On Sunday 30th March
at 6:30, the Smit family and I launched “Seaduction” off Richards Bay. We were hoping
to look for some gamefish, but the weather forecast predicted a strong SW to
come through at around 11am. We stopped on the pipeline and caught some
livebait. We could see the front lying to the south but decided to take a
chance and run north to the ledge.
The water was not a great colour
and the current was flying. We put out a few trolling lures and zigzagged the
ledge to see where the showings were. The SW started to pick up so I rigged up
5 cuda baits and slow trolled along the ledge. We were just coming to the
southern point when there was a big swirl between the lines. I first thought it
was a dolphin that was surfing down the swells, but then the reel with the
close surface livie gave a few short bursts. I saw the line going deep and
towards the front of the boat. I ran back and moved the rod to the starboard
side to prevent the line tangling with another. As I put some pressure on the
fish, the line cut through the water to the surface and a nice black marlin of
around 120kg stuck its head out! It looked very lethargic of the first few
jumps so we did not panic too much while the lines were cleared. The fish had
taken some line, so I passed the rod to Dewalt and went to the controls where I
chased after the fish. In a few minutes, we had it within 15m of the boat but
then it made a series of frantic jumps away from us and managed to get the leader
around its tail and part the wire off. The fish jumped a few more times after
it broke off just to tease us. At lease the guys on the boat had a bit of a
show for the day.
 |
| Sushi?! |
The current had pushed us far south,
so I headed north to where we started previously. The long surface bait was
still fine so I let it out before rerigging fresh baits on the other rods.
Before I could get the second bait rigged, the surface bait was eaten. The fish
took a bit of line before going deep. The rod tip had those characteristic tail
beats of a tuna and so it was no surprise when Dewalt gaffed a small shoal
yellowfin which was bled and put on ice. Again the current had pushed us south
so while we had no other lines in the water, I ran up again and reset the
lines. The SW had picked up to about 20kts and the sea was getting uncomfortable.
I suggested that we make this our last pass along the ledge which was met by
approval from everyone on board. We passed over a good showing that was 10m
thick. It was hardly surprising when the deep livie went away. This fish hardly
fought and came to the boat easily. When the sinker came up, I could see a
short silver shape of a bonito. It was surprising that it fought so little
considering it was as big as the yellowfin we had caught earlier. By now the
sea was pretty bad due to the strong wind over a strong current, so we upped lines and had long ride back to the harbour.
