On the 1st of April the Richards Bay Ski Boat Club had the opening function for the annual Easter Bonanza. We had been busy organising the competition for about 7 months and the day of the briefing had finally arrived. The competition was to be fished over 3 days (Good Friday, Saturday and Easter Sunday) with a benchmark scoring system.
How the system works is there are several nominated species with accompanying benchmark weights (ie Yellowfin Tuna – 110kg, Sailfish – 60kg, catface rockcod – 8kg etc). Anglers who weigh these species will then score a percentage of the benchmark weight. The angler who scores the highest percentage wins the competition. For example, a yellowfin tuna of 55kg is weighed and the benchmark is 110kg – this result in a 50% score. A rockcod of 7kg is weighed and the benchmark is 8kg – the score is 87.5%. The rockcod thus wins.
Friends of mine from Middleburg, Wessel Visagie and friends, would be fishing with me on my Dad’s boat “Selfish”. This was the 5th year that Wessel would be fishing with me in this competition. Our game plan was to fish for ‘cuda (king mackerel). There had been a few around, but the big fish seemed to be few and far between. The benchmark for the ‘cuda was 40kg which meant a 20kg ‘cuda would score 50% and a 30kg fish would score 75%. The worst case scenario we would get some good eating fish for Wessel to take back with him.
The weather forecast looked great for the first 2 days with a strong SW on the last day. All preparations were made in advance and everything was ready to go. On the first morning I was up at 4am, hitched the boat and headed to the club. There were a few boats busy launching and by 4:45 I was in the water and went to fetch Wessel and the rest of my crew from the jetty in front of the TuziGazi Waterfront. After getting clearance from the competition control to leave the port, I opened the throttle and headed for the bait reef between the ships to look for livebait. We made a few drifts and managed to catch a few maasbankers and red eyes before we headed to Petingo.
We arrived at Petingo at about 7:30am and I put out an 
array of baits including bonito, wala-wala and live maasbankers. I then proceeded to slow troll around the wreck looking for a ‘cuda. There were already 11 boats there and several more were on their way there. It was extremely slow going and we had only caught 3 hammerhead sharks by 11am. We also had a visit from the resident great white that came to investigate what was happening in our prop wash (a real treat for the up country guys). There had been no cuda caught on any of the boats on or around the wreck and I was getting a bit despondent. All the baits were swimming perfectly - something had to happen... and finally, at 12:30, when most of the other boats had left, we had our first pull on a live maasbanker on the surface. The fish was small and came to the boat very quickly where I gaffed the cuda of about 8kg. At that stage we were all over the moon that we finally had something to show for our efforts.
I reset the lines and continued trolling. About an hour later, the deep line with a small wala-wala on it took off. The other lines were cleared with great haste and the fight continued. After about 10 minutes, a nice size cuda came to the surface where it was gaffed. It later weighed in at 15kg (the second biggest cuda of the day for the competition). Again the lines were reset and trolling continued. At 14:30, we had about 30 minutes of fishing left when the rod, with a +-2kg skipjack tuna as bait, buckled and the reel screamed. I thought that this was the fish we were looking for because it was a big bait, but the fish didn’t take much line. Infact, it came to the boat very quickly where it turned out to be a cuda of only 8,4kg! Oh well, at least it was a fish and not a shark!
We headed back to port and started preparing for the next day.
On day 2 we headed to the same bait reef as the day before and manage
d to get several maasbakers and then we drifted into a shoal of mackerel where we put about 20 into the live well. We headed to Petingo and arrived at about 7am and set the lines. I trolled the same pattern as the day before and about 20 mnutes after starting, the surface livebait was eaten. Wessel quickly pulled a small 6kg cuda to the boat where it was unceremoniously gaffed. It was good to have a fish in the hatch nice and early. The next pass resulted in another strike from a small cuda that unfortunately pulled hook at the boat. The next strike came about an hour later and we boated 9kg cuda. There seemed to be alot of small fish around and we had several baits chopped without hooking up. The only indicator that we had had a strike was the slight flick in the rod tip. At about 14:45 I was frustrated with the small cuda and moved off the wreck. I was about 200m south of it when the surface bait was eaten and the reel smoked off. It did not sound like a small fish! Wessel took the rod and we pulled the fish to the boat where it made a few short runs. I managed to get the gaff into it and I pulled a 15,4kg cuda into the boat.
There was little time to waste as we needed to get back to the port before the 16:00 cutoff. So we pulled up lines and headed back.
The weather forecast for the Sunday looked bad and at 4am the predictions came true when a 20-25knot SW wind came through. The competition was called off for the day and we all caught up on some much needed rest.
All in all, the competition was a great success even though we didn’t win any prizes. We will definitely fish it again next year.
