Words and Photos: Russ Schnitzer 2017-06-26 18:18:33
By Western standards, Sudan is not a family-friendly destination. There are no all-inclusive resorts—or any resorts at all. Unless your non-fishing partner is into goat-herding there are few, if any, companion options.
Upon arrival in Port Sudan, we are asked to hand over our passports, which are deposited into a ragged plastic grocery bag along with a clutch of others, tossed into the passenger seat of a dusty old hatchback and spirited away with a wave of a hand and vague promise to be there at the airport for our scheduled departure. That’s committed in a way the imagination did not anticipate.
Liberated of passport, bunked down aboard a converted dive boat miles off the Sudanese coast, roasting under the African sun and constantly drenched by sweat and seawater is a travel experience that defines commitment. All of this comes before the very first showdown with a triggerfish or giant trevally, before frayed 130-pound fluorocarbon tippet, before broken 12-weights, and before a brush with a 10-foot shark.
The environment of Sudan’s Nubian Flats is very much like a hallucination—or straight up is one. Expansive flats and moonscape islands hold potential for scores of triggerfish, trevally, permit or the biggest bonefish you’ll ever see. Dramatic and otherworldly coral pinnacles rise from 300-meter drop-offs. They teem with schools of trevally, tuna, sailfish, snapper, queenfish, barracuda and many kinds of shark. Within their massive mazes live giant grouper, parrotfish and wrasse. Standing at the jagged edge of one of these pinnacles is mind-bending. It is easy to get lost gazing at the moving shapes 100 feet or more below, while an aquarium’s worth of wonder swims at your feet.
An entire season spent on the Nubian Flats would barely begin to pull back the curtain on its fishing potential. A hardy handful of anglers at the South Africa-based Tourettes Fishing has been hard at it as the only outfitter working there, and they probably have more questions than answers heading into their fourth year. What is known, though, is that with fair conditions, an angler can cast at 50 triggerfish in a day—maybe more. A 20-pound bonefish isn’t out of the question, nor is casting to a sailfish on foot, or to a pod of 40-pound milkfish. Giant trevally, bohar snapper, bluefin trevally, queenfish, barracuda and more are all but guaranteed. In the end, you’ll have shredded a pair of wading boots and done serious damage to your shins. Regardless of your saltwater resume, you’ll have experienced a new kind of humility in the face of exceptional conditions and circumstances.
True to the nearly lost art of adventure travel, Sudan’s Nubian Flats experience is stripped down to its barest essentials, focused solely on the fishing experience itself. And that experience is truly something for the imagination.
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