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TEAM BLOGWahoo - Ecuadorian style (jan08)
Text and photos: Tommy Egra
Even if I had been talking to a lot of persons about the fishing possibilities, there hadn’t really been anyone that could offer me what I wanted, inside a reasonable price range. But the nightmare was suddenly over, when a Swedish guy stopped me in the streets and asked; “Are you Tommy the photographer?” Of course I was surprised, and the man asking me, wasn’t exactly like an Ecuadorian. But even if there was something fishy about the man, I shaked his hand, answered the truth and just a few minutes later we were discussing fishing in a juicebar drinking “batidos”, waving ur hands and our wives didn’t understand what in the world that was happening.. I jumped on the first bus back to Guayaquil – the BIG city and picked up all my fishing gear and the next morning we went out. Everybody that knew something about fishing was talking about the Wahoo, cause this was in September and this is the last month when this toothy fish is close to the coast of Ecuador. This little country is famous for it’s Galapagos, Panamahats, it´s jungle and the Vulcan’s – but almost nobody thinks about Ecuador as a fishy country and fishermen traveling here – almost never bring their rods. I have been traveling in and out this country the last 5 years, and I have been fishing both the jungle and now – finally in the sea, and I promise you, if you like fishing there a lot of fishing to be done here! Back in Puerto Lopez we where out in Peters Panga. This one was know rigged with rods and stuff just for sportfishing. I had just received some of the latest Rapala X-Rap Magnum models from Elbe Normark, and there was no surprise that this and standard Magnums are what we lowered down behind the fast moving boat. The eyes of the local captain was big as tinplates when he looked at me. He had never seen wobblers as nice as the X-Rap and he always gave me the thumb up when I asked him for todays possibility. The fishing in it self was just as fun as fishing gets! Peter was suppose to get the first one, so that I could study the “ways of the boat” and don’t make a mess or do anything dangerous with these big and nasty fishes in the boat. So we planned it, but it didn’t go like that. The first take was a double, and I couldn’t even think about taking pictures before I had an angry Wahoo and a fishingrod in my hands. Everybody laughed and the hours flew like we where kids in the circus. We fished three days and caught a lot of fish and had all the fun we wanted. Just a few days later the local fishermen reported that the big schools of fish was gone and there was only some few singles around. The prime time for Wahoo fishing in Ecuador is from July to October, depending on the water temperatures. They are also big and comes in great numbers. Our average fish I do believe was about 40lb, and the biggest ones were around 70lb.
The Norwegian Seabass Project Text and photo: Tommy Egra Earlier this summer Jonathan Colman called me and asked me if I wanted to join him and some other scientists and fishermen to catch and radiomark 10 seabasses to control the “new” Norwegian species and maybe understand more about it. I was fishing seatrout and halibut in Bodø and jumped on a plane to I rented a big locker on the train central, filled it up with cameras, diving suits and fishing equipment and jumped in a car and made it in to the seminar five minutes before it started and documented some real interesting and amazing new results. They had re- catched several of the earlier marked (only with numbered plastic strips) fishes and documented fishes that are trying to spawn in Norwegian fjords. This new discovering is what makes the seabasses of In the future they hope they will find out more about the results of the spawning, if the eggs surveys or not. If they do, we do have chance to get the seabasses registrated as a Norwegian specie and then the government can start to make the necessary moves to protect this fish as all the others species. Jonathan, who is the leader of the project, is also a dedicated fisherman, and well known to be among the best seabass fishermen in Since we already were in When the fishes where caught, we saved them one by in a big underwater container, until we had all the 10 perfect examples ready for the operation table. On a little island we arranged the operation base, and operated in the 10 radiomarkers and left the drugged fishes recover for a day before they went back in the sea. The whole process was amazingly smooth and professional, thanks to Trygve Poppe at The very next day, I took the train to the south where I live, unpacked, repacked and went straight on further south to shoot photos article photos in Mandal and Flekkefjord who also are famous spots for seabass fishing in Norway.
TOMMY EGRA Mar.2007
My desktop calendar tells me it’s the 8th week of the year, and the frosty thermometer shows - It doesn’t makes the light in the tunnel brighter when Helge, my Norwegian fishing companion tells me about snow dramatic storms and electrical problems all over Denmark and the south parts of Norway and Sweden. “Maybe we should cancel the trip to The next day we had quite a rally on the small, snowy roads before we entered the But we were out to hunt for seatrouts and shoot some pictures of this island, but with seatrouts in the focus area. The first day went by and the wheather was nice to us, but we didn’t know the right places, and it was first when we hooked up with the expert Centha, from the local guide, education and information center at www.fiskelandgotland.com. He has about 40 years of experience, and we where of course trying to get him to learn us all in 5 days.. After fishing with him for about 5 full days, in stormy, freezing weather and wind up to 17mps he told us we where the most unlucky fishermen he had met.. The conditions were hopeless and totally out of our control, and even him, and the locals seatrout fishermen had huge problems catching fish. Only a few fishes where landed and the icing in the rod rings was devastating, and made us give up earlier than normal. The good part with this the whole bad weather thing, is that he, and his fishing companion invited me back in Easter to do a real comeback and they could almost promise me pictures and a good article with big seatrouts. “As long as the weather isn’t out of control, like today – I dare to promise you a superb article when you return!” says Centha smiling, like he always does. With this promise, I waved goodbye to Gotland on the ferry to
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I was just killing time in the small and dusty streets of the fisherman village, Puerto Lopez in Ecuador. The last three years I had longed for a chance to rent or by one of the blue and heavy boats, laying in dozens on the beach, just waiting to be filled up with rods, cameras and good friends. For me the west coast of Ecuador had been like a nightmare. From the inside of a bus, a taxi or one of the juice bars on the beach I had seen how the pelicans and frigates birds was diving into the waves, just snapping one sardine after another. From what that felt like a prison, I couldn’t stop thinking about what was going on beneath the surface. 
Freezing in Gotland – 
