On Saturday 28th May, Mike and Dale Leenstra and myself launched Mike’s 21ft Yeldcat “Beluga” at Cape Vidal. We were there for the weekend and wanted to look for daytime broadbill. Unfortunately the 40 knot SW wind which had been blowing for 2 days prior had picked up the sea and the surf/swell was BIG! We decided to give it a go regardless, but we would not focus on broadbill until the sea had settled. After negotiating a hairy surf, we stopped at the point and looked for livebait. We found a few very small maasbankers but discarded the 5cm minnows and put out a few small feathers and rapalas to look for bonnies. We had not gone 100m and we were on with the first jube-jube. This was followed at regular intervals by a few more of the perfect bait size bonnies.
We changed tactics at about 8:30 and rigged a few strip baits and trolled north to Oscar, hoping for a sailfish. It was very quiet on the pinnacle and at about 10:30 I suggested we go and look at what the 500m line looked like. In 250m, we had a triple strike on skipjacks and rigged 2 on the big rods. We continued deeper looking for clean water. At the 500m mark, the swell was big but very fishable. I suggested we release the livies and make a drop - TataMaChance. After rigging a squid and setting up the tackle, we dropped a bait into 500m and drifted slowly south. After an hour, the rod bumped and the reel ran a bit. I took the chair and brought in a large wreckfish of around 30kg.
It was getting late and if we did not beach at the right time, we were going to battle with the tide. We packed up and headed home.
On Sunday the 29th May, we launched at 6:30am and headed for Leven Point canyon. We made a drop at just after 8am in 550m and after an hour and a half drift, we lifted the bait to start another drift. When the bait came out the water, we saw that it had been eaten by some or other small bottomfish and only a few tatters were left on the hooks.
The next drop was in about 500m and as we were drifting into the canyon, the rod bumped and the reel took off! This was no bottomfish. Mike told me to get into the chair. I obliged even though I was pretty sure I knew what fish it was. After about 45 minutes, the leader came up. Dale unclipped the lights and I pulled the fish closer. When the swivel came out the water, a long snake like tail broke the surface behind the boat. It was a thresher shark of about 70-80kg. A real pest when it comes to deep dropping! After Mike and Dale had a good look at the fish, we cut the trace and it swam away.
It was now about 11:00 so we opted to pull strips back home along the ledge. As we neared vegetation, we started getting a few bonnies. We then found a lost Dorado of about 5kg that ate a stripbait. After trolling over Oscar and getting more bonnies, we upped lines and beached.
Thanks to Mike and his family for a great weekend.
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