On Sunday 25th May at
9am, my Dad and I launched “ABF” out of Richards Bay. We stopped at the pipe
line and after a while had a few livies. From there we headed South for the 32m
ledge. On arrival, I rigged 2 livies, 2 bonnie and a wala. The conditions were perfect. Clean
green water, calm seas and a slight current. I was very confident that we would
get a good fish.
We had not trolled for long when
we went over a nice showing on the bottom. My Dad pulled neutral for a bit to
let the baits sink a bit and then continued forward. As the boat started
moving, the deep livie went away. It was not a big fish and I at one stage
thought it was a bottomfish of sorts. I pulled it quite hard and only when the
sinker came up did the fish pull a bit of line. I got a glimpse of it and it
looked like a blackspot kingfish. As it came closer, it looked more like a
rainbow runner. Only when it was on the leader could I identify it as a rare
Cape Yellowtail. I knew nobody would believe me, so I loaded it. It was a small
one, but it tasted great.
 |
| A rare catch off Richards Bay |
I rerigged and continued
trolling. Despite going over a few more nice showings, we had no more pulls.
There was a bit of a current line forming a bit deeper, so I moved in that
direction and trolled parallel to it. As I turned, the medium livie was eaten
by a hammerhead. After last weekend, I was over the shark population and took
out my frustrations… enough said.
It was dead quiet so at 2:30 I
suggested we quickly stop at Petingo fish for an hour before going home. After
the quick run, I put out 3 wala and a bonnie. The wind had dropped away totally
and the surface looked like an oil slick. I was hoping that the far surface
bait would get eaten cause it would be a spectacular strike. I trolled around
the wreck and on the 4th pass, there was an almighty splash out the
back and a big cuda launched itself a few meters into the air. On re-entry, the
reel with the far bait smoked off! Awesome! We cleared the other lines and
followed after the fish which now had quite a lot of line in the water. I put
most of the line back on the reel and just when the fish was near the boat, it
made a sudden mad dash. The rod bumped a bit and I said that it felt like one
of the hooks had just pulled so I eased off on the drag a bit. There were some
more bumps and the fight changed to that which had played out 17 times the
previous weekend… Of all the fish to get eaten, why ours?! I put the reel to
sunset and clamped down on the spool. Being 50lbs line, nothing was going to
break! This however had little effect so I slacked the drag and tightened the
preset and then went to sunset again. The shark did not like that, but I did
not give a @#%&. I took a glove and a cloth and squeezed the spool tightly.
At this point the boat was being dragged backward by the piece of $#!%. My Dad
put the one motor in gear to increase the drag. This did not do too much so the
second motor also went into gear. There were a few big nods and I secretly
hoped that the hooks were ripping the gills apart! After about 20 minutes, the
leader wore through. That shark does not know how lucky it was…
After that, we made 2 more passes
over the wreck before heading home. Something needs to be done about the shark
problem… enough is enough... suggestions welcome.
