On Sunday the 5th September, Hannes and Michael Duvenage and I launched “Lihann” to fish for Garrick. There had been very few around but they are the only decent gamefish around so we decided to try for them. We launched at around 6am and headed to the shallow bait reef. On the first down with livebait jigs, we lost 4 hooks. We assumed they were shad and persevered a while longer. We then caught about 7 small milk sharks in a row. Realizing we would not come right with bait if they were around, we moved a bit north and deeper. Michael and Hannes caught a few nice pinkies before heading north to hlobane mouth.
The water was beautiful. Clean, small swells and quite a lot of baitfish around. We rigged 4 baits and Hannes trolled along the backline. In front of the mouth, we noticed movement on the surface. There were sharp fins sticking out of the water and large swirls in a small area. Michael and I threw spoons and plugs at the swirls without a chase. Finally, when they were close to us we identified them as milkfish (chanos Chanos). No wonder we didn’t get any chases. There was no action on the first drift and so we made a second drift over the same area. At about 10am we were just south of the mouth when the bait on the Scarborough was taken. I fed the fish which ran very quickly and didn’t stop. I struck into what seemed like a brick wall and then the fish took off even faster. It went out to sea and stayed deep. I told Michael that I was positive that it was a kingfish and so Hannes got the boat on top of it to prevent it from cutting me off. The fish fought with heavy head nods and strong short runs. Finally, after about 20 minutes, the fish came up circling beneath the boat. Michael reached out and gaffed a good GT of 15kg. Not bad on a KP! Again we travelled north before resetting the rods but after about an hour or more, there was no action. The weather was beautiful so we decided to up lines and run to the 50m ledge to pull a few small konas and halcos.
We arrived at the ledge about 20 mins later and rigged 3 konas and two halcos (both on scarboroughs) and zigzagged the reef towards the harbour. After trolling for about 20 mins, the one halco and one kona was eaten. Unfortunately the hook pulled on the halco but we still had one on. Michael pulled a +-4kg yellowfin tuna to the boat where it was released. The lines went in again and almost immediately we caught a small bonito. We continued south and hooked another 2 yellowfins. I released one on the KP and Michael released the other.
