TAKING IT TO EXTREMES
A big-fish adventure in the desert.
After a seemingly endless drive through the desert, we arrived at a desolate beach, hundreds of kilometres from the civilised world. It was pitch dark, cold and the wind howled. Then something magical happened. We found two very big tents, complete with mattresses, pillows, lights – and carpets.
For our group of weary travellers, it immediately felt more like home. That feeling remained with us for our stay in the desert, which is a truly hostile environment. After a day of casting hard, we would arrive ‘home’ to our own cosy corner of the tent.
Yet our little oasis in the desert had presented an interesting experience on our arrival in Morocco. At the airport, we were handed a form requesting standard information, including where we’d be staying in the country. An address? Well, our residence was going to be a tent on a beach… somewhere in the Western Sahara desert. We hesitated, looked at each other and, rather than being honest, wrote down the name of some hotel.
We were in the city of Dakhla, in the Western Sahara which is a disputed territory administered by Morocco. Dakhla’s main economic activity is fishing and tourism, including aquatic sports, and it’s where I hoped to catch a fish that has haunted me for years.
BRUTAL PREDATORS
My extreme angling adventure started with a YouTube video, which showed how Spro-test angler and guide Salah Eddibe and his friends caught several big leerfish. They decided to return in early 2019 and I was invited to join them.
Also known as garrick, liche or palometa, the leerfish is related to the giant trevally or, closer to home, the scad. Leerfish reach a length of two metres and grow to 50kg in weight, but the IGFA All-Tackle world record is a little under 28kg.
Along the Atlantic coast of West Africa, it is possible to fish for them from the shore with lures. Being brutal predators, they are extremely strong and totally at home in the gigantic surf that hammers the beaches. It is no coincidence that Dakhla has been a surfer’s paradise for decades.
It means a day in the life of a leerfish angler is a tough one. In the white foam, leerfish terrorise anything with fins that is less at ease in the strong currant, such as sardines, sandeels, mullet – and anglers.
Amid all this violence, it can be a struggle to keep your footing while standing on treacherous rocks covered in razor-sharp mussels and algae. A bigger wave did throw two members of our group off their feet, one of whom damaged his ligaments and had a limp for the rest of the trip.
While you are dancing in the waves and trying not to lose your balance, you have to cast your lure, which weighs three ounces or more. This is not easy either. The aim is to reach the zone beyond the furthest waves before reeling in your lure as fast as possible.
We fished mainly with Ranger lures and GT Ice Cones that supposedly imitate a mullet. If you have watched these mullet, you see them make jumps in the surf to escape their predators. It seems they are almost out of the water for a longer time than they are in it. That is the kind of behaviour you are trying to copy with your lures, and the only way to do it is by reeling quickly to ensure that your lure is skipping on the surface.
THE FIGHT
Only a long and strong rod, combined with a fast and big fixed-spool reel allows you to do this. Such a combination can weigh around one kilo, meaning you hold that weight above your head all day long.
Then, at last, when a leerfish takes your lure, often after hours of hard work, the party begins. The fish speeds off like a train, heading straight to the horizon, while the angler, all the time with an alarmingly bent fishing rod in his hands, tries to survive the merciless waves.
You must loosen the reel’s drag as fast as possible after the strike in order to avoid the hooks being pulled out. As leerfish tend to fight on the surface, it is sensible to give them line. If the fish kites to the left or right too much, you follow it, stumbling over the rocks. The only way to succeed is for a friend to help
you to stay on your feet. Otherwise, you are doomed to fall.
If you are lucky enough to enter the final stage of the fight without the fish throwing the hook, then the trick is to use the huge waves to get your catch into the shallow water. If the fish still has plenty of fight, the waves will take it back to the ocean again, so make sure that you are able to give line when required. Once the fish is struggling in the shallow water, your friend needs to grab it by the tail and try to reach the safety of the rocks before the next wave erupts.
I’ve never done anything so extreme in order to catch a fish. After five days of fishing I was exhausted – and I wasn’t the only one. But the thrill of holding my first leerfish was utterly incredible.
During our trip, we were unlucky because the fishing was tough compared to the previous year when Salah and his friends landed several whoppers up to 154cm long. We were probably too late because the best months are November and December, but we visited in the middle of January. Our guides told us the water was too cold for the best results.
Clearly, the fish were present because we
Gotcha – the ocean here can be vicious