Skinny Waters takes on the Nubian Flats
In late March, we traveled to Port Sudan with 4 anglers to fly fish the Red Sea for 2 weeks…
Wild Sea Expeditions helped put the trip together for us and as usual, they did a great job. Half the fun of this kind of trip is the adventure just to get to Port Sudan. It’s a long journey that usually requires an overnight in Cairo. We took advantage of this and did some pyramid/museum tours and made the mistake of riding a camel. Exciting for 5 minutes, dreadfully uncomfortable for 90 minutes.
The fishery there is remote and the water is gorgeous and crystal clear, it’s a super healthy ecosystem. We had mostly good weather and reasonable winds. Triggerfish are abundant here and aren’t as spooky as they can be in other places. They are less picky and will eat several different flies equally well. We all landed our fair share and lost even more. We had some great fish, but none matched last year’s behemoth.
Bluefin and giant trevally roam the flats occasionally and the edges routinely. Patience paid off for those of us willing to put some time in and some nice fish were landed. If you’re willing, teasing works really well.
We encounter a few schools of bump head parrotfish. These were big schools that held some fish far too big to hope to land. There were a few mediocre shots presented, but nothing came of it. Great to see them either way.
A few of us took advantage of the low light times to throw spinning gear and it paid off. Bluefin and giant trevally were landed as well as coral trout, dogtooth tuna, and various grouper species.
The three guides, James, Dylan and Josh, were from South Africa and worked super hard for us. They happily put in really long days and contributed to our success. The crew on the Felicidad were friendly and took great care of us. The food exceeded everyones expectations and was delicious.
Our last night we had a chance to roam around Port Sudan a bit. The people were friendly and smiling. Port Sudan is different from other places in the country of Sudan. It feels safe. From what I have been told, the unrest that just took place in Sudan didn’t affect the Port area.
Our next trip is in the planning stages and we are heading to a remote island off of Socotra. It’s remote, primitive and has unbelievably good fishing with a large variety of fish reachable from the beach. Reach out if you’d like to be kept in the loop, we will have limited spots available.
Thank you to Rob (rpljuscec) for the great pics!
