats.



These changes make the shore fishing more interesting with each tidal cycle as the changing landscape changes where the fish will be feeding - all very interesting for the beach guys. However, for the boat crews it has a more significant effect - the chances of beaching on newly formed sandbars while driving out through the surf is a real peril. The boat runs the risk of grounding, and then being at the mercy of subsequent breakers. We did experience a minor version of this one trip out, and the end result was that we all got a tad wet - though never seriously at risk. Subsequent exits from the river were timed to coincide with a higher state of the tide. All part of the adventure experience of boat fishing in southern Africa, and specifically Rio Longa.



Our main efforts were planned to explore the offshore fishing in the hard boats, and during the first 2 days out at the edge of the shelf (20 miles from the beach), we experienced a true insight to the very real potential of the area. We saw good current lines in the oceanic waters, sightings of surface cruising Sailfish, and Blue Marlin feeding, and surface cruising. The size of the fish were significant, it that they were as expected for Angola - large, larger than those generally experienced in the western section of the Atlantic. One of the Blue Marlin was estimated by our friend as between 5-600lbs, and he certainly has more than a few years of experience with Marlin. Alan Sibley of Advanta Tackle had agreed to accompany us on this trip, as he has a wealth of experience in Africa, though mostly on the eastern side, and the opportunity of viewing a country that is relatively new - as the 30 years of conflict has left the country with a fresh start. He was not disappointed with the experiences he had in Angola, though in most cases he was very pleasantly surprised. He was amazed at the sheer quality of fish that are available, and at the un-explored nature of the surrounding waters - all begging to be explored by visiting anglers.

We were unfortunate with our sightings of the billfish, in that they were equally struck with the 'lockjaw' effect that we were experiencing with the inshore fish. Perhaps we were just a little too early in the summer season, and they fish hadn't settled into their summer/Angola feeding behaviours.

Most days we fished the inshore area when returning from the offshore waters, and did find a few fish to avoid blanking, and then returned to the lodge for lunch; which was usually followed by a period of tackle preparation and renewed planning for either the late afternoon fishing session, or the next day. We did try a few sessions on the beach, but none of us are accomplished beach anglers, but at least we gave it a try - our casting skills are just not quite good enough. We managed one afternoon to borrow one of the boats, and anchor in the river entrance area, just before it enters the sea. There is a localised widening in the area, that forms a pool with back eddies and current lines; all of which on big spring tides becomes salt water, with the peak of the flooding tide. Our timing gave us about 2-3 hours of salt water in the area, before the outgoing tide was overcome by the flow of the river. This area was subject to the effect of a moving wall of transition water between the fresh water of the river, and the salt water of the tide. Within the ebb and flow of the salt water, we found that there were prolific numbers of small baitfish, that plundered our dead baits in seconds. The following evening in the same area, saw us armed with mini bait feathers, and we started to catch these little fish. They were mainly 'Bastard Grunts'( Pomadasys incusus) and Blackspot Picerel (Spicara melanurus), which were quickly mounted on larger hooked rigs for freelining away from the boat in the tide.

'Bastard Grunt'


The pleasure of anchor fishing in the entrance pool during these evenings is to be experienced, the three of us sat there enjoying the peace of the river, watching life wind down from the activities of the day in the local village, enjoy the sights of beautiful African sunsets and wait for the fish. Our reverie was brutally interrupted every evening, and most evenings more than once. Ratchets screaming of, as one of the big shoreline predators had found our baits, not that this was at all accidental; as we watched the activities of the surface baitfish being disturbed with the prowling predators. They entered the river at the slack part of the tide, and patrolled the pool up against the wall of fresh water, and it was here that they mostly trapped the bait fish.

