On Monday 17th
February, Mike, Dale and myself launched “Beluga” out of Richards Bay. It was
the last day of the Billfish Interprovincial. The previous 2 days were
exceptionally quiet with only 2 marlin released… both on the same boat. The
weather was almost too good with hardly a breath of wind most of the day. The
water was purple and the temp up to 29 degrees at times. There was
unfortunately zero current.
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| Dale with a Shoalie Wahoo |
After 2 days of pulling lures
with only one marlin strike, we opted to pull livebait on the last day. At 5:30
we put out 4 bait lures and trolled over the ledge. It was not 5 minutes and
all 4 rods went away. Unfortunately 2 pulled hooks, one small yellowfin was
bitten in half by a shark but we managed to get a 2kg skipjack into the tube.
While this was going on, there was also a dorado around the boat. The activity
was amazing. The lures went back in and Mike made a turn over the same area. The
far feather smoked off as a fish smashed it on the surface, unfortunately the
wire kinked off. While I was retrieving the line, one of the halcos went away.
Dale took the rod and brought in a 9kg wahoo. We put out only 3 bait rods and
made another turn. As the showing started, all 3 rods went away. Dale had a
fish smoking off on surface but was bitten off, I pulled hooks, but while
retrieving the lure, I went on again with another fish. Mike in the meanwhile had
the same happen to him, but as the second fish smoked off, another one picked
up the swivel and bit him off. When the dust settled, I was still on with what
turned out to be a 3kg yellowfin. What a bait! We wasted no time in rigging the
2 baits and by 6am we were heading out to the drop off.
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| By-catch |
The day passed without a rev, so
we decided to try a bit shallower for the last hour of the competition. There
was a lot of bait around at the 60m mark so Mike made a few turns there. It was
not long before the rigger on the spare bait, the skipjack, gave a sharp flick.
I expected the rigger to pull flat any second, but when I looked back, I saw
the bait flashing and knew what had happened… Dale pulled the bait in and it
had been sliced cleanly by a wahoo. Well, at least we still had another bait…
as Mike turned to head deeper, the yellowfin gave a short rev then went quiet.
We all knew what had happened. Another wahoo had trimmed our bait down to size.
With no more bait, we put on the lures and trolled down the ledge. Mike saw a
piece of rope floating on the surface and as we passed it, the flatline gave a
short burst but missed. Moments later both long riggers came down but we only
hooked up on one. I winched in another 8kg wahoo before resetting the spread.
On the next turn, the right long went away and we managed another shoalie
wahoo. The time had run out so we upped lines and headed back to port.
