On Friday 6th June, Wayne, David and I arrived at
Cape Vidal. We had booked a weekend to try and get David his first sailfish.
True to form, as David landed in Richards Bay, the wind started howling. With a
SW wind pumping consistently at 35 knots, we thought the whole trip would be a
write-off.
On Saturday morning, the wind was still blowing 20 knots but
dropping. After a lazy morning around the chalet, we headed to the beach at
noon with “Da Boys” in tow. The surf launch was a non-event but the sea was
very uncomfortable! On the backline, we caught a few live baits before setting
out the sailfish spread. The water was surprisingly clean with a lot of bird
life. We decided to stay close to the launch and just work the point to the
lighthouse. The current was ripping N-S against the wind (perfect tailing
conditions), but we were being swept south quite quickly. Trolling in the
trough, Wayne headed deeper on out first tack. I was looking back when I saw a
big swirl behind one of the baits. I though it a bit strange and moved to the
rod. The next thing, 2 reels behind me took off! One was on a double hook
halfbeak so it was tight. The other was on a single circle hook so I had to
feed the fish a bit before tightening up. Both rods were tight so Wayne and I
cleared the other rods. Unfortunately, the one fish pulled hook pretty quickly
but we still had one on. Dave fought the fish which took a lot of line down
deep. From the head nods, we assumed it was a tuna of sorts. Unfortunately, a
short while into the fight, the circle hook pulled and we were back to square
one, rerigging baits.
With all the splashing from the teaser and exciters, we had
attracted some birds. We had petrels, albatross and gannets dive bombing our
surface and deep baits. After half an hour of fighting off birds, I pulled in
all the lines and headed north. Luckily the birds stayed behind. While we were
running north with the swell, I saw a sickle fin in the waves. Wayne moved to
intercept while Dave and I put out 2 baits and the teaser. On closer
inspection, we saw that the fish was a small black marlin. It swam into the
spread and had a quick look around before fading off. We put out the full
spread and worked the area without a pull. In the shallows, there was a patch
of bait on the surface, so we worked the shoal a bit. Wayne and I noticed a
flick on the one rod tip. The bait was still there and swimming, so we thought
it a false alarm. About 30seconds later, the rod bent and the reel ran. I
freespooled the fish for a bit and then slowly tightened up. The line took
tension and there were a few head nods. The line angled to the surface and a
nice sailfish took to the sky! It went mental on the surface while Wayne and I
cleared the other lines. Dave kept the line tight until we could turn to
follow. This fish jumped itself tired in 20 minutes and when I took the leader,
it was quite tired. We tagged it and took a few pics before releasing a +-30kg
fish. Mission accomplished! With some serious celebrating to do, we packed up
and hit the beach…
On Sunday at 7:30 we launched again. This time the NE wind
was pumping close to 20knots. We did not think we would be out for long, so I
quickly set the sailfish spread and Wayne worked a similar area to the previous
day. About an hour later, the reel on the close bait near the teaser gave a
short burst then nothing. Moments later, the long bait gave a burst. I pulled
the bait forward a bit and felt a heavy weight so I fed it a bit. The fish
dropped the bait so I teased it again. Feeling the pull, I fed again. This time
the reel ran properly and after a count of around ten, I slowly tightened up.
The line took tension and the reel ran with a few big head nods. The line
surfaced and a really good sized sail exploded out the water. It was quite a
bit bigger than the previous days fish. Unfortunately, after a few jumps
straight at the boat, the circle hook pulled and we were back to square one.
The baits went out again and Wayne worked the area. Every time we turned in the
shallow water, we would be terrorized by gamefish which would just flick the
rod tip and leave a cleanly chopped off head. We did manage to get a big
kawa-kawa to stick and Wayne had quite a fight before releasing a 8-9kg fish.
By twelve o clock the wind was doing 25knots or more, we had 1 sailfish and 8
gamefish pulls and had run out of baits so we upped lines and headed for the
beach.
All in all, it was a great weekend and despite the shocking
weather, we managed to accomplish the goal we set out to.
