On Thursday night at 6pm, we
launched “Ohana” off Richards Bay. There had been a number of geelbek being
caught and we were keen to get into some of the action.
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| Danie's PB 7,7kg Rocksalmon |
The sea was like glass so it was
an easy ride to the pipe where we caught a few shad before running north. The
fish had been coming out off Dawsons, which was a long run. Reports were that there
were already 20 boats there and the fish were not exactly thick. We decided to
take a different approach and run deep and then north along the ledge, looking
for a shoal on the sounder. We had gone for about 40 minutes when a showing
came through. Jannie slacked off and sounded the area. The marks looked good so
both Danie and I went down with live shad. As we hit the bottom, we went on. I
pulled hook and Danie got a nice 6kg bek. The current was ripping at 4 knots so
it was difficult to stay on them. Jannie ran up again and we sent 2 more baits
into the shoal. Same result… one pulled hook and one fish in the hatch. I was
beginning to get a complex as the next 2 drifts produced the same result. Danie
would hook up on the spinning outfit and pass the rod to the boys who each
managed a bek. I changed my trace a bit and on the next drift, I joined the
ranks with a bek in the hatch. Danie and I had doubled up and he brought up a
lovely rock salmon of almost 8kg!
Over the next few drifts, we took
turns catching fish. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. It did not take
long for the word to get out and within half an hour, there were 7 boats around
us. One of the skippers had zero fishing etiquette or consideration for others
and on several occasions made dangerous maneuvers, narrowly missing the other
boats. I suppose it should be expected from this skipper who was more concerned
about putting another fish in the hatch than the safety of others! This same
person took well over his boats quota and had done so for the last 4 nights! It’s
an embarrassment to the sport!
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| Ohana with a few geelbek |
Knowing that the bag limit for
these fish is 2 per person, I took my tagging kit along. When we had our legal
limit of fish, we changed to circle hooks and fought the fish as slow as
possible. In 4 drifts we managed to tag and release 4 geelbek.
It was getting late so we stopped
fishing and headed home. There was a lot of work to do and it was after 1am when
the last fish was filleted. It’s not something I often say, but with the boats abusing
the resources like they are, I hope the weather turns bad for the next few
weeks and keeps them off the water until the shoals move off.
