Deja vu

On Friday 2^nd May at 6am, Andrew Mitchley and I launched “ABF” out of Richards Bay. We were hoping to catch a few snoek and maybe a cuda if we were in luck. We stopped at the pipeline and quickly caught a few strings of livies before heading north to the snoek grounds. There were a lot of boats there so I decided to hang a bit south of the crowds and try my luck there.

I put out a few fillets and redeyes and trolled in the same depth as the previous day. On my second turn, I saw a lone bird fluttering over one spot. I trolled towards it and saw a few snoek boils. I cast the spoon and went tight on a snoek. I gaffed it myself while Andrew was driving. I had just cleaned the deck when I saw the surface fillet go away. Andrew took the strike and got his first snoek. There were obviously s few fish in the area and after trolling around for a bit longer, we managed 2 more fish on the deep baits.

Things went quiet so I moved over to another bird fluttering in the shallows. Before I got there, a few snoek smashed baitfish on the surface. Andrew cast the spoon and went tight immediately. At the same time one of the baits went away. Unfortunately we lost the fish on bait but Andrew got his. I turned over the spot and went tight on a fillet. After loading the fish, we went away on a redeye bait and caught another fish. By now the other boats had cottoned on to the fact that we were getting fish and within a few minutes, there were 40 boats there. I was not keen on this congestion and moved deeper. We had a good pull on a deep redeye, but after the first run, the hooks came out. By 10am, the action stopped so we upped lines and headed to the kasteel to try for a cuda.

Andrew's 15kg YFT

ABF's haul of snoek and a YFT

We arrived at the ledge and found that the current was ripping again. I ran up a bit further north before setting 2 deep lines and 2 surface lines. I had just set the last line when I noticed the deep rod keel over and the reel absolutely smoked off! I cleared the other deep line while Andrew fought the fish. The first run was quite long but eventually stopped and we could get some line back. After 20 minutes, the sinker came up which I removed. I could see the fish down deep, but it looked quite short. Only then did I see that it was a nice big yellowfin. It circled to the surface where I gaffed it and bled it. It was put on ice before I ran up to north to start another approach. Like deja vu, the lines were just set when the same deep rod smoked off. I cleared the same lines as before while Andrew took the strike. The fish had just settled when the hooks pulled! Unlucky. The trace came back totally mauled. I rerigged but despite trolling over the same area we had no more pulls. The NE wind was picking up, so we headed back home. The yellowfin weighed in at 15kg while all the snoek were on the small side.