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| "Boertjie" in the surf |
On Sunday 6th July,
the Richards Bay under 16 team (Lelani, Kelvin and TJ), myself and Oom Hennie
de Beer launched Hennie’s “Boertjie” off Mapelane. We were competing in the 2014
Mapelane Junior Interclub. The first day was a blow out and this day’s weather
was anything but good with a SW of 18-20 knots, drizzle and nasty swells.
Our first stop was on the
backline where we caught a few live maasbanker. With the live well full, we put
on a few small rapalas, fillets and feathers and trolled the shallows hoping
for a quick snoek so that we could get some points on the board. After an hour
without a pull, we headed out to Dingo’s on the 50m ledge hoping to get a tuna
before drifting for cuda. The sea was really big out in the current but Hennie managed
to tack over the reef and 3 rods went on with 2 small bonnies and a skipjack.
The bonnies went into the bait box while the skipjack was released. There were
hundreds of birds in the area and they were causing havoc with the surface
lines. After hooking a few, we decided to make a few drifts to look for cuda.
The 2 bonnies were rigged up as well as a wala-wala and 2 livies. As we drifted
over the reef, both bonnies were eaten by slow moving fish that took a lot of
line before parting off. There were obviously a lot of sharks around! Hennie
took us up to the start of the drift again. We were busy letting the lines out
when the livie on the surface was eaten. Kelvin took the rod on a fish that
smoked off a bunch of line and splashing on the surface. At one point, it
cleared the water and we could see that it was a good yellowfin. Hennie turned
the boat towards it and Kelvin gained most of the line. The fish was fighting
very erratically and I was surprised when I saw the double line and leader come
up after only a few minutes. The fish boxed around the boat for a while but the
big swell made it extremely difficult to get it within range of the gaff. There
were some anxious moments when the fish went under the boat and near the
motors, but eventually, the shot came and I lifted the fish into the boat.
Great stuff! We were on the board.
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| 15,2kg YFT for Richards Bay U/16 |
Hennie took us to the start of
the drift again and just as we had set the lines, the surface livie went away.
This was a very strange pull and within a few seconds the spool was near empty.
Only then did we see what was going on… a whale had swam into the line and got
tangled! Luckily the line parted near the double so we could get most of the
line back. The rod was rerigged and set. I decided to step out of the
relentless drizzle and wind to warm up but it was not to be as the wala-wala
went away. Lanie took the rod but as luck would have it, the fight changed into
a very heavy, slow paced run that continued for a few hundred meters and even
with the drag on sunset, the fish just kept heading out to sea. Eventually the
leader chafed through on another shark.
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| 1st position Richards Bay U/16 |
On the next drift, the surface livie
was eaten and the exact same thing happened. These sharks were seriously hungry
if they were eating wala-wala and small livies. By the 1pm lines up call, we
had no more fish on the boat and we headed back to the beach. There were
surprisingly few fish weighed in and only 4 teams had fish, none of which were
over 9kg. When we lifted our tuna out the hatch, there were a lot of surprised
faces. It pulled the scale to 15,2kg. This was enough to put us into 1st
position and Kelvin as top angler.
Thanks to Mapelane SBC for
hosting another great comp. Unfortunately the weather was not great, but the
juniors had a good time. We hope to see you next year.
