Providence Blog: 5 – 12 Dec 2023

Before we knew it, the final week of the Providence October – December 2023 season was here.
Fate would have it that we welcomed back our friends from AOS, Alex and Stephan. They were hosting a full house of guests from Austria, Marco was staying on for another week and our friend from South Africa, Peter, joined the group. A few first-timers to the salt and some guests on their 10th trip to the Seychelles. We were set to finish the week and season strong.

On the first day, we had some patchy light and low winds. Manuel, Gernot, and Chris’s team got straight into the action when they came across a mob of nurse sharks with about 200 GTs with them. Chris and Manuel landed a few GTs immediately, but the day went to Gernot, who landed his first GT and 3 others, including a 112cm. Well done Gernot The husband and wife team of Klaus V and Christina teamed up with Peter. Peter got off the mark early with an excellent GT on a crab. They all landed 1 bonefish each, and Christina got a sizeable yellow margin trigger to hand. Klaus V also landed a nice-sized Napoleon. The new team of Freddy, Klaus and Lucas landed their first GTs for the trip. Alex, Stephan, and Marco also got into the gents and brought 6 to hand. Bring the first day to a close with 17 GTs landed and signs of good things to come.

Sadly, as we often experience on the atoll, the weather can change on a dime, and we woke on the second day to 360 degree glare and rain all day. The teams thus set out to find a few bonefish; Lukas and Klaus landed their first 2 bones each, whilst Freddy caught his first and five more for the day, plus landed his first ever sailfish. Well done gents! Christina and Peter landed the only 2 GTs for the day.

We rose to beautiful weather on day three and set out to try to make up for the previous day’s bad light. Freddy, Klaus, and Lukas kept their momentum going with 1 each and 5 more bonefish. Peter, Christina, and their husband Klaus landed 8 bonefish—five for Peter, 2 for Klaus, and 1 for Christina. Alex, Stephan, and Marco found five lovely bones in the morning, and Stephan landed the first and only bumpy for the week. But the day’s fish went to Marco, who hooked and landed a GT measuring 114cm after a stressful fight involving some coral heads and a few swims. Well done, Marco!

On the 4th day, we had much of the same momentum. The teams kept the GT tally steadily ticking over with many more memorable catches. The trio of Alex, Stephan, and Marco landed 8 GTs, but the most memorable was 1 of Stephan’s fish that ate spectacularly after a long follow-in; the fish also measured 97cm—well done gents! Klaus, Freddy and Lukas also landed 5 GTs, 2 for Freddy and Klaus and one for Lukas, including a nice GT caught by Klaus V. This brought the day’s tally to 13 more GTs.

For the 5th and second to last day of the season, it looked like we would have excellent light and low winds. Peter got off the mark first with an absolute cracker of a fish, which after a short chase and another swim, the fish measuring 115cm was landed. His fishing partners Klaus V and Christina sadly ost a bumpy each shortly after. The other teams used the light well and caught many more GTs. Freddy, big Klaus and Lukas landed 7 GTs between them. The trio of Alex, Stephan and Marco matched this number. Emanuel, Chris and Gernot landed four more, whilst Chris ended the day off with a sailfish. Well done to everyone!

The season’s final day was here and thankfully the weather was going to play fair. We set off with blue skies and high hopes. Big Klaus landed his final GT for the trip which was spotted sitting in a white hole. Marco, Stephan, Klaus V and Peter also finished with a final GT each for their trip. Gernot and Manuel also landed a fish each, but it was Gernot who topped the teams with a second fish in the afternoon. Well done to all on a great week fo fishing and fun to close out our season!