At 6:00am on Saturday 21st July 2012, Wayne and Elsa Ritchie and I launched Wayne’s 15’6 Vidal cat “Da Boys” out of Richards Bay. We were hoping to get Elsa her first natal snoek. After launching, we headed north about 14km to the “Arial”. There had been a few fish there over the previous few days and seemed like a good place to start.
I rigged up 2 fillets and 2 small redeyes on light wire and small hooks to entice the wary snoek. Wayne slow trolled to around 25m and then back to 12m, hoping that the fish would be holding on the drop-off. After trolling for about an hour, the deep redeye went away. Elsa took the strike and quickly had a small snoek near the boat. Just before I could reach it, the hooks pulled, much to Elsa’s disgust. Oh well, you win some ...you lose some...
The baits went back in and trolling resumed. It was very quiet but as the offshore wind died down, the baitfish came to the surface and we knew things had to change. There were quite a few showings in 17-20m so we concentrated our efforts in this depth. The slow trolling was not producing anything, so we increased the speed a bit. We had not done 200m when the japan fillet went away with a good fish. Wayne slacked the speed a bit while I cleared the other lines. While I was clearing the surface lines, the line with a 12oz weight and redeye slowly sank close to the bottom. Before it could be cleared, the rod keeled over and the reel smoked off! A double ... Nice! Wayne took the strike and both husband and wife did battle. Elsa brought her fish alongside where I gaffed a healthy snoek. I cleared the deck as Wayne brought his fish to the boat. As I was about to gaff, the snoek spooked and took a short run. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a big brown shape cruising towards the boat. Wayne put the reel into freespool as the snoek bolted away from the shark. I revved the motors and made a bit of noise before the shark disappeared. I chased the fish while Wayne regained line at speed and within no time, the snoek was at the boat where I gaffed a really good size fish.
With our mission for the day successfully accomplished, and the SW wind picking up, we headed back to port. Elsa’s snoek weighed 7kg (joint first with the biggest snoek in the ladies section of the RBSCB Snoek Derby). Not too shabby! Wayne’s fish surprised everyone and pulled the scale to 9,2kg!
