Bycatch Bargain

On Saturday 10^th November, Kevin Boonzaaier and I launched “SELFISH” off Richards Bay. We were keen to pull a live bait around for marlin, but there were reports of a few dorado being around so we were geared for anything.

Our first stop was at the pipeline to look for bait. I stopped on the marks and as the sabikis hit the ground, we went on full strings with nice big maasbankers. We made two downs and had enough bait to put a dent into a shoal of dorado ... if we found one. The next stop was on the 45m ledge to see if the mackerel were there. Unfortunately there were only maasbankers so we headed north to the kasteel. We were greeted to a beautiful green to blue  distinct colourline about 50m on the inside of the ledge. I was convinced we would find something along the edge so I put out 4 halcos and a medium sized marlin lure ... just in case. I trolled up the line zigzagging over the ledged. It took all of 20mins to get a pull. Kevin brought the fish in but unfortunately pulled hooks near the boat. I made a turn over the area and went 3 rods away with small bonnies. One pulled hook but the other 2 went into the tubes. We made a quick run to the 100m mark and rigged the first bait. There had been a black released on the 100m mark earlier and a few strikes at 350-400m so I headed out deeper.
The temperature dropped the deeper I went so at 500m I turned and worked shallower. The bait was not doing too great and gave up the ghost so the second bait was rigged. It swam like a machine and after working the 100 to 200m ledge for an hour or so, I made a shallower turn. I noticed a dark shape behind the bait and moments later the rigger revved and popped. After a short feed we tightened up and were solidly hooked up to something... Kevin took the rod and fought the fish with an 80lbs stand up rig. This was the first time he had ever fought a fish on heavy tackle and did very well. Some 20minutes later, the leader came up and we could see a +-80kg hammer. I pulled it closer on the leader then let go as it made another run. A few minutes later, the trace was bitten through. Probably better in the long run.

We were only about 1km from the ledge, so I started putting out the bait lures. I was busy with the 3^rd stick when the furthest rod went away. I passed the rod to Kevin and cleared the others. The fish was right on the surface and I could see that is was a nice wahoo. This was suddenly very nerve-wracking cause the lure was tied directly to the nylon! As Kevin fought the fish, it made a few blistering runs which I tried to slow down by chasing after it. The fish settled down and it became a subtle tug o war. Out of the blue, Kevin said I must quickly take the rod. I took over as he put on an impressive display of digestive pyrotechnics! When the show was over, I handed him the rod to finish the fight. The fish made a few big circles under the boat before coming within range of the gaff. We estimated it at about 15kg and were over the moon with the bycatch...

With food in the hatch, we continued looking for bait and after the second pass over the ledge we managed a 2kg bonnie. I rigged immediately as we were in the last 15 mins of the prime. I trolled to bait to 60m and turned south, slowly heading home. A short while later, the rigger revved and popped. As I was feeding, a huge fin of a great white broke the surface in the area where the bait had been. I fed a bit longer, to insure we would be bitten off (...if it was jaws). After hooking up, the line surfaced behind the white, indicating we were hooked up to something else... Kevin pulled the fish hard on the standup rig and within a few minutes he had a feisty 70kg reef shark on the leader where we released it. It was really nice to be on the water after so long, and to have good sports and something to eat was a bargain.