The first time I visited Gambia was way back in 1990 when the place was earning itself quite a reputation as a reasonably close to home venue for big sharks. Then we had the choice of fishing either aboard a full sized charter boat 'White Warrior', or from a 19 foot Orkney Fastliner. We opted to try both, though we confined our sharking to the bigger boat. This said, Graeme Pullen had been out there before we went and had boated a couple of huge lemon sharks in the dinghy. We unfortunately failed to boat any sharks other than an 84 pound nurse shark, though we had our chances. But on every occasion, for a variety of reasons including tackle problems and handling by the crew, every one got away including big lemons and black tips. But to redress the balance, we boated a very good mix of kasava, kajele, snappers, barracudas, jacks and stingrays, which on light uptide outfits were every bit as good as getting stuck into the sharks.

A few years later I returned for a part family holiday part fishing trip. But even over that short intervening period of time you could see that the quality of the fishing was already in decline. This time we were with a different skipper, though still from the UK. He was telling us how the sharks had all but gone. Barracudas, various smaller fishes, and some nice red snappers kept us reasonably busy. After that, I heard yet more tales of woe from anglers coming back from the place. Then, in July of 2001 I decided to get married abroad and started looking around from somewhere warm with a few fish to do the job when the wife to be suggested Gambia. I have to say that I wasn't too keen. Partly because the fishing would not be how I remembered it, and partly due to the fact that July falls slap bang in the middle of the rainy season. Even when its not raining you are still soaking wet due to the humidity. But we went anyway.

This time we teamed up with Yorkshire skipper Steve Robinson and his crewman 'chief'. Steve had literally just returned from a stint back home in the UK, and was keen to get back up to speed with what had been going on in his absence. So obviously, as a fishing group we were going to have to feel our way back into things with regard to the fish. Its amazing just how out of touch even a short time out can leave you as I know only too well from my own dinghy fishing, particularly over the windier winter months. So with no information as to how things had been going in the run up to our arrival, Dawn and I headed down to Denton Creek on what turned out to be the biggest tide of the year. Out beyond the bar at the mouth of the inlet, the sea was like glass. With the shallow water behind us, Chief turned the bow of the Orkney towards Cape Point. The clean ground along the edge of the reef off Bakau has over the years produced some very good fish. A sort of old faithful starting point, hopefully to build a good few days fishing onto.

When Steve is fishing on a daily basis he exchanges angling information with the other boat operators, and is able to organise a live mullet collection from local cast netsmen working in the shadow of Denton Bridge. Live baiting he insisted sorts out the better quality fish. Live mullet had been ordered for the following morning, but for day one we would be restricted to a cool box full of large and medium sized shrimps, and a local bait fish known as bonga. To be honest, all my previous Gambian fishing had been done with shrimp and bonga anyway, so I wasn't too put out by the lack of live baits. Fished individually, or as a cocktail, these make very effective offerings for anything and everything as our previous encounters had shown. Dominate the cocktail with bonga and you tend to get more of the faster predatory fish plus a few stingrays. Switch the emphasis to shrimp and butterfish become a prospect. Butterfish are amazing creatures. They only have four teeth but they are arranged like a guillotine that can actually bite through the shank of a hook. Needless to say a wire trace is a must. Shrimp is also the preferred tipple for sea snakes which I think are actually an eel like fish that mimic their reptilian counterparts to avoid predation, though I am not man enough to disgorge one putting that theory to its ultimate test.

Kajele, captain fish, or African threadfin salmon as they are also known are the prize fish everyone wants to catch in these parts. They eat well, they fight well, and they will regularly go on long un-stoppable thumb burning runs. Whether we would find any would be another question, but Steve seemed genuinely optimistic enough. Another popular fish for all the same reasons is the kasava, a fish prone to giving some very violent takes. Both species can be caught using heavy mono traces, though experience told me to put 12 inches of wire on the end of the trace just in case. The basic technique is similar to tope fishing, and if the butterfish turn out to conspicuous by their absence, we could clip the wire off and just go with the mono. Anyway, that was the plan. The reality had still to get started. So, with the anchor down, the baits in place, and the reels set on ratchet we could no more than settle down in the African sunshine glad at least that it wasn't either blowing or raining, and wait for the action to start.

Its a good job we decided to use the wire as butterfish to around 10 pounds dominated the fishing on the first day. We did have a couple of sizzling runs towards the close of the day that most definitely were not butterfish, but failed to connect with either just to heighten the mystery of what might actually be going on. By the close of the day, out towards the horizon it looked like a good dollop of rain as brewing up. When it puts some down during the wet season it makes UK rain look like a light drizzle. Fortunately, it looked like it would happen over night which is good news on several fronts, not the least of which is the way a good over night down pour can turn the fishing around. Rain was just what we needed according to Steve, and over night, that was exactly what we got. The noise of the stuff hitting the roof was deafening, and the lightening that accompanied it was quite spectacular. It was still putting a bit down the following morning leaving people in the town walking ankle deep through a sea of red sloppy mud. But by the time the boat had been made ready, the sky was clearing for another blistering day out on a sea like glass.

Once we cleared the bridge, Steve took a sharp left and put the boat onto a patch of sand where we were met by the mullet netters who had half a dozen live baits for us. I think Steve was hoping for more. But with plenty of shrimps and bonga in the cool box, it was a better situation than the previous day. Tending to them would be Chiefs job as they wouldn't be getting used until the prime time in the tide was reached later in the trip. Back out along the edge of the reef it was bonga strips and shrimp cocktails with Dawn taking the first fish which turned out to be a Pompano, something I hadn't seen in African water before. It fought well enough and gave us a few twitchy moments as Steve and Dawn tried to maneuver it into the landing net. Another big plus was the lack of butterfish which meant that our baits would have more chance of being found by something better. We had a variety of smaller fish including kajele and sun pats. Then a nice kasava picked up Dawns bait triggering the time to be starting with the live mullet. I have to admit that I wasn't convinced these would make that much of a difference. But it's nice in situations like this to be proved totally wrong as the photographs show. Now that's what you call a honeymoon.