GUINEA BiSSAU
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Destination Bijagos: Trip Report 26th Dec – January 1st
“Where the f&@k is Bijagos?”
Was the general response I got when researching this West African fishing destination, a place apparently based on my requests for info, unknown to South African fishing folk let alone visited!
Bijago’s is a huge archipelago located off the Guinea Bissau coastline, our destination point is Bissau City for a night prior and after the main island trip bit due to flight times. The common perception is that West Africa is a “no-go” and every country is like Nigeria, not true!! I have been lucky enough to recently fish in Gabon and now Guinea Bissau and the first thing I realised is that South African is not regarded as anything special by the extremely friendly local folk, we have the same bad reputation as Nigeria, go figure!
Notes:
Lesson 1: Don’t eat the curry in the OR Tambo Business Class Lounge at 1am in the morning, the flight leaves at 3am and the route: Joburg – Kinshasa (you stay on the plane) – Togo change planes – Dakar (you stay on the plane) finally a 35min hop/skip flight to Bissau, its reasonably easy if your bum is NOT on fire!
Lesson 2: It’s a 3hr boat transfer to our final island destination, be patient as this is wild tidal estuarine system and the scenery is spectacular.
Lesson 3: Bring heavy weight terminal gear, 12/14 weight fly rods for fly and strong casting rod/reel combo’s, the fish are big and many, insanely many!! (A full gear list will be provided to our clients.)
Lesson 4: 7 nights min is required, there are so many hot spots for fly and conventional and so many species: Tarpon, Cobia, Kob, huge Leerie, snapper, big barracuda, Spanish mackerel, threadfin, jacks busting up all around you all the time.
Let the pics do the talking but man what a trip, what a place and yes you guessed it, we will be offering a couple of hosted trips one in November 2025 and one in February 2026. The Bijagos season runs October until May and flights with ASky are easy and reliable via our new Africa international flight partners @ Hilton Travel.
Images of fishing in Guinea Bissau