We had the full range of likely species in the area, African Cubera Snapper, Giant African Threadfin, Meagre and Marine Catfish. While the Catfish were small, the others certainly made up for that in size, mostly at least 20kg. We only really suffered with the Catfish when we were restricted to using the small Blackspot Pickerels as bait, rather than the larger and tougher Bastard Grunts. The Bastard Grunts are very similar to Pinfish that we had previously caught in Miami, and made a much better live bait than the local Mullet that were caught in the river. They lasted longer, and had a strong tendency to swim towards the bottom, so additional weights were rarely necessary. The only real mishap we experienced in the 'entrance pool' was with one of the larger Snappers, being toothsome creatures, they are prone to getting their teeth mixed up in the mesh of the landing net, and during the unhooking and untangling of one of these beasts, Jeri managed to get bitten, when his finger slipped into the mouth that then closed!!! The air around the boat turned blue, and the local villagers learned a few new words for their rather limited English vocabulary. It was either the language, or the fact that he didn't taste too good, that made the fish open its mouth and release his finger, now bleeding rather well. One of the canine teeth had punctured his finger tip, but fortunately just through the fleshy part. The fish was unhooked, photographed and released - like nearly all fish at Rio Longa.

Snapper which bit Jeri!
Threadfin
Evening Meagre
Night Meagre


The 'catch and release' policy of the lodge is one of their strongest founding ethics. They recognise the need of a health local fish population to maintain their status as one of the most exciting new fishing lodges in Africa. This ethic is very strongly applied to all fish, regardless of size, even among the rather tasty edible species like Snapper and Threadfin. There are occasionally needs to cull a single fish to supplement the regime coming from the kitchen, and usually this arrives as one of the smaller fish that have been caught off the beach - rarely anything bigger 15kg.

On one of our rare days that we didn't fish outside in the sea, we tried our hand at the smaller river Tarpon, with live baits (Tilapia), plastic baits (shrimps and fish imitations) and flies - all to no avail. The fish were in a different region of the river to our earlier visit, and concentrated in a straight section of the river, which meant that we could drift down without continually adjusting our position with the engines. Once the engines were switched off, the water came alive with fish, a very rough estimation of the numbers would be in excess of 5000, all fish in the 2-10kg range, rolling on the surface, splashing at the side of the boat, feeding on insects coming out from under papyrus reed beds. All very infuriating activity that failed to extract a single strike or take. A few days later we noticed that some of the larger fish had moved down to the main stretch of river where it runs parallel with the sea - in a pool locally known as 'Holiday Inn'. The 'Holiday Inn', is a single native reed hut on the sand spit that separates the sea from the river, the hut was probably once the home of a beach handline fisherman, that managed a living from catching fish in the surf, drying them and then selling them in a local market or at the roadside.



The one evening that we spent in the pool at 'Holiday Inn', we fished with live Tilapia below balloons, rigged on circle hooks. The first bit of excitement arrived when one of the Sharptooth Catfish that live in the river decided that fish should be on its menu - not the Tarpon we were expecting. As the sun faded, and the rapid approach of the night, one of the balloons started behaving strangely, swimming against the flow of the river. This brief spell of odd behaviour was soon interrupted with the surface antics of a small Tarpon, that quickly threw the hook. That was the sum total of our interface with Tarpon during the 13 days that we fished at Rio Longa. We had a good number of period trolling through the 'tea' coloured waters in the bay, with just about every lure we possessed - and despite seeing a few Tarpon rolling, we never got a single take. We were desperate to get Alan on the end of a rod with a Tarpon on the other, but that was just not to be - as we had also hoped that given some Tarpon activity he might be persuaded to try for one of the beasts with a fly. He has made plans to return early in the new year to try and get connected with a Tarpon, as the lodge arrangements suit him, and he has never in all his years of big game fishing caught a Tarpon.



After the dismissal by the Tarpon in the river, we had a short morning in the inshore area, where everything seemed wrong, and even the clean green water seemed coloured, and there was little activity, and we nearly blanked apart from a single West African Spanish Mackerel, which went ashore to be rigged as a Marlin bait. We headed in for early lunch and then we set off up the river in one of the smaller skiffs.



