Not bad for a Sunday afternoon

On Sunday 12^th June at 11:30am, Sakkie and Ettienne de Villiers and I launched “Deep Burn”, a 21ft Yeld off Richards Bay. There was a 15knot SW blowing for most of the morning and the sea was quite choppy. We headed for Petingo straight into the wind, resulting in a bumpy and wet ride. After an hour, we arrived at petingo. As expected, we were the only boat there.

The water was 19,8 degrees with a reverse current but clean water. Etts and I rigged 4 baits, 2 bonnies and 2 wala-wala, while Sakkie slowly headed for the wreck. As we neared the buoy, I picked up the spinning rod and cast a spoon at it. In the fourth turn, I went on with a small torpedo scad which was quickly released. On the next pass, I put the spoon right next to the buoy and before I could start retrieving it, I went on with a stronger fish which gave me a good tussle before I released a bigeye kingfish. It was a bit quite with the cuda, so I gave the spinning rod to Sakkie and took over as skipper to hopefully find a lost cuda. Sakkie changed the spoon for a popper and went straight on with a torpedo scad. I made a turn and lined up the marks. As we reached the end of the wreck, the bonito on surface was eaten and the reel screamed off. Etts took the rod while Sakkie and I cleared the other lines. The fish fought deep and made big circles under the boat. After 20 minutes, we saw the fish for the first time. It was a nice cude but it was foul hooked in the flank. For the next 10 minutes, we had it within 5m but could not get a gaff into it. In this time, the heavens opened and rain poured down on Sakkie and Etts. Finally the fish came within range and Sakkie lifted it into the boat. We all estimated it at 18kg ... not bad.

The lines went back in and I trolled back up the wreck. As we neared the buoy, Etts put the popper in and was rewarded with an awesome surface chase and solid take. He brought in another bigeye which he released. As the baits passed the buoy, the wala-wala was eaten and the reel smoked off. I picked up the rod to pass it to Etts or Sakkie, but they said I should take it. Oh alright! The fish made a few runs and within 10 minutes came to the boat where Etts gaffed it. We guessed it at 22kg or so. Again the lines went out and we trolled past the buoy. Every cast with the popper resulted in a chase/strike. It was awesome fun. The sea picked up a bit and we got a good wave over the nose, drenching us all. With the wind blowing on out wet clothes, we decided to call it a day and upped lines. We happened to be next to the buoy so I put in a cast and has about 10 kingies chase the popper to the boat before one took it. Magic! We caught a few more kings before heading home. We were back in the harbour at 4:30pm.

When we off loaded the fish, we noticed that the fish were exceptionally fat. Etts took out the hand scale and weighed the smaller fish. It was 22kg! We then weighed the bigger one which bottomed out the 25kg scale ... we were intrigued and wanted an accurate weight. After weighing them on the club scale, they were 22,1kg and 26,5kg!!! Two really good fish.