Any comments, please e-mail me on marlin@alderney.net

As well as asking where to go and when, the other most common question people like to ask is what to take. A whole book could (and a few have !) been written about this subject, but I’ll try and outline a few guidelines below as best I can. Hopefully this will whet the appetites of those of you who have never fished abroad, and maybe one or two of the experts amongst you will glean a little extra knowledge.The first distinction one can make about the travelling angler is whether he or she is making a trip specifically to fish somewhere, or whether you happen to be going somewhere anyway and want to hang a hook in something while you’re there. To make things easy I’ll simply say that if you belong in the latter group, e-mail me at marlin@alderney.net with your query and I’ll try and advise you or put you in touch with someone who can help.Right, so the rest of you want to go overseas and get to grips with something a bit more interesting than a pout. Your first priority is really to decide what you want to catch. When you’ve done that, then you have to decide how much you want to spend. As a general rule of thumb, the larger and faster the species, the more you’re going to spend, and if your quarry requires the use of a boat to capture it, then the money is going to disappear even faster ! And obviously, leading on from this is the fact that a big boat will cost more than a small one. I’ll cover boat fishing in March and April. Fishing from the shore is a completely different game expense-wise and as a general rule of thumb you can fish for free throughout the world except where you have specifically paid for the use and services of a camp or other shoreside location. There may be certain places in the world where you will have to buy a license (such as in the USA), and maybe pay for a ticket to fish a particular location such as a pier or private foreshore, but on the whole, you can turn up and start casting into the wild blue yonder anywhere. One word of caution here – make sure you are legally entitled to fish where you want to and make sure you are obeying the law. There is no excuse for ignorance and if you retain an out-of-season or under/oversized fish when you shouldn’t, you could get clobbered. The USA, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand are some of the countries that immediately spring to mind for enforcing laws. The easiest way to overcome all of these obstacles is to contact a local tackle shop in the area you wish to fish and ask them what the state of affairs is. Alternatively, look up the local IGFA representaive for the country or area you’re going to fish in and ask them their advice. This is one of the responsibilities of their position and they should be able to point you in the right direction. Do not ever assume that an IGFA representative is a rich guy in a polo shirt with a big boat. Most of them are true-blooded fishermen and have bloodied their hands just like you – and most of them can’t wait to tell you everything. The easiest way to contact an IGFA rep is through the IGFA Yearbook or at their website www.igfa.org/ .Right. Money. Do you want to spend a lot and have bonefish coming out of your ears, or do you want to hire a car and drive along some coastline and fling something seawards when the mood takes you ? Fishing from your own two feet can take on a lot of different guises, and the holidays you can organise range from choosing an all-in paid up trip to Los Roques off Belize where you’ll be fishing for permit, tarpon and bonefish to simply taking the ferry across to France and driving down to the long surf beaches facing the Bay of Biscay for some bass. You can hire a guide to go and chase sharks and kob off the long sand-dunes of Nambia northwest of South Africa, or you could try fishing the great Mediterranean estuaries of Spain, France and Italy for leerfish, one of the great unsung sporting fishes of the world. You could join an organised surf-camp in Mauritania for some of the greatest ray, shark and guitarfish fishing in the world, or you could maybe take a sun’n’beer flight to Florida and drive from fishing motel to fishing motel along the coastline, sampling the delights of pier fishing in the north of the state and ending up on the sun-baked flats of the Keys, sight-fishing for tarpon and bonefish. Shore-fishing around the world can be as exciting (fancy sharing the beach with a grizzly in Alaska ?) or as mundane (sharing a dirty Meditarranean marina with some mullet-bashers) as you want. The ultimate challenge for the shorefisherman is probably a billfish or tuna from the shore, and Australia is one of the few places in the world for that.Top of the list for most British anglers who go abroad are species which are either fast or large. There are also some popular fish that jump, hug