On Sunday 12th July,
We launched “OHANA” off Mapelane for the second day of the Mapelane Junior
Interclub. Fishing with us was one of the Richards Bay U/16 teams of JP and TJ
Jacobs and JP Krieg. The previous day’s fishing had not been too good with only
a handful of fish being weighed. The 15-20 knot NE wind had blown consistently for
the 2 days making the conditions difficult. After losing several fish the first
day, we were hoping to get some points on the board.
After catching some livies on the
backline, we joined the rest of the fleet fishing home reef. We were limited to
the area due to the wind and so we had to make do with what we had. We put out
4 lines, 2 livies, a sardine and a small bonnie. These baits were drifted along
the 16m to 25m marks. It was pretty quiet and only a few fish had been reported.
To pass the time, JP played around with a sabiki jig catching the odd Maasbanker
and a few sand soldiers as we drifted. We had just drifted onto a small patch
of reef when the medium livie was eaten. The fish hardly pulled the reel, but
no matter, we had a fish on. JP took the rod and quickly had a small 4kg cuda
at the boat which I gaffed. Finally, something in the hatch. We drifted off the
reef and decided to up lines and do a short drift over the same area. I was
retrieving the deep livie and was holding the line, having just removing the
sinker, when the line was ripped out my hand! The rod bent and another small
cuda went on a run. Before anyone could take the rod, the hooks unfortunately
pulled.
After running up and resetting
the lines, we drifted south past the point. Realising we only had half an hour
left of fishing, we decided to continue drifting until lines up. We were all
pretty much falling asleep when the reel on the bow rod smoked off! Talk about
a wakeup call… TJ took the strike while the rest of us cleared the deck. Jannie
followed the fish with the boat and after several fast runs, I managed to gaff
a 12kg cuda.
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| Richards Bay U/16 team with their catch |
The comp came to an end shortly
after that and at the weighin there were a few nice fish including two prodigal
son of 17kg and 20kg. Congrats to the other Richards Bay team for taking the
gold with a great cuda of 24kg on the first day.
I look forward to seeing all the juniors
there again next year!
