Imagining the Seychelles

With Uncharted, Crystal-Clear Waters Encompassing Amazing Virgin Fisheries, One Has to Wonder if Such an Unbelievable Angling Destination Really Does Exist.

Like a homing beacon it stands proud in the distance, willing our heat-sapped legs to walk another mile or so through hot, shallow water. The biggest, most deserted flat I have ever seen is slowly lighting up with the inexorable rise of the brutal sun.

I see nothing but water, deserted horizon and utter, wild desolation, yet my heart is fit to burst clear of my chest with excitement and sheer exertion as I begin the angling adventure of a lifetime on the Providence atoll of the Seychelles.

“There’ll be bones here for sure, maybe some milkies as well,” says FlyCastaway guide Arno Matthee in a bid to keep us walking. Paul Boyers meanwhile stops momentarily to pin a big, tailing triggerfish as if it’s the most normal thing on earth. I am sure the reason he smiled so readily for my camera is because my mouth was hanging uncontrollably open in a complete state of wonderment. So far from home, seemingly off the edge of the earth in fact, these switched-on South Africans have gone and found arguably the best saltwater flats fishing on the planet.

The bottom changes suddenly from turtle grass and broken coral to hard white sand. A couple of miles behind us we can just make out the tender breaking the lonely horizon, but as my eyes adjust to the different conditions ahead, Arno and Paul simply grin at me like demented loons. When a couple of hardcore fishing guides get a day off, you’d think rest would be at the top of their to-do list, but not these two, who much like the saying goes, would rather be fishing.

Serious numbers of huge bones mill around in the ankle-deep clear water, while further to the north we can just make out the scything tales of big milkfish. And just then, like a ravenous horde, we fall upon the flat.

“These are galeforce bones, make no mistake” says Arno, as the humid wind whistles across this perfect flat. “I’ve got one day off and I’m going to smash some fish,” says Paul who wanders off in search of milkfish while Arno and I fill our boots with bones averaging over six pounds, and some nudging double digits. I definitely see fish way in excess of 10 pounds, but in reality I’m not good enough to catch them. At one point I am leaning over Arno’s shoulder with my camera, watching as he hooks a big bonefish.

It seems as if these bones have never fed before. There is a high chance we are the first people ever to fish this flat. The FlyCastaway guys spotted it a while back on satellite maps and were waiting for a chance to fish it properly before taking paying clients. When someone with as much Seychelles experience as Arno Matthee gets excited about a flat, you know something is up, and Providence has certainly got these guys excited.

While Arno is royally smashing the bones, I am keeping a close eye on Paul in the distance. He has been studiously ignoring the temptation of the bones in front of us and has instead spent his time targeting the erratically moving milkfish. I doubt there are two fly-fishermen on earth with as much experience on milkfish as Arno and Paul. The fly Arno invented to catch them has been generously named after him - Arno’s Milky Dream, a fly designed to look like a tempting morsel of green algae and be subtly dead-drifted through feeding milkfish. He has spent years refining his techniques and even now will attest to how challenging these magnificent fish are to catch.

Seeing milkies is usually no problem at all, indeed they are all over these flats, but the trick is to be there when they move or feed in a manner that allows us to catch them. As Paul hooked up to a screaming milkfish, I watched as he skillfully landed it.

What a fish! Its power and stamina is a testament to the glee lighting up Paul’s face as he exclaimed, “Now this is what I call the ultimate day off!”