Avoid the Crowds

On Saturday 25 May, Bryant Beukes and I launched “Selfish” off Richards Bay. By 05:45, there was already a queue for the slipway as the boats lined up to get in the water. The weather prediction was very good and all the guys wanted to see if they could get a snoek or two. Knowing that the snoek grounds were going to look like a highway, I opted to fish South hoping for a last cuda before the season came to an end.

We stopped at the pipeline at 6am. The water was beautiful and in 3 drops Bryant had a hatch full of livebait. With such good conditions, I was keen to see if there were any mackerel on the deeper marks so stopped there on the way, but to no avail. While we were running south, I saw a swirl in front of the boat, then the blue streak of a fleeing dorado. I hit the brakes, quickly rigged a livie and flicked it out hoping the fish was still around. After drifting for a few minutes without any luck, I was about to pull up when I saw a nice showing on the sounder. Bryant went down and went on with a few mackerel. I worked the area and got some more bait before moving on.
 

Bryant with a fat 24kg cuda

We arrived at the 32m area at around 7:30. I rigged up a few bonnies, wala and a surface livie and then started tacking deeper and shallower to look for some activity. It was not long before I picked up a the odd showing on the drop off. Slowly I worked the area and was rewarded with a smoking reel! The surface bait had been eaten by a good fish which was taking a lot of line in a hurry. We cleared the lines before following the fish. When the reel was nearly full, the fish smoked off again, the line pulling a line bubble trail through the water. Both Bryant and I said that there must be something scaring it and moments later, when the fish was on the leader, a big Zambezi shark materialised from the deep. Luckily the fish was tired after the long runs and it was gaffed just before the shark could get hold of it. Talk about good timing. We battled to get the fish into the hatch but with a bit of force, it went in ... just.

 

The lines went in again and the search continued. About an hour later, I we went over a bit of reef and a bottomfish came up and took a few chunks out of the deep bonnie, so we replaced it with a livebait. I made a turn over the same showing and this deep livie went away with speed. As I picked up the rod, the fish broke off. On closer inspection, the mail line between the sinker and the bait had parted. Not great at all. I rerigged the rod and put out another livie. On the next turn, we went over a showing about 5m off the bottom and it was no surprise when the livie went away again. Bryant took the rod and after a good tussle had a shoal cuda in the hatch. Again the lines went back in and trolling resumed. Things went a bit quiet for a while but finally we went over a good showing and the deep wala-wala was eaten. It was quiet  slow pull, ant there were some big head nods. Before I could clear the lines, the fish was off. When Bryant retrieved the line, the 60lbs leader had been broken. The whole leader, double line and about 5m of main line were badly frayed.

 

By 12 o clock, we had not had another pull, so we upped lines and moved to Petingo for the afternoon session. Unfortunately, even with ideal conditions, we did not have a pull and returned home. The cuda was weighed in at 24,0kg. A nice fish to say the least.