On Saturday 13th October, a group of friends (Jacques, Divan, Neville, Trevor and I) accompanied Wayne Ritchie on his new boat’s first fishing trip. Wayne had bought a 30ft Citation called “Galavant” and we were all keen to see how it handled on the water.
After almost 2 month of terrible weather, there was a slight window for us to put to sea. We left the harbour at 6am and headed north. The water was quite cold and only when we got to 700m did the temperature increase. There were a few birds and flying fish on the 950m to 1100m line so most of our efforts were focussed. At 10am, there was a big splash on the left long lure. The rigger bent and just when we were expecting the elastic to pop, there was a loud crack and slack line came flying back into the boat! Something had gone terribly wrong, be it a bad patch in the line or a line around a clip, the result was the same... no fish.
The rest of the morning was quiet and at around 1pm, I changed the heading to tack shallower and closer to home. There was a colour change at about 500m with a few birds fluttering along it. I decided to troll along the line going north. The line moved in shallower the further north I went. Wayne decided to put out a teaser of squids which ran about 7m behind the boat in the pocket of clear water on the port side. In 450m on the dropoff, I happened to look back and while scanning the spread, a movement on the teaser caught my eye. There was an angry striped marlin, all lit up, in the teaser. I shouted to the guys down stairs and they sprang into action. Divan brought the short rigger lure in next to the teaser. Wayne pulled the teaser out and the fish switched to the lure. Divs gave it a short count before tightening up. The fish was there for a few seconds then off. Wayne put the teaser out again and in a flash, the stripey was back swatting at it. The switch was made again and after a longer count, Divs jammed the fish. This time it took quite a bit more line but unfortunately pulled the hooks before making tracks. Beautiful to see but still a bit disappointing. I continued along the line and about 45mins later, in 130m of water, there was another fish in the teaser. This time it was not very aggressive and quickly faded off to the short with a half hearted attempt at it. It then faded off to the right long where it charged in and gripped the lure, popped the elastic but pulled hook after taking a few meters off the reel.
The colour line faded in the wind and waves and so I changed the heading towards the harbour. In the green water at 52m, I saw a bill behind the right short. I teased the fish a bit which resulted in a small sailfish coming up and whacked the lure. Unfortunately it was not to be and the fish lost interest after a few seconds. That was all we saw for the day and even though we never caught anything, we saw enough to know the boat does raise fish. The upcoming season will hopefully be very successful.
