Tangling with Daga

On Friday afternoon 14^th June, Jannie Jacobs, Jannie's brother, Robert and I launched “OHANA” off Richards Bay. We were hoping to find a few dagga salmon that had been around. After arriving at the pipeline, we sounded around for a while to look for signs of life. It was not long before we found large bait showings indicating the spot to focus our efforts. We checked the drift before setting the sand anchor. We positioned ourselves perfectly on the top of the showing and I set about catching a few maasbanker before the sun went down.

As the sun set, the bait went off the bite so we set about rigging up the bottom rods. While Jannie rigged 2 rods to catch shad, I hooked up a live maasie and sent it down. It only took about 15 minutes before I felt the heavy bumps on the rod. I fed the fish for a few turns before I tightened up. The rod buckled over as the fish ran, but this was short lived as the hook pulled out after a few meters. After losing the first fish, everyone scrambled for a rod and sent down a livie. With a few lines down, our chances improved and Robert was the next to get a bump. This turned out to be a really nice rockcod. By now, the shad were around the boat so it was operation live bait and within half an hour, there was a healthy supply of bigger livebait for the evening.

Jannie put the bait rod down and rigged a shad on his bottom rod. The bait was only down for a few minutes before he had a pull. Unfortunately, his result was the same as mine... pulled hook. Things went a bit quiet and by 7:30 we still had no dagga on the boat. There were about 14 boats on the pipe and by the sounds of things, there was very little action. I switched on the echo sounder to see what was going on below. I saw that we were a few meters off the pipe, probably due to the wind and current pulling on the anchor. We pulled in a bit of rope until we were on top of the pipe and the showing... things had to happen. I put out a trapstick with a live maasie and floated it out the back. There had been a few kingfish in the evenings and I was hoping for one to climb on. Probably 10 minutes later, Robert had a bump and hooked up to a nice fish. Moments later, Jannie also hooked up so there was a bit of weaving to keep the lines apart. Jannie mentioned that he could feel another line on his line and next thing, his line parted! Robert managed to get his fish to the boat where we gaffed a 16kg dagga. When we lifted his fish into the boat, I saw that my trapstick line had been tangled up and while loosening the knot, I felt something pulling back on the other end... there was a fish on my line. Quickly we undid the tangle and I went about fighting the fish. As it came close, my trace cleared the water, with my bait still intact. There was however another line tangled around it... it was Jannies fish that had burnt off earlier! After handlining the fish, Jannie gaffed a 14kg dagga. Talk about lucky!

We had caught 2 fish in 15 minutes so there was obviously a shoal under the boat. I set my trapstick again and then put out a bottom rod looking to hookup the conventional way. I had just hit the bottom when the trapstick reel went away. I handed off my bottom rod and took up the other rod. Thinking this was a kingfish, I fought it really hard and within a few minutes, the fish was next to the boat. It turned out to be another salmon of 18kg... what a luck. I rerigged another bait on the same rod and had just turned to drop another bait when the reel went again. This time It took off at quite a speed with some good head nods. At one stage, I felt a rope on my line so I freespooled for a bit. Luckily the line came free and I muscled the fish to the surface. It turned out to be yet another salmon. This was the biggest so far and ended up being 21,3kg... not bad for a cuda stick.

It was now 8:30 and we had out quota of salmon. We opted to continue fishing and release any further fish we caught. Despite fishing for another hour, we had no further action and headed back to port. Thanks to Jannie and crew for a great night.