Dropping off crew

On Sunday 7^th August, we launched “Avanti” off Richards Bay. We had a few of At’s friends on the boat looking for a Garrick. Knowing there was not much bait on the pipe, we opted to look on the shallow reefs near the nets and within 20 minutes, we had a hatch full of shad. The guys needed to leave for Pretoria at 11am, so it was going to be a short session. 

We headed to 5 mile and ducked into the backline. I rigged up 3 lines and At trolled through the rips. It took about half an hour for our first pull. I fed and hooked up the fish which ran straight into the backline. I handed off the rod and was busy clearing the other lines when the 40 lbs leader parted. Bad luck. We were back at square one. About an hour later, on the deep side of a nice rip, the short surface bait went away. Again I hooked up and passed the rod over. The fish didn’t do to much and was quickly next to the boat. I grabbed the tail and lifted it into the bot where it was tagged and released.

At made another turn while I let the new baits out. On almost the same spot, we went away again. This time the fish put on a better fight and took some time for me to get hold of the tail. This fish was also tagged after a few quick pics, then released. We had high hopes for another fish, but by 10:30, the had been no more action and we had to head back to drop the guys off.

It was still early, the weather was great and we had some bait left, so we decided to fish into the afternoon. We made the short run to the south pier and I had just set the last line when the first one went away. I passed the rod to Hendry who hooked up onto a shoal size Garrick. It gave him a good rev on the spinning rod and finally I managed to tail the fish and get a tag into it. Trolling continued, but it had gone quiet. 

The wind had picked up a lot and we were battling to maintain position so we headed to the north pier to give it a few minutes. Just before 4pm, the deep bait went away. Hendry fed and hooked up a good sized fish that gave him a nice fight before I could leader it. After tagging it, it was released and we called it a day.