On Saturday 31st May
at 6:15am, Ettienne, Johan and I launched at Zinkwazi. We were fishing on “Heidilein”
skippered by Stuart. We were fishing in the Zinkwazi Interclub against 20 other
teams. After waiting for the first batch of 10 boats to launch, we headed off
to the mid hi-point.
Stuart stopped just short of the
reef and we went down with bait jigs. It
took all of 20 minutes to have the live well full of big maasbanker. Stuart
took us about 500m deeper and we were on the reef where 5 baits went out, 2
surface baits on flouro for the tuna species (and maybe a billfish), 2 on the
downriggers and one midway. On our second approach, the surface bait was eaten
and the reel gave a short burst but then went quiet. I was hoping it was a tuna
but when I retrieved the line, the hook had been bitten off! Next thing Ett shouted
that he was on and the reel on the mid water bait smoked off. Johan and I
cleared the deep lines while Etts fought a cuda to the boat. When it was near
the boat, the other surface rod gave a short burst then went quiet. Another cuda
had bitten us off… that’s the gamble. Soon after, I gaffed a 14kg cuda for
Etts. At least we were on the board.
Lines were rerigged and trolling commenced.
In the next hour, 9 other boats arrived. We trolled away from the crowd and
just after checking the baits, the downrigger line went away. I took the strike
and fought another 14kg cuda to the gaff. We were looking good. Things went
very quiet so at 1pm we ran up to the northern hi point to look for some
bottomfish to hopefully multiply our score. We put out the anchor and set a few
trap sticks while Johan and Etts put some nice bottom baits down. There were a
few small red fish, but nothing over the 2kg minimum weight. I was getting a
bit bored so I rigged up a bottom trace with a light snoot and 4/0 hook on a
gamefish rod. I caught a few small soldiers and eventually got one of exactly
2kg. Johan caught a rockcod, but it was just under 2kg.
The wind had now picked up to
over 20 knots and the sea was uncomfortable. All the boats headed to the beach by
15:30. There were a few smaller fish caught, but not fireworks.
On Sunday 1st June, we
lined up on the beach waiting to launch "Pisscat" skippered by Russel. Finally, at 6:50am, we were pushed in
and could head off to Hi point. By the time we got there, the bait had
scattered and the gamefish had gone off the bite. While looking for bait, I put
down a redeye flapper and caught a 2kg rockcod. A short while later, Johan got
a 2,5kg soldier. With the 2 multipliers, we now needed a gamefish for the
weight. We trolled over the reef many times but did not have a pull. After a
while, we found some good showings and went down with the bait jigs. Etts and I
came up with full strings of mackerel! No wonder we were not getting any pulls.
There was just too much bait around.
With a good supply of bait, we
headed shallower to hope for a queenfish, snoek or cuda. Apart from 2 half-hearted
queenfish strikes, we had nothing further and beached at 13:30. Our team
managed to place 8th. Not too bad I suppose.
