 A trip to Santo Antao. After 24 hours on different airplanes and airports I finally arrived on Sao Vicente. I took a quick cab to Mindelo Marina where Morten and Offshore Hunter were waiting for me. The boat looked alike and it felt really good to be back. We met up with a Brit, one Irishman and a South African who just arrived in Mindelo after a while at sea – sailing from Ascension Island. The five of us went to have some dinner and a beer too many. Waking up way too late the day after we headed straight out, bound for Santo Antao. We fished the way over but did not see too much. After a long day at sea in, as usual, pretty windy conditions we anchored up outside the small village of Tarrafal, had something to eat and went straight to bed for we had heard that the famous boat “Dreaming On” was bound to fish the same area as us the day after. We headed out in the morning and after about 30minutes out there we saw the huge offshore yacht cruising at 30knots bound for the fishing grounds. Not much happened during the first couple of hours but at high tide, when I was cooking lunch, we had one of our release clips going off. It was in the middle of a streamline so I though the lure had hit something since we did not see a fish. A couple of seconds later the second clip went off and the drag started screaming and a big Marlin breached. I took the rod and the fight was on. The fish behaved in a really weird way and something felt wrong. It took about 100m of line and then shook its head again, and it was off… It was a nice fish on 300-400lbs and it left both me and Morten with bitter faces. We kept going and heard on the radio that Dreaming On had caught a nice fish on 250lbs. After two hours when I sat on the deck, messing with my camera I heard Morten scream FISH FISH FISH. I did not see it right away but a few seconds later it completely smashed the lure closest to the boat. I had my camera ready and got a couple of decent shots. It scared the shit outta me once it turned and started tail-dancing coming straight at the boat. I put my camera away and grabbed the rod. We managed to get out of its way and it went for a massive 500m run and dove deep. We managed to plane it up and secured it after a good 25-30min fight – YES, first landed fish of the season and it was a beauty between 500-600lbs. Nothing more happened that day but boy were we happy?! We had landed our first fish of the season and also beaten one of the worlds best offshore fishing yachts having caught the biggest one of the day and lost another one. We went back and tied up to a buoy off of Mont Trigo and had dinner there and headed back to Mindelo the day after. Now we have a couple of days before we head out again so stay tuned – great things will happen before you know it. Hannes Ribbner, Offshore Hunter
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