On Saturday 4th February 2012, Carl and I launched “Selfish” off Richards Bay. There had been very few fish around, but we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and put to sea.
We headed for the pipeline and scratched for livies. Finally after about an hour, we found a few nice maasies. With bait in the livewell, we headed north to the kasteel. When we arrived, the current was screaming. Carl took the steering while I put out 5 bait rods, looking for marlin bait.
In 15 minutes, we had hardly made headway against the current so we pulled up the lines and headed about a kilometre north and reset the lines. I
slowly crossed over the pinnacles on the ledge without any luck. I looked around and caught sight of two or three turns dipping along a current line about 200m shallower. I headed over to them and saw a few skipjack tuna smashing some bait. As we came close, they sounded but came up again in the same place after we had passed over them. I then set the centre line further back ... about 100m ... and made a turn. This time the skippies stayed on the surface as I passed them. Seconds later the closest line was taken and Carl took the strike. I cleared most of the lines and put on the livebait tube. Carl had the 3kg skippie next to the boat where I grabbed it by the tail, unhooked it and transferred it to the tube. Carl retrieved the remaining lines while I headed deeper at speed. In 70m I rigged the skippie on a 12/0 Mustad Sea Demon on 400lbs trace and let it out about 20m. I trolled to 550m and then shallower to 100m. The bait was exceptionally strong and swam like a champion.
slowly crossed over the pinnacles on the ledge without any luck. I looked around and caught sight of two or three turns dipping along a current line about 200m shallower. I headed over to them and saw a few skipjack tuna smashing some bait. As we came close, they sounded but came up again in the same place after we had passed over them. I then set the centre line further back ... about 100m ... and made a turn. This time the skippies stayed on the surface as I passed them. Seconds later the closest line was taken and Carl took the strike. I cleared most of the lines and put on the livebait tube. Carl had the 3kg skippie next to the boat where I grabbed it by the tail, unhooked it and transferred it to the tube. Carl retrieved the remaining lines while I headed deeper at speed. In 70m I rigged the skippie on a 12/0 Mustad Sea Demon on 400lbs trace and let it out about 20m. I trolled to 550m and then shallower to 100m. The bait was exceptionally strong and swam like a champion.I zigzagged deeper and shallower while the current pushed us back at 6km per hour! By 13:30 we were already south of the harbour and the wind had started picking up so we decided to call it a day. We retrieved the skippie and cut it loose to swim another day.