the bottom, or snag you at the first opportunity. The very best of the opponents you’re likely to encounter do a mixture of all of these attributes. There is also an awful lot of coastline out there, and so as a guide to get you started, here are some species, and where I personally would want to go and catch them next year.Bonefish – two places I would love to go to at the moment are the Seychelles and Cuba. The former has a new camp on St. Alphonse from which they fish the lagoon at St.Francois, a coral atoll with a lagoon on a seamount which has recently been producing monumental numbers of huge fish (world-record size) for lucky anglers in the know. Cuba has an Italian-run operation which has an air-conditioned mothership on the south coast in a marine park called Jardin das Reinas. It is run by some very experienced guides with a large fleet of brand-new skiffs. Large numbers of bones here, plus an excellent chance of tarpon and permit. I hear the permit are LARGE.If I couldn’t get to the Seychelles, both Christmas Island and Los Roques are still good, and another new destination looming on the horizon is Palmyra in the mid-Pacific. A few logistical problems there first to sort out, one of which is you have to buy the island before you can fish there (someone is currently trying to do that – watch this space). But if you wanted to catch one trophy bonefish in comfort and at a relatively cheap price, you would be hard pressed to find a better place than Biscayne Bay, Florida – within eyesight of Miami and holder of 13 current world records. You know how much you can get to Miami for !! A tip here – you don’t have to use shrimps or crabs if you want to baitfish for bones – they also LOVE squid.Tarpon – some people like lots of small tarpon, and some like trophies. For numbers of small tarpon you can visit any small pond, puddle or ditch throughout Central America and Florida and find numbers of small tarpon ready to leap at anything you throw at them (assuming they’re hungry, that is). But to catch a monster from the shore requires a little more thought. If giant tarpon could be caught on foot just where anglers haul them out from a boat, then you wouldn’t do any worse than to hop on a plane to Central West Africa and find yourself an estuary anywhere between Gambia in the north and Angola in the south. You could also go and fish the rivers to the south of the Panama Canal in Central America – on the Pacific side, according to rumours !! But, due to the, er, awkwardness of these locations and the almost certain tribal, homicidal, insectidal and deathly tribulations that would befall you as you repeatedly cast your plug in the depths of these respective jungles, we’ll probably have to think of somewhere else.Amazingly, one of your better options would be some of the Caribbean islands. Places like the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Tobago might be better known for their marlin and tuna fishing, but believe me that when the lights go down some very large tarpon prowl the beaches of almost all the islands. I have no certain knowledge of it, but I am certain that the large rivers and estuaries of the Dominican Republic must also hold some huge tarpon. Failing these islands, I would probably plan my excursion to coincide with the annual “Mullet Run” along the coast of Florida and take advantage of the rich pickings that this phenomenon offers. Huge schools of black and silver mullet migrate southwards along the coast in the autumn, almost always within casting distance, accompanied by an army of predators including tarpon, sharks, jacks, barracudas and snook. Not really recommended for the fly-fisherman (unless you’re a real tryer and oblivious to a million people asking you what you’re doing), but for those of you whose idea of bliss is to stand in the surf with a 200lb fish somersaulting on the end of your line (with lithesome beauties roller-blading along the promenade behind you, well – in Ft. Lauderdale at least), then this is a beach-caster’s paradise.Permit – there are many lodges around Central America and in the Bahamas that entertain large numbers of permit, but to catch the big boys you have to either fish in a traditionally known hotspot such as off the piers of Lake Worth in mid Florida (which continues to produce permit of 40lbs plus every year for dedicated bait-fishermen), or find somewhere where no one fishes for them but they do exist. Most of the Caribbean islands fall into the latter category, particularly if there are no flats or sport fishermen. Professional fishermen and divers are the clue here – talk to them and you’ll quickly find out if permit are in the area. One spot that I would give my eye-teeth to fish is the lagoon on Barbuda, according to rumours. Confirmed reports of permit caught in the east Atlantic are hard to come by, as are sightings