The Early Bird Catches the Worm

On Friday 21^st March at 3:30am, Jannie Jacobs and I launched “Ohana” out of Richards Bay. It was a miserable morning with a SW wind blowing and a light drizzle. The forecast was that the wind would drop and become NE in the afternoon, so there would be a good lull. At one stage, we thought that we were absolutely mad to be on the water at this hour, but we had a plan… Our first stop was at the pipeline to look for some shad. Unfortunately the water was dirty, so we ended up with not a single livebait. At 4:30am, we headed for Zini Hi Point, hoping that we would be the first boat there and have the place to ourselves for a while.

We arrived at the pinnacle at just before 6am and I put out 3 daisy chains hoping for some jube jubes. On the first pass, we caught a big kawakawa that we released and on the second, we had 2 small skippies which were rigged up. Jannie just turned to the reef when the surface bait was eaten. The reel ran a bit then stopped.I felt that the bait was still there so freespooled a bit. Something ate it so I tightened up. It ended up being a hammerhead of about 40kg. I went about rigging some dead baits and while this was going on, the other skippie was eaten. It was another hammerhead of a similar size… frustrating to say the least.

We abandoned the live bait option and put out a few wala, mackerel and bonnies. I was just rigging the 4^th bait when I saw the deep rod bend. The reel smoked off as the fish went on its run. I looked back to the other lines and saw the medium depth rod keel over and smoke off… we were doubled. Jannie took that rod while I had the first. When my fish was close to the boat, I turned around to get the gaff. That’s when I saw the surface rod bend over and go on. We had a triple… nice! By now my fish was at the boat where I gaffed it and hauled a good cuda aboard before taking the next rod. Jannie’s fish was close too and just when we were ready to gaff, the hooks came out! Unlucky. I picked up the last rod and brought an 8kg shoal cuda to the gaff.

I rerigged and set the full spread of 5 lines. I could see the other boats on the horizon so we did not have much time. Jannie trolled over the northern tip of the reef and was rewarded with the surface bait being eaten. I was the closest, so took the rod and brought in another shoal cuda. In the next hour, 11 boats arrived and the cuda went quiet. We decided to move a few hundred meters south away from the traffic and see if the fish would eat there. We trolled over a good mid-water bait showing and the deep wala went away. Jannie took the strike and had a hard time with a fish that was fighting strangely. After 15minutes, a shoal size cuda came up tail first.

Early morning cuda

Again the lines went in and we trolled past the showing. Jannie had just said that we should get a pull when I saw the downrigger rod pull down followed by a smoking reel. I took the strike while Jannie cleared the other deep line. The fish took a lot of line to the front of the boat and I had quite a job moving around the T-top to follow the fish. At one stage, I was fighting directly over the steering wheel to the front of the boat… gotta love it. Finally I had the fish next to the boat where Jannie gaffed another nice cuda. The fish were obviously not keen on the traffic but luckily we had found a few ready to feed. After setting the lines again, Jannie trolled over the same area but the showing had gone. We tacked the area and finally found it again. It was no surprise when the deep line went away. Jannie took the rod and had an unusually easy fight with another good fish which I gaffed and brought aboard. In the next half hour, the sea changed. A strong reverse current came through bringing with it a lot of slime. The lines were covered in the stuff and made the tackle very visible to the fish. We trolled the area for another 2 hour, but apart from another 40kg hammerhead, we had no action so headed back to port where the 3 biggest fish weighed 20kg, 19,6kg and 17,5kg. Sometimes the early bird does catch the worm.