NEWS FROM LAKE NASSER

April 30th, 2002    No. 2

Excuse us if this News From Lake Nasser is a bit amateurish. It's our first issue and living in Aswan we can't call up a friendly graphic designer or a computer expert to help with our learning curve. I am sure we will get more professional putting together the many future issues that will be following this one.

Over the next few weeks we will be telling you about two April safaris with top German fly anglers. Details about dead bait and live bait methods for Nile perch. A remarkable safari with a renowned European angling photographer Olivier Portrat who managed to hook up with a good ton of Nile crocodile and fight the animal for 90 minutes before it broke the line. Then there is also an interesting issue shaping up consisting of frequently asked questions and our answers.

The News From Lake Nasser is electronic mail so we will be keeping the file size manageable for e-mail transmission and the format will be a single sheet, which means only one or two news items in each issue. We have invested in a good digital camera a Nikon Coolpix5000, which they say is a plausibly state of the arts. Problem is I need to go back to university to learn how it works. For the time being it seems to be working quite well on fully automatic for beginners.

We hope you enjoy reading these news sheets. We would like to keep anglers who have been on safari with us up to date and introduce others to the adventurous style of our lake safaris.

Regards

Strange But True

At the start of each season we carry out a training safari, which is fun as well as being productive. In March 2002 we took nine of our qualified guides on one of these training safaris. The idea was for the guides to fish together and exchange individual experience and fishing techniques. We also had a 'think tank' meeting of two hours each afternoon when we discussed fishing methods and how our safaris should be run more efficiently.

We invited Barrie Rickards of UK pike angling fame to join the safari and share with us some of his pike angling skills because the main topic of this training safari was dead bait and live bait fishing for Nile perch.

Barrie who is a professor at Cambridge University, an old buddy and a veteran of some eight Lake Nasser safaris, invited his friend Mandy Lyne, a Cambridge Barrister to join us. It was Mandy's first time on safari and almost the first time she had ever been fishing. She enjoyed every moment of her desert lake safari and is now planning to bring some friends and family in December.

One afternoon while trolling Mandy hooked into a big fish, which went steaming off taking most of the line from her reel. Mandy had never experienced the power of the first run of a big Nile perch and to her dismay there was nothing she could do as she watched the big fish take every inch of line from her spool and then snap off. We were all disappointed for Mandy having lost such a nice fish also none of us like the idea of a fish out in the lake with a lure stuck in its mouth.

The next morning we decided to return to the same area. The plan was for Barrie and Tim to use Kestrel, our new stealth boat, for some drifting with live bait. Mandy was to go in the second boat with two guides, anchor and do some casting from the boat.

Everything was quiet and nothing much happening when suddenly we heard shouting from Mandy's boat it was obvious that Mandy was into a good fish, which was eventually landed. Barrie and me packed up our live bait rigs and headed over to find out what was happening. We were amazed to hear that Hani had spotted some fishing line floating in the water and when pulling it in discovered there was a fish on the end. The guides did some quick thinking and attached the line to a trolling rod and reel then handed it to Mandy who after a good scrap landed the same fish that she had lost the previous afternoon.

Aside from having a lot of fun on the safari our guides picked up a lot of new information on both live & dead bait fishing which is very productive in lure shy hot spots. Barrie's best was an 80lb+ Nile perch from the shore using live bait at the well-known Maharaga hot spot.

Pictures: Mandy & Hani with her 95lb 'twice caught' Nile perch. Barrie Rickards reviving a shore caught 'Maharaga' Nile perch.