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The Egypt with a surface of 1.001.449 kmq. occupies the north-east extremity of Africa and it is faces on Mediterranean sea and on Red sea. The territory is mostly desertic, so the population is concentred near the river Nile valley and delta.
Aside from terrific angling, the lake is a lovely place to visit. It’s a magical wilderness of stunning desert scenery bordered by the clean water of the lake that is dotted with rocky islands; there is an atmosphere of tranquility, vastness and adventure. Lake Nasser is a place where a small group of angler have litterally hundreds of square miles to them-selves. The shoreline is a variety of desert landscapes, hilly and rugged, or flat and sandy with clean freshwater beaches. The weather is nearly always sunny and bright with rain only once or twice every two or three years. The area enjoys a dry desert climate that is neither humid nor oppressive. Wind is not a major problem and it is comparatively rare for ti to be strong for more than few hours. The winter months (November to April) are much cooler and the evening can be cold, especially from mid November to the end of February (8°C-10°C). During the other months (May- October) the weather is dry and hot and during the middle of the day temperatures get up to 45°C.
The nile perch is the largest freshwater fish in the world readily available to anglers and the most reliable records for lake Nasser it is a fish of 178 kilograms. The best fish caught by rod and reel on the lake is a nile perch of 118 kilograms. Tigerfishes abound in the lake and of the several species the most common is Hydrocynus forskalii. These fishes may be relates to South America phiranha and just one look at their voracious teeth leaves you in no doubt that they are savage predator. The size and the strength of a nile perch is one thing, but for sheer sport on light tackle a tigerfish takes a lot of beating. They can rightly claim to be one of the most spectacular freshwater fish in the word, not only is beautiful fish, but its ferocious elegance will get any angler’s adrenaline going. Few fish have such a fierce fighting energy; a tigerfish can leap clear of the water and throw your hook, break wire trace, rattles swivels to bits and generally wreak havoc on tackle. Best periods for this two fishes run from September to November and from February to May. The lake, also, has an impressive variety of birds, mammalas and reptiles. More than 100 species of birds have been recorded on the lake. Wild duck, Egyptian geese, pelicans, herons and various species of hawks, falcons and eagles will be among the birds seen. In most areas there are crocodile and monitor lizards, other types of wildlife include gazelle, desert fox, jackals and various smaller desert animals. BEGINNING OF THE ADVENTURE The other fishermen and I, finally arrived at the Basma hotel in Aswan, met Tim Baily, the organizer of the fantastic adventure that we was approaching to live: a fishing safari sailing for a week on the unspoiled waters of lake Nasser. Tim, after giving us a series of information regarding the fishing on the previous weeks and satisfying any our curiosity, say us the "good night" , in fact the day after we will have a very long day.
The morning at 3 o’clock am we are all togheter in the hall of the hotel and we are divided in two groups so to explore two different areas of the lake; then my group and I are transferred by coach at the starting place. With Mark and Roy from England, Jarid and Guy from South Africa and the nice Belgian Bob, taken by William, our English chief guide, we begin our adventure from Garf Hussein about the middle of the lake to conclude after six days near the Aswan dam. We start for the first established camp with four boats, of which three for fishing and one used only to transport provisious and all that may be useful to spent six days far from the civilization. At this time every boat, composed by two anglers and two Egyptian guides, is independent from the others and the anglers are those who decide to troll or to spin from the shore. The only bound is to come back to the camp, that varied place every day, for eating and sleeping.
Arrived at the camp, we taster a delicious and substantial lunch worth of the best Egyptin restaurants; after resting and asking about our respective experiences, we decide to go all together in the same hot spot visited by Mark and me. We spent all the afternoon making shore fishing, helping reciprocally to make slide and release the nile perches that strike with a remarkable frequency. The biggest fish of the will be of Mark with a pattern of about 15 kilograms.
