On Friday 17th Feb, at
3:45am At and I left Richards Bay to meet up with friends Lambert, Eric and
Hannes at Cape Vidal. We arrived on the beach at around 6am and quickly got the
boat “Garfield” prepared for the day. After a quick surf launch, we were on the
backline looking for livies. After about an hour of searching, we found a few
maasbanker. While Lambert and I caught the bait, At pinned a small bait and fed
it out. It was only a few meters from the boat when it was eaten. After a quick
feed, he tightened up and handed the rod to Hannes. The fish started on a run
but unfortunately quickly bit through the nylon leader. With a few livies in
the water, we headed north to the greens.
On arrival, I put out two surface
livies, 2 deep livies and a halfbeak on Japan. I had just finished setting the
spread when one of the surface livies went away. Lambert took the rod and
brought in a shoal cuda. The fish was just in the hatch when one of the deep
baits went away and Eric got another shoalie. I rerigged and At tacked back
into the area. Almost immediately the surface rod bent but straightened again
as the fish missed the hooks. We had just turned shallower when a deep bait
went away but again the hooks pulled. I increased the drags a bit hoping that
the extra pressure would set the hooks. Not long after, the deep line went away
again. This time Hannes caught a shoal cuda. Followed by another for Eric.
There were a few rain squalls around and at one stage it was bucketing down! In
that rain, the fish seemed to switch on and in a few minutes, we had four
strikes and managed 2 more shoalies. There was only one livie still in the
water and didn’t take long to get eaten. Unfortunately, another fish swam into
the line and it parted. Lambert looked at the rod in the T-Top and saw that it
was bending. He took the strike and brought in a big 8kg kawa-kawa. But what
was strange about this catch was that it had the previous strike’s trace in its
mouth. Greedy fish I suppose.
When the squall passed, the bite
slowed and so Lambert started throwing a stickbait. On his fourth or fifth
cast, a cuda exploded on the lure but missed the hooks. Lambert kept winding
and again the cuda chowed the lure. This time it got hooked and found its way
into the hatch.
We trolled for about an hour without
another pull, so decided to try at Oscar so we brought in the lines. Lambert
was busy retrieving a dead maasbanker when it was chopped by a fish but missed
the hooks. When the Japan halfbeak was retrieved, that bait had also been
chopped. We were in two minds whether to stay or continue, but decided to go to
Oscar so we put on a few trolling lures and headed there. There was no showing
on the pinnacle, and aside from a whale shark, we didn’t see any life so we
trolled shallower and put out the last 2 livies and 2 dead baits and trolled
towards the point. After about half an hour, the deep bait went away at speed
as a big bull dorado grabbed the bait. Almost at the same time, the surface
livie went away with a second dorado. Hannes and Eric took the strikes and had
their hands full with two fish that were very stubborn. Eric’s fish came in
first followed about 20 minutes later by Hannes’ fish. The bull was a good fish
of about 14kg.
With 10 fish in the hatch, it was
time to head in. Thanks to all for a great day.
