On Friday 2nd July, Willem van den Berg and his wife, Divan Coetzee and I headed for Mapelane for the annual Junior Interclub. Willem and I had fished in the tournament for many years when we were juniors and now we attend each year to assist with the logistics such as the weighin, catering and bar duties. Willem’s boat “2Ling” went with us this year we were going to try and squeeze in some fishing while the teams were on the water and we were off duty.
The briefing was held on Friday evening and all the teams were keen to get on the water. Most of them turned in early while we tried our best to support the bar and prevent it from going bankrupt.
At 5:30am the wakeup hooter sounded and everyone made their way to the beach. After all the competition boats launched, Willem, Divan and I put to sea. We stopped on the backline and Divan dropped the livebait jigs into a good showing in 9m of water. As he hit the bottom, he went on with a full string of big maasbankers. These went into the livewell and we headed for the 50m ledge. When we arrived, we were the only boat there. Divan and I put out a few rapalas and halcos and I trolled north into a screaming current, crisscrossing the ledge as we went. After about 10mins, two reels took off. One was a small bonito and the other was a small yellowfin tuna of about 4kg. The tuna was hooked in the gills so we bled it and continued trolling. There was alot of activity on the surface with small bonito jumping and birds working the area. I made a turn through some dipping birds and 4 rods took off! We each grabbed a rod and tried to prevent burnoffs. I took the closest rod and managed to get a small yellowfin to the boat where I released it. I had just picked up the next rod when Divan pulled hook on his fish. I pulled in another yellowfin which I released, followed by Willem who tagged a yellowfin. The lines went out and I worked back north as the current had pushed us far south after hooking the fish. I managed to get about 100m north of when again, 4 rods went on! We all grabbed rods and enjoyed the short but strong tussles. I managed a yellowfin and a bonito on the same daisy chain and Willem tagged a yellowfin. Divan had again take the rod with a poor hookup and lost his fish after a few minutes. We decided to up lines and head a few kilometres north and put out some cuda baits. We put out 2 livies, one deep and one on surface, a bonito on surface and a wala-wala deep. The current was pushing us south very quickly so I opted to slow troll into the current to slow us down and to work the ledge a bit more. About 20 minutes later, the deep livebait was eaten and the reel smoked off. Willem took the strike and managed to get a 12,6kg cuda to the boat where Divan gaffed it. By now we were far south so we ran up north and reset the lines. I had just put the surface livebait out when I saw the tip bump a few times and the rod bend a bit. I opened the one motor to tighten the line and the reel ran for a few meters. Divan took the rod and after a few minutes the hooks pulled (unbelievably bad luck). There was obviously some action in this area so we ran up north again and put the lines out. As the boat passed over the mark, the surface livie was eaten and Willem took the strike. The fish fought deep for a few minutes before Willem brought it to the boat. It was another yellowfin which Willem tagged. By now it was 11:30 and we needed to be back on the beach to arrange lunch for the teams so we upped lines and headed for the beach.
At 14:00 the teams weighed in their catches and a few good fish were taken. The fish worth mentioning were a 23kg GT, 19kg cuda and a 14kg cuda.
We did not launch the next day but there was a 22kg cuda and a 7kg kaakap weighed.