The trip up river was interrupted with near continuous sightings of natures fishermen, in the various forms of Kingfisher that inhabit the banks of the Longa River. We travelled up as far as the river was navigable, where the Papyrus beds close in from each side, and effectively close the river. We saw riverine Turtles, 6 species of Kingfisher, 5 species of storks, Weaver birds, Finches, Mousebirds, and a host of other birds. The lush nature of the land either side of the river supports several small villages, and their small herds of cows, but it also supports a huge population of river associated bird life. We had neglected to take our identification book, and possibly some of the birds listed below may be slightly wrong, but we have tried to be as accurate as possible.



Pied Kingfisher
Malacite Kingfisher
Heron
Egrets


Non photographed birds:
Woodland Kingfisher Angolan Kingfisher Giant Kingfisher
Open Billed Stork Hornbill African Pygmy Kingfisher
Palm Nut Vulture African Sea Eagle Purple Heron
Goliath Heron Mousebirds Various Finches


During our slow drift back down the river we encountered a small troop of Blue Monkeys in one of the small banana plantations, which were very wary of humans, and disappeared pretty much as soon as they saw us. Monitor Lizards were also seen sunbathing on sheltered limbs of trees where they were partially protected for possible attack from above, as the African Fish Eagles, Brown Snake Eagles, Bachelor Eagles, Palm Nut Vultures, Ospreys and other falcons would certainly have taken the lizards. The last part of our drift brought us down to the section of the river where it runs parallel with the sea, and here basking on the small islands formed by the outgoing tide, were collections of Ibis and small Herons, sharing the islands with small crocodiles.



We did see a number of crocodiles during our stay at the lodge, but mostly small creatures, less than 3 metres long. They were usually seen at low water, either sunbathing on the sandbars and islands, otherwise stalking the abundant birdlife. The only other time that the crocs were active around the lodge was at night, when they stalked the riverine Catfish, that were stalking the Tilapia in the bright moonlight. This watery commotion was really the only sound that ever disturbed peaceful sleep at the lodge, apart from the one thunderstorm that arrived during the night. Oh boy was that spectacular, sheet lightning lighting up the sky like daylight, and torrential rain like a monsoon on steroids. This storm ran into the first couple of hours of the morning, and delayed fishing slightly, but we weren't by this time in any great hurry, we had succumbed to the restful nature of Rio Longa. We had breakfast and then went out into the bay.

Our last couple of trips offshore were no more productive that the earlier trips, though we did manage a couple of small Dorado, and had a splendid view of Giant Manta Rays breaching.



We mainly concentrated on the rips at 20 miles, and saw both species of billfish. During the last trip we tried trolling all the way back into some closer rips that we had noted most days, and again sighted Marlin and Sailfish, at just 7 miles from the beach. At this closer area, we also found a couple of small artisan fishing boats, handlining for bottom fish in about 60 metres of water. So, obviously there is some form of bottom structure in the area, that is holding reef species. This is of real interest as most of the sea bed terrain is very standard undulating sand flat featureless bottom, with no holding structures for fish. This featureless condition extends pretty much along the entire coastline of northern Angola.



Our last days arrived quicker than we had planned, and soon we were discussing our return to London, and arrangements for getting to Luanda, but not before our one last trip. We had never really tried for any of the IGFA record potential fish available at the lodge during this visit, spending a good deal of time offshore, and trying for Tarpon. So, on the last full day Alan and Jeri elected that Sue would have all the rods on the boat dedicated to getting her connected with a record Jack Crevalle - on one of the appropriate line classes. All that was needed was a 19kg fish, on either 8kg or 15kg line, easily within the realms of possibility for the general stamp of fish at Rio Longa. Earlier in the week one of the other guests had had a 25kg fish, though just too small for a men's record. We trolled north to the end of the bay, saw baitfish being attacked by Jacks, trolled the area until we were dizzy, then trolled south, and beyond the point of the bay, we trolled well across the next bay, and only when we started to turn for home did we get a significant strike. Ping! The wind-on leader broke, and a good fish was lost. We re-rigged the tackle, and turned around for another pass through the same area, and did get another strike, and this time the wind-on held, the hooks stayed in place, and after a good 25 minute fight, we finally landed the Jack Crevalle. Using the rough scales on the boat, it only weighed 17.5kg!!! Just 1.5kg short of the desired record, so after photos, it was released to pack on some weight of our next trip. Close, but just not close enough; that's fishing!



