On Saturday 18th February, the Zululand Red Team consisting of Daniel Fourie, Dale Leenstra and Myself put to sea aboard “Beluga”, skippered by Mike Leenstra. We were competing in the Richards Bay Marlin Interprovincial. There was a moderate SW wind blowing but the sea was relatively calm.
We headed up north for about 20km and at the 100m mark, we set out the spread of lures. Mike trolled deeper while the lures were fine tuned. Once everything was running well, we settled down to wait. The horizon was dotted with heavy rain showers and we knew we were in for a wet day.
As Mike trolled onto the 500m contour, the heavens opened. The visibility deteriorated to about 50m and the entire deck was under water. At one stage the rain was horizontal forcing Mike to tack into the wind/rain to keep us relatively dry. A few minutes later the downpour subsided enough for us to continue on our course. As the lures straightened out, I saw a marlin appear behind the right long lure. As I shouted, the rigger popped and the reel took off. All four of us raced out from under the safety of the canopy and retrieved the other lures. At this stage, the marlin was jumping all over the place. It was a blue of around 100kg... perfect for the first fish of the comp... Alas, as we cleared the last line, the fish threw the hooks and we were left standing on the deck looking similar to drowned rats... oh well, back to the drawing board...
The lures went back out and trolling continued. At 9am, we saw a very small billfish come up on the right long but after 4 or 5 attempts at the lure, it faded off. At least we knew there were a few fish in
the area. At 10am, another marlin came up on the right long. It chased the lure several times but missed. I increased the speed on one motor and the marlin came flying in and smashed the lure. The rigger popped and the reel ran for about 20m before the hooks came out... not what we needed. About 20 minutes later we had another fish come up and chase the lure without connecting. Surely we had to be close to getting a fish! Finally, at 1pm the centre rigger popped. We all looked back but nothing happened. I slowly brought the lure closer to see if the fish would come back and sure enough, a big bill came out from behind the lure and crashed it. I free spooled for a few seconds then locked up ... VAS! The reel took off and we cleared the other lines. I took the strike and was treated to a spectacular aerial display from a good sized blue marlin. The fish settles and I managed to regain most of the line with Mike backing up on the fish. It went down for about 15 minutes then back to the surface where Daniel took the leader. When it was in range, Dale tagged the fish and Mike took the required photos. We estimated the fish at around 400Lbs... my personal best. After reviving the fish for a few minutes, we set it free.
There was just enough time to return to port and make the close of weighin. At the end of the first day we were in 2nd position on time. With 2 days left, the comp was still wide open.
On the second day, fishing was called off due to bad weather. In the few hours we lost a small marlin after a brief run. Day three was called off at 8:30 due to bad weather. We managed to maintain our second position and took home the silver medals.
Thanks to my team and Mike for making this competition so much fun.
