On repeated, perspective-soaked trips to a remote stretch of the Mozambican coast, Peter Coetzee cherishes what’s there before it disappears. Photos: Peter Coetzee. As featured in The Mission Issue 47 (Sep/Oct 2024).

I stood transfixed, my eyes on the horizon, as the birds continued to fall from the clouds like spears, crashing into the moody ocean below. I’d been warned by naysayers not to be here in summer and, today, nine days into a two-week stint riding the beaches, I hoped that these balls of bait stretching the entire horizon would be proof that they were wrong. 

It’s easy to bet against a surf fly fisherman, for we rely not only on luck, but on timing and proximity as well. I looked at my watch. The four hours that had elapsed as I’d tracked this shoal seemed impossible. I still had hope that the predators would drive them in and, for moments here and there, it looked possible. I had more hope still that the predators would be of the specific flavour I was here for – giant trevally.  

This stretch of beach is mainly barren, its inshore fishery defined by the movement of sand that opens and closes stretches of reef, some convincingly permanent. In reality, the reef is often only a north-easterly wind away from being hidden for months again, its resident fish departing to whatever other watery home awaits. It’s a phenomenon that I found devastating at first but, in time (I’ve now spent four weeks on these beaches), I’ve learned to enjoy these little windows for what they are. 

War has shaped this coastline and country, many residents still scarred by their childhood memories. The camp’s chef, Costa, travelled through these exact dunes many times as a kid, never spending more than a few nights in a single encampment for his entire childhood. The dunes carry mountains of skeletons of those who attempted to stay longer. 

“The perspective of just how lucky I am to fish for fun often hits surprisingly hard.”

The ecosystem’s flora and fauna still show the evidence of starvation. People evading persecution were forced to scavenge to survive and so anything living, edible and accessible became food. The scavenging way of life became the only way for many of the people who are now nomadic fishers in these parts. Despite that, in the few years I’ve been visiting this stretch of coast, it’s a promising sight that a bird sighting has gone from a rare surprise to a morning chorus.  

I spend a lot of time watching these men and women fishing and catching crabs, and the perspective of just how lucky I am to fish for fun often hits surprisingly hard. In stark contrast to these people’s weathered faces is a playful demeanour that makes suffering seem, at times, almost healthy for the human condition. For companions they have fascinating little hounds that are like short-haired Shiba Inus, that somehow seem to survive drinking the saltwater, and that have a healthy fear of white men.  

As a regular visitor now, I recognise certain individuals, and they recognise me. We will sometimes attempt to understand how each other’s day has gone. They will point at a rack of drying fish, and I will shrug my shoulders and laugh. I’m a fly fisherman, the man with no dried fish ever. I do sometimes supply hooks, a highly prized piece of carbon in these parts, usually attached to a Clouser or a simple baitfish pattern. 

The men seem to age at an accelerated rate here, sun exposure at odds with their omega-rich diet perhaps, or maybe we just all experience time differently. A day out here or anywhere in the wild makes that seem a reality. The same goes for an hour on a treadmill for that matter. 

I think about what the Chinese “sand mine”, which has site offices that have broken ground just a few kilometres to the south, will do to this ecosystem. I also think about its effect on these people. Their kids will most probably work in the mine. They will soon favour creature comforts over fish and will trade their current set of problems for ones far more familiar to us. They’ll be given a window through a tiny LCD screen into another world that will force them to compare their abundant lives against a set of measures that will make their abundance seem like poverty. They will soon be trapped forever in a ruinous economic system. I am a cynic because my generation has seen this play out at rapid pace, no country immune.  

“You may one day be faced with a wave that pitches presenting a wall of massive giant trevally.”

If you’re lucky, there is a year or two still to explore this stretch of unspoiled wild coastline. So, you pre-empt the decline and arrive. You might find nothing if the sand tide arrives or if abundance offshore keeps you far from the GTs but, if you’re lucky like I have been, you may one day be faced with a wave that pitches presenting a wall of massive giant trevally, or you might turn a corner and find a fish that has herded bait into a bay and is well within fly casting range. If you’ve the right temperament for a surf fly fisherman, you will enjoy it as much either way. 

This is the cover story of The Mission Issue 47. Read the whole magazine below – like the best things in life, it’s free.