Anyone of us haven’t spent to much time for a specifically fishing for the tigerfish, in fact all the anglers wanted to engage themselves against the spectacular and powerful runs of the nile perches, but sometimes, when school of tigerfishes arrived near the shore, happened to take several of these fishes. Tigerfishes were able to release themselves by an impressive series of jumps. The tigerfishes caught was in the range from 1 to 2 kilograms, but Roy has fished 2 of them respectively of 3 and 4,5 kilograms. TACKLES The fishing tackle for shore fishing must be very strong and resistant, I advise a heavy spin rod that can cast from 20 to 60 grams and it is also functional a carp fishing rod from 2 1/2 to 3 lb. At the rod, you can link a good reel that it is able to contain at least 250 meters of 15 lb line. The lures that were better than others, for number of catches, were the Rapala countdown CD9 and CD11 respectively of 9 and 11 centimeters in the colours: black/silver/orange (SCG), green/yellow/black (GM) and the news brown/black (OS) and green/black (GS). These lures must be connected, with a snap swivel of at least 100 lb, with a 2 meter long leader of 80 lb, otherwise you will lost all the nile perches that rub the line over the rocks. If one of you want fish with light tackle for tigerfishes and small nile perches can use a common light spin rod that can cast from 10 to 15 grams with a reel that contains 200 meters of 6-8 lb line. The best lures for tigerfishes are small minnows from 5 to 7 centimeters like: Rapala, Yozuri, Abu Garcia or from small silver spoons. A lure also very good is the "Minnow Spoon" of the Rapala with the single hook, in the size of 6 and 7 centimeters in the colours silver (CH) and gold/green (GS). Regarding a perfect troll tackle you can use a 20 lb rod, if possible "stand-up", with a reel of the same size that it is able to contain 300 meters of 20 lb-25 lb. You must use leaders very long because the big nile perches tend to fight in depths and go down in the gorges of the rocks. So you can use a double line of 2 meters connects with a leader of 2,5 meters of 130 lb of section with a snap swivel of 165 lb. For troll the best minnows are the "Depth Raiders" of the Buchertail that can swim at 6 meters on depth. The colours that we have used were the silver /black, the orange/black and the yellow/green. These lures have a perfect swim action and also in slow troll they work very well. These American lures are very difficult to find , but you will be able to hire them in Egypt from the African Angler for a cheap amount. Who like fly fishing can utilize an heavy rod with a length of 9’- 9 1/2’ with a fly reel that can contain a sinking fly line WF10 or WF11 connected with 200 meters of 30 lb backing. As flies you can use tarpon and snook streamers preceded by a leader from 9’ to 12’ of 30 or 50 lb. For tigerfishes it is good a trout fly rod with relative reel; the only precaution is to use a steel leader before the streamer. In fact the tigerfish have sharp toothes t and it can cut any size of nylon leader. In this way the flies must be smaller than these for nile perches and you can utilize salmon and trout streamers. Who want to try during the night the fishing for giant catfishes can use the heavy spin tackle connecting the line with a 40 of 50 grams sinker with a 80 lb leader wrapped with a 3/0 or 4/0 hook. As bait you can utilize small dead baits as tilapia and tigerfish. Personally I have tried this kind of fishing for 3 night without success; only a night around 11 o’clock a fish have eated my bait but the time to go off of my sleeping bag that the fish have spited out the bait. Who of you likes the numbers would like to know how many fishes it is possible to catch in a safari. So, it is very difficult to know because vary from place to place and depending of the season. The guides said me that to fish 10 nile perches a day it is a good result. Personally, in 5 1/2 days, I have fished 47 nile perches and 3 tigerfishes; my best fish was a nile perch of 41,5 kilograms fished by trolling in the last 10 minutes before the end of the safari. The best fish of the week was a nile perch of 43 kilograms fished by the lucky South African angler Jarid that also was able to catch from the shore, after 20 minutes of fighting with a 20 lb tackle a nile perch of 42 kilograms. I think that this kind of safari it is exiting and fascinating and you must adapt at it, in fact you can’t pretend to have a sleeping bed or to do a shower. Personally I believe that my experience was more than positive and surely in the future I will come back.
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Copyright ©2004, by PESCARTE/SP, Brasil
In the 1960’s a dam was
built on the Nile at Aswan, the resulting lake flooded 496
kilometers of the Nile valley, creating one of the largest
man-made lakes in the world, with a surface area of 6.216
kilometers. The resident fish population of the original
river were presented with a huge lake to live in and have
thrived in their new habitat, especially the tilapia and
their predators, nile perches and tigerfish.
The two most popular sport
fish in the lake are nile perch and tigerfish. There are
also several species of catfish, the legendary giant vundu
being the largest and can arrive at about 50 kilograms. Two
species of tilapia also inhabit the lake and give a good
account of themselves when caught on fly rod. All told there
are some 32 species of fish in the lake.
The first day starts very
well, in fact after about one hour of sailing, we arrived on
a small island on which mark and I go down and we start to
spin our lures from the rocky shore. At my second cast I
have the sensation to have brought the bottom but after one
second the fishing rod is almost pull up from my hands and
the reel comes to give line in an impressive way. It wasn’t
the bottom but a nile perch of about 5 kilograms that after
ten minutes of jumps and powerful runs surrenders to be,
then, immediately released. With euphoria I restart to spin
among the waves raised by an annoying wind that will
accompany us for all the day. Mark and I fish for about all
the morning catching a dozen of these wonderful fishes of a
weight ranging from 2 to 4 kilograms. Then when we are
coming back toward the camp, our Egyptian guides Nagrashi
and Karim propose to us to stop once again, for half an hour,
on their favorite hot spot island. The proposal was
immediately accepted with enthusiasm and so we had the
opportunity to fish other 6 nile perches of good size, the
best of which was caught by Mark and it will stop the needle
of the scale on 12 kilograms. Not bad for the first half day
of fishing.
We have spent the other
days alterning the troll with the spin with variable lucky
arriving every evening, satisfied of the day passed, but
very tired and sometimes exhausted. After dinner every
angler went up on own boat and he slept on the sleeping bag;
there was just the time to close the zipper that the eyelids
lowered and "Morpheus", the god of sleep, took the
got upper him.