On Saturday 17th
December, Terence, Oom Andre, Willem and I launched “Boy oh Buoy” off Richards
Bay. We were hoping to find a few dorado for Terence’s family from up country.
At 4:45, we left the harbour mouth and headed for the pipe. On the way, Willem
spotted a large flock of birds working a shoal of fish. When we got close
enough, I fired a small spoon at them and went on immediately. It turned out to
be a nice shad. Terence sent the jigs down to the bottom and pulled up a string
of massive maasbanker. Almost every cast resulted in a shad and every down
resulted in big maasbankers. It didn’t take long to fill the live well and soon
we were off to the deeper water.
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| A good Tropical Yellowtail |
Passing over the ledge, the water
was 22 degrees and green with a reverse current. Not ideal conditions for
dorado, so we continued deeper. In 100m, the temp went up to 24 degrees, so we
decided to put out a few small lures. We came across a few birds that were
hovering over an area and when we went through them, we went on with a fish
that took quite a bit of line in a hurry. The bumpy conditions made it
difficult for Oom Andre to fight but eventually managed to get a big skipjack
tuna on the boat. We continued trolling, but things were very quiet. After an
hour or two, we trolled shallower towards the 50m ledge. I found a good showing
a few meters off the bottom, I stopped and the guys went down with vertical
jigs. On the second down, Terence went tight with a good fish that had him pinned
to the gunwale for a while with a very heavy drag. After an exceptionally
strong fight, the fish came up and Willem could gaff it. It was a really good
tropical yellowtail of close to 15kg.
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| Jono's Amberjack |
Everyone scrambled to get their rods
ready while I went to the top of the drift again. While the guys went down with
jigs, I pinned a live bait and let it out some ways. I was still letting it out
when the line pulled tight and line flew off the reel. I fed it a bit and went
tight with a dorado. I made short work of the fish and had our first dorado of
the day in the hatch. We upped lines and went to the start of the drift again.
As the showing started, I let out another livie, hoping for a dorado. I had let
the bait out a fair distance when it started revving and I felt a fish eat it.
I fed it for a while before tightening up. The fish gave a few big head nods
then took off on a strong run. I was feeling a bit under gunned but put as much
drag on as I dared. Terence went to the controls and followed it for a while until
I was vertical with it. Slowly but surely, I lifted the fish, still not knowing
what it was. After about 15 minutes, I saw colour. It was a nice amberjack.
Willem put the gaff in and hauled the fish aboard. Great! What an awesome
fight, especially considering the light tackle it was on.
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| A good haul for the day. |
We made a few more drifts over
the showing, but the fish went off the bite. It seemed to be the effect of the
easterly wind that had come up. I suggested we put the lures on again and troll
along the current lines and see if we could get lucky. I trolled deeper to 300m
and found the water at 26 degrees but with very little life so I headed
shallower to work the temp break. It was almost home time and we were about to
call it a day when another dorado grabbed one of the lures and soon we had two
dorado in the hatch. After that, we decided to head home.
