Fishipedia Top 5: Reasons why the Seychelles is fishing heaven

Awe-inspiring natural beauty and fishing that’s downright scary. Welcome to the good life…

1. Two words: giant trevally. Actually, two letters usually suffice: GT. These supersized members of the jack family grow to 100lbs+ and are the unquestioned bully-boy of the flats. Talk to people who’ve fished for them and you’ll notice they struggle to find sufficient adjectives. What follows is a string of metaphors: steam train, wrecking ball, ballistic missile, Mike Tyson on steroids, monster truck, runaway train – these are the kind of words you hear. One thing they usually agree on is that fishing for them is a little bit scary.

Although they spend most of their time in deeper water, when the time is right GTs will sweep onto the flats in groups of four or five, ready to nail anything in their path. If that happens to be your fly, you’d better be ready for battle. If you manage to keep your rod in one piece, the backing on your reel, and you can them keep them away from coral heads long enough to stop them shredding your line, you’ll be rewarded with a broken back, sore arms and a smile you’ll be wearing for the whole flight home. This video (round about the 40-second mark) should give you an idea what we’re talking about here:

2. It’s like the Jurassic Park of fishing. OK, that might sound a bit weird, but bear with us here. Of course, not everywhere has the raw materials necessary to support the kind of rich ecosystem you find in The Seychelles, but one visit to this far-off land and you can’t help thinking that it’s like a window into the past – a glimpse of what the oceans might all have been like if man hadn’t got his grubby little mitts all over them. On top of that, these waters, some of the hardest for any creature to survive in, are filled with leviathans; tuna with teeth like a dog, fish that eat nothing but algae yet swim with a speed and power you can barely compute, and monsters from the deep that charge onto the flats, shredding everything in their path like some kind of deranged aquatic T-Rex. Survival of the fittest isn’t just a phrase here – it’s the theme that underpins everything. And that goes for the fishermen too. Check this out to see what we mean:

3. It’s one of the best places to take your non-fishing partner. Of course, we’re not suggesting you take the good lady on a remote mothership operation with a bunch of other fly-fishing-obsessed headcases, but some of the remote luxury resorts (see Desroches Island and Alphonse Island) in the The Seychelles are right up there with the world’s finest. Diving, snorkelling, nature tours, kayaking, powdery white-sand beaches, world-class cuisine – this place is a little bit special, with or without the fishing.

4. You get to fish with some of the world’s best saltwater guides. The guys who dedicate their lives to guiding in this remote outpost live and breathe fishing, and are well known for their dedication and willingness to go the extra mile to fulfil their clients’ dreams. Fly Castaway who operate some of the finest Seychelles trips have this to say: “All members of the team are internationally experienced, professional fly-fishing guides who have made countless contributions to fly fishing books, magazines and television shows, both locally and abroad, with their cutting edge techniques.” You’ll be in safe hands.

5. It’s rated R for remote. The Seychelles’ 115 islands lie 1,000 miles east of Kenya, sprinkled like magic dust in the Indian Ocean. If you spin a globe you’ll get an idea – you could easily breeze straight past them. The upshot of having this distant and isolated position is all positive – a seething cauldron of marine activity, flats that may well never have seen fishermen, and fish that have certainly never seen flies. This is an eco-system that has been left to do its own thing – as a result, bonefish school in incomparable numbers, GTs grow to weights in excess of 100lbs+ by feasting on anything and everything in their path, and species like milkfish thrive in numbers not found anywhere else on earth.

Rory Batho

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