On the weekend of 30th July, we launched “Avanti”
with the Richards Bay Ladies team consisting of Tammy Hammond, Loraine Kapp and
Petro Schutte. We were fishing the RB Gamefish Interclub. The weather was
pretty terrible but everyone was really keen t wet a line. Our first stop was at
the pipe where we caught a few livies. We quickly ran to the south pier to try
fish for a Garrick before moving to plan B. The lines were just set when the
deep line went away. Loraine went tight on a Garrick and after a bit of a
tussle, the fish was next to the boat. I was busy reaching out to gaff the fish
when the hook pulled! Talk about bad luck. We shrugged it off and continued
fishing without any further pulls so we headed out to small high point. We
drifted there a few time, but there was nothing, not even a showing. We decided
to put out some trolling lures to cover some ground. It didn’t take long to get
a pull. This time it was on a big deep diver way out the back intended for
wahoo. I was pretty sure that’s what it was, but after a few minutes, the fish
bit through the #7 wire! Again the lines went out and we trolled the area.
Petro managed to get a small rainbow runner that was under the minimum weight
and Tammy caught a jube jube that we kept for bait.
With nothing going on, we headed for Petingo hoping for a
cuda or kingfish. The ladies worked jigs and live baits for a while but never
had a bump so we put on a few cuda baits and trolled around for a bit. Just
before lines up, we managed to get a pull and Petro released a nice bigeye
kingfish.
Day two saw a late launch due to the weather being fowl. At
7:30 we all put to sea and managed to catch livies in record time. We headed
south to where there were a few birds working and it didn’t take long to get a
few pulls from snoek. Unfortunately a few fell off and the ones we caught were
too small to weigh. With the sea being terrible, we headed to the harbour and
pulled some livies around for Garrick. It was really quiet but finally we had a
pull. The fish took off like a rocket when it ate the bait. Tammy fed it for a
while before we tightened up… nothing! The shad came back in perfect condition!
The Garrick must have swam into the line when it was chasing the bait and got
tangled up. What are the chances of that? So our comp came to an end with a lot
of good laughs and bad luck. We will be there next year to try again.
