Ascension Island: A desert island with an abundance of fish that the pioneers of big game fishing have experienced at best. The island south of the Equator on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge has been a military base for the British since the Second World War, where commercial fishing has been banned there since that time. The German IGFA representative Jörg-Dieter Haselhorst made the small island available to anglers. In 2002, he relocated the big game yachts SHY III and HARMATTAN from Ghana to Ascension. There, the SHY found a tragic end, going under after she slipped out of the straps while being lifted out of the water. Only the HARMATTAN was in use after that. HARMATTAN can be chartered all year round One of the first to fish off the volcanic island was the German big gamer Clemens Rump from Quakenbrück. With stunning success: The then 68-year-old set a number of personal records with just a few trips: They ranged from 245 lb yellowfin tuna to 791 lb blue marlin right up to a bluntnose sixgill shark weighing about 589 kg, a new world record. “I have been incredibly lucky and have not caught as many fish as here in my entire 25 years of big game fishing,” Clemens Rump related, summing up his island adventures. All anglers after him can confirm the enormous abundance of fish. Blue marlin with an average weight of 500 lb are fished from January to April. On good days, multiple strikes are not uncommon. Even grander can be caught here. One marlin weighed in at 1,320 lb. (see photo below) Happy angler Kevin Gardener and one of the biggest marlin ever caught in the Atlantic by IGFA rules Very large yellowfin tuna are never far away if the forage fish are plentiful. They will take marlin lures as well and are a true challenge at weights of up to 300 lb. Even sailfish do not shy away from the large lures. No great surprise, as these fish are world record in size. The heaviest Atlantic sailfish that was caught as “bycatch” while fishing for marlin weighed 140 lb. They were not specifically fished for, however, although several bites a day from March to July are the rule rather than the exception. Even big yellowfin tuna will be caught more often than not The HARMATTAN offers much more than just trolling and drift fishing. During the evening, world record size sixgilled sharks can be caught at a mooring buoy at a depth of about 160 m. These primeval fish are so common that a first bite often takes place within just a few minutes. All sharks that had been caught generally weighed about 1,000 lb. Some of the fish must have been so large that they outbid Clemens Rump's world record shark at 1,298 lb, however crew and anglers agreed to mark the fish rather than kill them. Long beaches and rocky banks are a paradise for fishing with popper, stickbait and spoon Disport quickly comes about at the mooring buoy while surface fishing at dusk. When using pieces of wahoo, jacks or other fresh fish meat (Chum), it usually does not take long for yellowfin tuna in the 10 to 40 kg class to take up the scent, setting in behind the boat. They can then be fished using spinning or fly rods. A few floors down, power jiggers get their moneys worth and can prove their stamina with amber jacks, which are respect-demanding opponents at sporadic lengths of up to 1.8 m and more than 50 kg. Yet another highlight is shore fishing from July to September: When tuna, jacks, rainbow runner and other predators drive large schools of hand span length jacks up the beach, they themselves become victims of lures and poppers while engaging in gluttonous sight fishing. Members of the Big Game Fishing Club Germany caught yellowfin tuna weighing up to 132 lb, rainbow runner up to 20 lb as well as skipjack tuna, black jack, amberjack or grouper while bank fishing this way using popper and spoons:

Island Information

Ascension is one of the most isolated islands in the Atlantic Ocean: 1,600 km to Africa and 1,800 km to Brazil. The island is 12 kilometers in diameter. Only the tip is tropical green, situated 859 meters above sea level and veiled by clouds. Otherwise, the lunar landscape and merely 600 year old and mostly barren lava rock is displayed in various shades of red. These are interrupted by the razor sharp glistening black obsidian lava melt, which can be found here in large quantities, after which the only hotel on the island is named. A lunar landscape, but fishing is Jurassic park style The island was first discovered in 1501 by a Portuguese, then re-discovered in 1503 by a French expedition on Ascension Day and was therefore named Ascension. Nowadays, the name is pronounced in English, as it has been under the control of the British military since 1815. Together with the islands of Saint Helena and Tristan da Cunha, Ascension is a so-called British overseas territory – with its own currency and its own stamps; their motives representing the island fish species in beautiful regularity. Until the 1970's, Ascension served as a stopover for the laying of submarine telegraph and telephone cable from Europe to South America and is now an electronic listening post operated by British and U.S. services. Most of the approximately 1,350 inhabitants come from St. Helena. As civilian employees ranging from garbage man to dentist, they support about 200 members of the military. Acension harbor: Just a little pier head into the vast Atlantic The island has long lost its military significance. As a result, eco-tourists are allowed to bring some money to the island: It is the biggest and most important seabird breeding station in the tropical Atlantic. In addition, every year between January and May, 2000 green sea turtles come to Ascension to lay their eggs on one of the islands 32 beaches. Available for fishing trips: Harmattan mate Colin Chester and his catamaran. As propitious as the waters surrounding the island may be, the touristic infrastructure is underdeveloped. Visitors travel to and from Ascension via the military airport Brize Norton near Oxford/UK. Because seats are limited, long term planning and booking is a must. Only one agent can offer flights to the Island and help to organize entry permits: www.ascension-flights.com Contacts: Colin Chester Email: colinchester@me.com Capt. Matthias Henningsen www.atlanticfishingcharter.com (Excerpt from “Ultimate Bluewater Gamefishing – Species, Techniques, Destinations”, by Jürgen Oeder, will be published as an iBook in summer 2013)