2012 Umlalazi Couta Classic

On Saturday 28^th April, Pierre Smit, Carl Oellermann and I launched “AVANTI” out of Richards Bay. We were competing in the Umlalazi Couta Classic hosted by Umlalazi Ski Boat Club in Mtunzini. At first light, we headed out to the pipeline to look for live bait. We struggled a bit, but finally found a good shoal of maasbankers and before long, we had a hatch full of bait.

Our next stop was at Petingo wreck. The conditions looked average, but there were almost 20 boats there! I was not keen to compete with so many boats for 1 fish, so we headed deeper to the 32m mark where the water was better and there were fewer boats. I rigged a few baits including wala-wala, bonnies, live bait and a redeye and set the spread while Pierre slow trolled over the scattered reef looking for signs of life. At about 9am, the deep wala-wala was eaten and the reel took off. Carl took the strike while I cleared the deck. The cuda gave a good fight and finally came within range for me to gaff it. We were happy that we had a fish in the boat and the pressure was off. Again, the lines went out and trolling resumed. The rest of the day went by without a touch and at 14:30 we upped lines and went to weight the fish which was 16,2kg.

The next morning, we stopped at the pipeline and immediately caught several shad and maasbankers. Then it was off to Petingo where we spent a few hours trolling without any joy. At 10am we left for the 32m mark and worked the area with the same result. At noon, we had had enough of the silence so we changed tactics to pull lures on the 50m ledge. The first pass over small highpoint resulted in a big kawa-kawa which was released. The next pass gave us 3 small jube jubes which went into the bait box, followed by a yellowfin. There was a showing at 20m so we put the downrigger out with a big halco. Almost immediately the reel took off with a big kawa-kawa. This carried on for several passes until the showing disappeared. We upped lines and headed back at 13:30 feeling better about ourselves after hearing a few reels. Our cuda earned us 15^th position and a few really nice prizes. The Umlalazi Couta Classic is definitely a good comp to be part of next year.