Los Roques Report week 21^st Feb 2010

Los Roques is an island on a Caribbean archipelago some 40 minutes flying time north of Caracus, designated as a Venezuelan national park.

We flew out on the Sunday from London to Caracus via Paris on Air France - BA used to go direct, but apparently stopped their service recently. Total flying time about 12 hours depending upon head winds etc.

Care was needed in Caracus to make certain we didn’t go off with the wrong meet & greet service, as a throng of hopeful locals swarm towards any incoming tourists offering everything from taxi’s to money exchange and a few other things no doubt, that my Spanish fortunately wasn’t up to.

John, the Sightcast (the local operator) representative, met us and whisked us off to the airport hotel where we were to overnight before the internal flight to Los Roques.

Back at the airport the following morning we ran into a snag. The usual turbo prop aircraft was out of service and its replacement was too small to carry all the luggage. Even on the regular plane the limit is just 10 kilos per person but this is usually just  an excuse to extract an extra 30 or so Bolivars (the local currency - about 5 Bolivars to the US$) in overweight from you.

Having had to abandon half our luggage to John’s care, we flew the 40 minutes out to the archipelago arriving well in time to go fishing that morning, but then had to wait for a couple of hours for a second plane to bring the bags left behind. But with 30 degrees of warm sunshine after leaving the UK at –4C and the whole week to look forward to it was no big deal.

Los Roques itself is a delightful little village bustling with locals and tourists serviced by a number of small Pasadas (guest houses rather than hotels perhaps) each in the style of little town houses. The Acuarela, where we stayed, was, as we gradually worked out for ourselves, by far the best. My only disappointment was that there was no pool and swimming on the beachfront not really practical unless you wanted to swim amongst all the boats coming in and out and the hundreds of Pelicans dive bombing the fry in the harbour.

If you want to go swimming and sunbathing you have to be taken to an adjacent island by boat each day.

Anyway we did finally get our bags, got kitted up and sped off to the flats in our boats (two rods per boat) each of which had a captain and a guide. First time I have bone fished this way as usually there is just a skiff and a single guide, but Los Roques is all about walking and then being picked up rather than having to trudge back to get the boat each time. Worked well.

The flats are nice too. Mostly hard sand and nice easy wading. Darwin and Jesus who guided Chris and I during the week were great. Good fishers and new the water well.

Unfortunately though we managed to get the tides wrong again (you need a low tide week for LR) and we faced high spring tides washing us off a lot of the flats for much of the week.

I have to say that the purist might have been a little disappointed, but not us. There is only so much bone fishing I want to do in a day and any excuse to go off and try something different is a welcome change. So we took advantage of the conditions and had a great week – A typical day was two or three hours at the bones, then perhaps a go for a Tarpon or a troll for a ‘Cuda or Jack and round it all off with some snorkelling to cool off.

On the Thursday I took a day off the fishing and went diving with Ecobuzos (0237 2211235). Otto who was our dive master was professional and very safety conscious which I like. The hire equipment all seemed fairly new and well serviced (which was more than I could say for mine!). Two well planned drift dives, one off the wall the second over the reef, with very knowlegable and watchful dive masters one leading and one behind ensuring no-one got lost and the boat following. Lots to see and good visibility. Well done guys, top marks from me.

Back to the fishing and though I kept a diary, I rather lost count as the week went on. But four of us notched up something in the order of 140 Bone fish to 7lbs, about 20 Barracuda to about 15lbs, a Bonito, a Bar Jack, a number of nice sized snapper and chased, albeit unsuccessfully, after some huge Tarpon and at least one shoal of Permit.

On the last day we plumbed for the Lobster lunch on an out island. Fresh caught Lobsters, oysters and fish all served up in a Caribbean lean-to as only the local islanders can make (!) all washed down with some beers and good music courtesy of Derek Coles who really should have been a DJ.  The group of Italians (I think) on the next table seemed to enjoy it, whilst we marvelled at how much can be held in by so little. All in all, really good fun.

The only downside of the week was the return journey. Due to storms in Paris, Air France cancelled the out-coming flight, so it took us 36 hours to get back, eventually on Alitalia via Rome! But the test of a good operator is what they do when things go wrong and Roxtons and Sightcast between them were brilliant - ok, perhaps with a little help from me on the ground - so for the group all it really meant was a free extra night in a plush hotel.

My thanks to Luigi and his staff at the Acuarela, very comfortable and great food but something other than fish would have been nice just occasionally!

Thanks also to Darwin, Francesco, Jesus and his captain (sorry I didn’t get your name) you did us proud.

Tip for Sightcast… please don’t rotate the guides. It’s hard enough getting to know them and them us when there is a language barrier and I have never found this a good policy.

Tip for Luigi… please tell new guests about the roof garden. I only found it by accident on the last day!

Tips for future Los Roques fishers: Take at least a couple of hundred more US$ than recommended if you want to go out drinking in the evening or enjoy anything like diving or the Lobster lunch. Take sun cream with built in mosquito repellent which is essential if you go into the lagoons looking for Tarpon. Avon Bronze worked well for me! Best flies: Gummy minnows in small and large sizes, Bitters, small crabs and Crazie Charlies and yes you need variety the fish were quite picky.

Tip for anyone flying Alitalia – Don’t! Food dreadful, seats cramped (got a bad back as a result) and no spirits at all in the plane!!!!!!