Raising the Dead

On 24^th December, I joined Frans van Rensburg, his son Jako and two of his friends on “Trinity” for a day on the water. We left the dock at 4:30am and headed straight out until the water was a deep blue colour. The lures went out and Jako trolled the area for a while. It was very quiet and so we headed north. The sun had broken through the clouds and the lures were looking great. Something had to happen! About an hour later, at 9am, the flatline was eaten by a hungry Dorado. This was brought to the boat and unceremoniously gaffed. Jako worked the area and soon after, we had a small marlin chasing the long port lure. It swatted the lure a few times, but never hooked up.

Jako found a current line and trolled north along the deep edge. At 11:45, there was a huge splash on the long starboard lure and the rigger popped. The 80Lbs rig took off and a big Blue marlin took to the air. We all grabbed rods and cleared the deck as the fish absolutely smoked off. Jako backed up hard trying to keep up with the fish, but it was too fast. Moments later, a movement to the starboard side caught my eye. It was our marlin, greyhounding parallel to us ... in the opposite direction! There was about 500m of line out when the fish slowed down and we could regain line.

Hennie regained most of the line, but the marlin had other ideas and sounded. We could do nothing but watch as the fish took more than half the spool of line. After two hours, the fish stopped and we could only assume it was dead. We were in 500m of water with a dead fish lying on the bottom... not a good situation to be in! We tried every manoeuvre in the book, but the fish would not budge.

Out of pure desperation, I put on a pair of gloves and grabbed the line. There was some tension, but I could pull it up. Slowly ... very slowly, the dead fish started to lift off the bottom. I continued hand-lining the fish while Hennie took up the slack. After 100m, Jako took over from me. So we took turns raising the fish until the elastic from the rigger came out the water. There was a huge amount of tension on the line now and almost zero stretch. I handed over to Jako, warning him not to put too much pressure on the line. Everything was going well and the fish was about 15m under the boat when a swell unexpectedly caused the boat and the fish to suddenly pull apart. All I can recall is Jako’s hand shooting towards him as the line popped. The big fish slowly sank back to the depths. By now it was after 3pm and the battle had taken its toll on the entire crew, physically and mentally.

We decided to up lines and head for home. This day showed us how important a good team is. Even though we did not manage to get the fish, we felt we had done our best.

Hard luck prize

On 19^th December, Wayne Ritchie and his two sons, Divan Coetzee, Jacques Spence and I launched “Big W” off Richards Bay. There had been a lot of billfish around and we were keen to catch one. We set off at 5am and were soon in good water. The lures went out and we trolled towards the drop off.

In about 300m, Wayne’s sons started feeling seasick and Wayne suggested we head back and drop him and his sons off. We trolled shallower and in 96m, I saw a fin slicing through the spread toward the teaser. I shouted to Wayne who was closest and before he could react, the short starboard rigger popped. The fish took some line then took to the air showing itself to be a good striped marlin of around 70kg. We cleared the lines and slowed the boat down. Wayne was busy clipping himself into the harness when the marlin jumped again and shook the hooks out. Unlucky! We were still in good water so put the lines out again. In 70m, the long port rigger popped and a Dorado splashed around. I happened to be near the rod, so I winched it to the boat where it unfortunately pulled hook. By now, we were in green water and we upped lines and dropped Wayne off. Wayne suggested that Divan, Jacques and I should launch again, so without much ado, we headed back offshore.

The same spread went out as we passed over the colour line and almost immediately, we hooked a Dorado. Jacques made short work of it before I gaffed it. There were a few hook-ups on the 500m contour so Divan headed out to sea. It was very quiet, but at about 14:00, the short starboard rigger popped, the reel gave a short burst but then nothing. We continued on our course and were rewarded with the long starboard rigger popping. This was a strip bait so I gave a few moments before setting the hook. The line ran off the reel at a constant speed but after I felt a few good head nods, it took off. We all looked back and saw a nice blue marlin clear the water. Beautiful! I gave the rod to Jacques and Divs and I cleared the lines. I went to the helm and as I was about to start backing up, the line went limp. On closer inspection, we saw that the trace had broken ... who knows why!

At 3:30pm we trolled towards home and in 80m, we had a Dorado take a lure. Divan pulled it in and it had two followers. I ran down stairs and flicked out a piece of belly shine on a spare rod. Almost immediately I went on. Jacques took the rod and I gaffed Div’s fish.

We rigged another rod with a belly shine and slipped it into the wake. It didn’t take long to hookup and we managed to get all three fish. They were not billfish, but they were a hell of a lot of fun and a great way to end the day!