On Saturday 2nd January
2016 at 4am, John and I launched “Drifter” off Richards Bay. We stopped at the
pipe and filled up with livies before heading north along the ledge.
The conditions were great with a
light off shore wind and crystal clean warm water with a good current. We
pulled lures for a few hours working our way north, but things were very quiet.
We decided to switch to bait in the hope that we would find something. I
started retrieving the lines one by one while the boat was still moving at
trolling speed. There were two rods left to clear when the far lure was eaten
and the reel took off. John took the strike while I cleared the last line. The
fish was not putting up much of a struggle and came to the boat relatively
easily. When it was close to the boat, we saw that it was a wahoo. I quickly
gaffed the fish before it could bite off the nylon leader and lifted it into
the ice box. This was also John’s first wahoo.
I rigged up 4 livies and tacked
over the ledge. Unfortunately the wind had swung to the East and things went
stone dead. We trolled the livies for several hours without so much as a bump.
When we reached the end of the ledge, we pulled up and headed home.