One of the real shames about the current IGFA system is that they are slow to acknowledge species of sporting value outside of the main USA waters. The Giant African Threadfin and the African Cubera Snapper are potentially some of the finest inshore species that prowl these waters, and although the All Tackle Records for a good number of fish are held in Angolan waters, it seems a shame that these two sporting species lack that recognition. Perhaps time will allow them to be recognised, and gain that recognition.

Other fish that we had during the inshore trolling make fairly good reading:
African Cubera Snapper to 18kg
Jack Crevalle to 23kg
Giant African Threadfin to 22kg Guinean Barracuda - lots and small
West African Spanish Mackerel - Marlin Bait Yellow Belly Rock Cod - small
Common Torpedo Ray
Meagre to 20kg


During our stay there were a party of retired gentlemen from South Africa, and a retired couple from France, and they were all rather dedicated beach fisherfolk. You had to admire their stamina, as they never missed a morning or evening session on the beach, and despite the slow fishing, they certainly amassed a creditable range of catches. Most of their Cubera Snappers came to Mullet baits fished static, while the Jack Crevalle, Meagre and Giant Threadfin came to 150gm spoons cast mainly from the small island sandbars which were exposed at low tide. The party of South Africans had one boat trip out beyond the surfline in the bay, and managed a few small Jack Crevalle, and they were about to call it a day, when Brian, a chap working for De Beers had a strike. Some 35 minutes later as the 25kg Jack Crevalle finally came to the boat, the smile was worth all the diamonds dug during the fight time. The smile was still in place that evening when he sat down to dinner. The best catch off the beach was to fall to Jean Claude, after the South African chaps had gone home, he got to the beach early one evening, and by the time we arrived with the fresh bait, he was well into a fish. Having waded across the narrow channel, and casting from the exposed inner sandbar, he now had to deal with all the weed being washed down the river and onto his line as he fought his fish. As anyone knows how fishes in weedy water it usually bunches up at the leader knot, and then jambs in the top eye of the rod. This is exactly what happened to Jean Claude, and this put a very good Threadfin in the backwash zone of the surf. Eventually we got to him as he held onto the rod and fish. Having leadered the fish, and dragged it up onto the little island; we then waded back across the channel before the tide recaptured the island, and onto the main beach. Here Jean Claude could not believe his eyes - a very fine Giant African Threadfin - weighed on the beach for 31.5kg (68lbs)! Well done that man, especially considering that he is 73 years of age.



The meals at Rio Longa were easily up to their usual standard of excellence, and we enjoyed some of the largest crayfish that we have seen in a long time. The staff were very obliging, and after a year of training, are now beginning to get to know the requirements of the fishing guest, and generally things on the domestic front run very smoothly. The only real problem is the language barrier between the guests and the Portuguese speaking domestic staff, either start practicing your Portuguese before you go, or hope that their English is improving. That said, one of the kitchen staff had very fluent French, and was transferred to looking after the French couple.



Because of the showers of rains, and the fact that the turtles have a specific requirement of the sand, in which they lay their eggs; few were actually laying during our stay. However, the season so far up to the end of November had seen over 300 nests established along the sandspit. The reports from last nesting season were that over 1200 turtles nested without interruption on the beach at Rio Longa, and the lack of interruption is all due to anglers and the lodge. Wildside Adventures are looking to continue their development in Angola, and will in time be opening further lodges to anglers to explore the wonderful coastal fisheries. Those wishing to contact Wildside direct can do so, either by phone, or email, but consider your booking requirements well in advance, as the lodge is already taking bookings for 8-10 months in advance. We are due to go back to Rio Longa in late March 2004, and hope that the fishing will be a little more 'switched on', though having said that the fishing was good, despite being hard. We have been informed that we will be hitting the main Sailfish season, and that the Dorado will be queued up along the massive weed lines that they get when the rivers start to flood from the inland rains. We will have to see.

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