from the Indian and Pacific ocean (confirmed reports from Bermuda are also hard to come by, but if my memory serves me well, there is a 50lb permit hanging on the airport wall). Undoubtedly they exist east of the American continents, maybe as a sub-species, and I would bet my eye-teeth that any permits from the African coast will be larger than their US-based counterparts. Although anglers assume crabs are the best bait for permit, thousands are caught each year by subsistence fishermen throughout the Caribbean and Central America on fish, squid and conch baits. A tip here is to forget light line for your first encounter with a permit. Go as heavy as the conditions allow since this species moves quickly for the nearest coral-head in a manner reminiscent of a pig foul-hooked on a fly-rod(from painful personal memory, this one, especially if the pig is nimble).Sharks and rays – some people like nothing more than to tangle with the biggest beast they can from the shore, and these two species fit the bill nicely. Top of the destination league table for those who do battle with these guys are Australia, New Zealand and South Africa/Namibia. I don’t include the coastline of the USA here simply because guys lugging 9/0’s and half an amberjack around for bait on a crowded pier are not too welcome.Currently, I would hop on a plane to go and do the beach-fishing in Namibia from a 4X vehicle with a guide tomorrow, but I would also love to go and fish the cliffs of western Australia as well. Namibia offers several species besides sharks and the wildlife and scenery is supposed to be outstanding. This is classic surf-fishing with the added excitement of fish with teeth swimming around and behind you as you wade ! One is also never quite sure if the guide will return from the first wave after dropping your bait out.The cliff marks at Carnarvon, north of Perth are just some of the sites in WA to go to for huge fish. There are many others, but marks such as Quobba and Steep Point not only produce sharks, but are also famous for all manner of pelagics, especially narrowbarred mackerel (Tanguigue). Techniques here involve flying a bait out under a gas-filled balloon so it skips on the surface. I have it on good authority that this is not a good place to fall in.South Africa was once the undisputed shore-based king of shark-fishing with Durban’s South Pier the jewel in its crown. Unfortunately the pier has now gone, and as whaling has ceased too, the numbers of huge 1000lb shark which once called this area home have long gone. Having said that, anglers in South Africa still target sharks, especially off the long beaches facing the Indian Ocean and in river mouths and estuaries after heavy rain. Natal anglers have a sardine run which attracts vast numbers of predators and this can be an excellent time to fish. South African beaches are also reknown for their rays, with diamond, butterfly, eagle, sting and cow rays all avidly sought after by devotees.For truly huge rays though, you can visit almost any beach in the tropical world and be in with a chance of a humungous fish. And by big I mean big. From personal experience I can say that the eastern Atlantic islands have some huge rays and the largest I have seen is a stingray caught inside a harbour in a seine-net which would probably have weighed better than 800lbs. This was on the island of Porto Santo, but Madeira, the Canaries and the Azores all have enormous rays, with butterfly rays probably being the most sought-after by those who fish deliberately for these species- butterflies grow to over 1000lbs and roam both side of the Atlantic seaboard. Mauritania’s famous Nouadhibou beach-camp is not the same as it once was, but French anglers in particular still go there to chase after the denizens of its surf – with large rays and guitarfish still the main attraction. Large rays are regularly caught elsewhere in the world, but for ease of access, flights, no crowds, little boat traffic, deep water, safety and family-oriented fishing, I’d happily camp out on the east pier of Porto Santo’s harbour for a week. Here’s a tip – take a bulk spool of line (50lb should do) and an inflatable dinghy with you. Oh, here also swim some of the world’s largest bluefish, too. And talking of bluefish…………… Next month I’ll conclude with stripers and bluefish, marlin and tunas, G.T’s and jacks, other assorted pelagics, and leerfish. I could write about European bass too, but then I don’t suppose anyone wants to know where the biggest of these could be caught……eh ?I’ll also include a host of tips and hints, and also include a list of things not to forget. This doesn’t necessarily mean tackle, but stuff you wouldn’t normally think of. I’ll also try and include contacts and info on where to go and when on all the sites I’ve mentioned.

Any comments, please e-mail me on marlin@alderney.net