On Sunday 10th July 2011, I launched “Lihann” in the 2011 Junior Nationals off Richards Bay. I had the Natal U/19 team on board as well as a selector, Phillip Marx.
We headed to the pipeline to look for livebait. We managed to get about 15 shad and a few pinkies before heading to Mapelane lighthouse. I had heard that there were a few nice fish caught there the previous day so I was pretty confident that something would happen. Just short of lighthouse bay, the team put out a few small lures for snoek and I trolled around hoping to find them. After about an hour, there was still nothing. By 10am, other boats were also struggling on the pinnacle so I suggested that we run further north to the ledge and focus on cuda.
The team rigged up 2 wala-wala, a live shad, a bonito and a mackerel. The third line was still being put out when the first bait (a wala) was taken and the fish smoked off. It was on Chris’ rod and he fought what seemed to be a nice fish. After about 15 minutes, the hooks suddenly pulled! The 7/0 single had opened! Bad Luck. The lines went out and I zig-zagged the ledge moving slowly south. At about 11am, the 2 deep baits went away on a double strike. One pulled hook but the other one found its way into the hatch ... a cuda of about 10kg. The spot was marked and I made a turn while the lined were set. As I passed over the mark, another deep bait was eaten. Chris managed to get a nice cuda after a good fight. By now there was a frenzy of bait rigging and setting of lines! I made a wide turn to give the team time to regroup. Finally we got a good spread out and I made another approach. Again, the deep bait went away, but the hooks missed. Our conversion stats were not too good! Almost every turn resulted in a strike so I suggested a few adjustments, the baits went down again. The next pass resulted in a solid hookset and another shoal cuda went into the hatch.
There other boats had seen very little action and moved off to other spots for the last hour of the competition. The fish seemed to go quiet after that, apart from a big shark that ate a bonito. I trolled a bit further south on the ledge and had a strange pull on the deep bait. It turned out to be a small cuda that never knew it was hooked and woke up next to the boat when I put the gaff into it.
We ended up with 4 cuda from about 10 strikes. Our biggest fish for the day was 18,8kg which helped the team into first place on the first day. Unfortunately, I could not participate in rest of the tournament due to work commitments but it was great to be part of it.
