We stopped at the pipeline to
look for bait, but failed. I then headed to a deeper mark between the ships,
but could not even find a showing. As we headed south, I tried all my bait
marks, but only managed to find small bottomfish. We had no option but to fish with
the deadbait that we had. We arrived at the 32m reef of Petingo and I went about rigging a few baits. With my sister onboard, I was mindful of the ladies 6kg cuda SA record of 21kg, so I had a 6kg outfit that would hopefully produce a nice fish. Opting for a surface mackerel bait on this rod, I let the bait out about 50m. When I put up the drag to place the rod, the resistance of the bait increased, followed by the rod bending. I wound down and tightened up. To my surprise, the reel smoked off. Everyone onboard was oblivious to the fact that I was on so I put on the ratchet to make the situation known. I could not pass the rod to my sister as I had handled it, so I took the strike. My Dad spun the boat around to follow the fish and slow the run. The line came to the surface which made my job of regaining line very easy as we sped toward the fish. Just before we could identify it, it sounded, taking about 20m of line. From that point, the fight changed to a straight up and down tug o war. I thought the fish had tailwrapped as I could feel the steady tail beats on the rod. Slowly, inch by inch, I lifted the fish on the light 2kg drag. As the fish neared, it began to make the characteristic big circles of a tuna. I looked down and could see the short silver shape of some sort of tuna, but it almost looked like a big kawa-kawa. Finally after another 10 minutes of circling, the fish came within range and Carl gaffed the fish. It was a nice yellowfin tuna. Not bad for the first bait of the day.
I rerigged and set all the lines while we trolled the reef looking for some form of life. About half an hour later, while adjusting the deep lines, I heard a reel go. I looked up to see the 6kg rod bending. I called to my sister to take the rod while Carl and I cleared the other lines. The fish did not put up too much of struggle and came to the boat pretty quick. It too was a yellowfin, but only a small one. Still, a nice fight on 6kg line.
We trolled around until noon before moving to Petingo, but by 2pm we had not had a pull, so we upped lines and headed back. My yellowfin ended up weighing 14.2kg and Julies was 4,2kg.
