On Sunday 31st January, My Dad and I launched our boat “Selfish” off Richards Bay. There had been quite a few marlin around and every boat was out in the deep looking for them. We on the other hand were tired of doing the same thing every day so decided to look for some gamefish.
We headed for the pipeline and caught two full strings of maasbanker. It was still early so I suggested we head for small high to catch a few bonnies before looking for cuda. Arriving at small high, I put out 4 rods with daisy chains and My Dad trolled over the pinnacle. Two rods went on with beautiful bonnies. One went into the tuba and the other into the coolerbox and ice. We made a few turns and caught bait on every pass. By 8:30 we had about 15 baits and headed to Petingo.
The water was 25.6 degrees with a slight reverse current. There were a lot of reeds in the off green water which meant I would be clearing lines often. I put out 2 wala wala, 2 bonito (one live) and a live maasbanker. We trolled up and down the wreck and on the second pass, the live maasbanker was eaten by a small fish which just flicked the rod tip before getting off. I rerigged as my Dad turned and crossed the wreck again. On the Northern point, the same rod bent and the reel ran a bit before the hook pulled. It went quiet for a while until the water temperature climbed a bit to 26.2 degrees and cleaned up to a green colour. On top of the wreck, both bonito were eaten. We both grabbed rods and tussled really strong fish. Each of us brought a 70 odd kg blacktip shark to the boat where we broke the leaders. After sorting out the chaos, I reset the lines. As we moved off the southern tip, the livie was eaten again. This time the fish picked up the nylon leader before the trace, biting it off! This was not acceptable so I climbed into the tackle box and built another trace with a slightly different hook rig. The next pass on the wreck resulted in the rod bending with a small fish. My Dad pulled in a small cuda of around 3kg (perfect for a weber!) Finally we had something. In high spirits, I put out the lines again and while I was letting the last line out, the reel took off in my hand. I put up the drag and the fish took off running. After a quick fight, my Dad gaffed a 10kg cuda ... NICE! Things were happening. Again the new baits went out and we trolled over the wreck. As luck would have it, the livie was eaten yet again. This time by a smoker! I passed the rod to my Dad who had a good fight before I gaffed a cuda of about 15kg. At this stage I had 2 livies in the water, hoping to double our chances. A short while later, we had a pull on the closer livie but the hooks missed. The water temp was now over 27 degrees and the water was quite clean. We had no further action for an hour. At just after 1pm I started pulling lines. I had one livie to go when the rod bent a bit and the reel gave a short burst. I grabbed the rod and winched the fish in. It was another weber size cuda which went into the coolbox for supper that night. That was a wrap and we headed for the harbour with the first cuda trip for the year under the belt. Now the fish just need to get bigger!
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