On 28th December at
11am, Hansie, Quinton and I launched Mitsufishi off Richards Bay. The weather
had settled and looked good for an afternoon session. With a full spread of
lure and teasers out, we worked the 200m to 400m dropoff just north of the
harbour.
There was no current, but the
water colour looked really good. We had been trolling for a while without any
action. There was a big tanker drifting in 350m, so we trolled past it hoping
there might be a dorado or something lurking in the area. We were all looking
at the sounder when the 130 in the gunwale gave a short burst. None of us saw
the strike, but when we looked back, there was a billfish on the teaser.
Quinton threw out the pitch bait and while I retrieved the teaser. Thee fish
stayed on the teaser for a while until I could clear it, it then switched to
the halfbeak and grabbed it. Quinton did an excellent job with the feed and
hooked up to a very acrobatic striped marlin. The fish took a lot of line while
I retrieved the other lines. Hansie followed the fish and Quinton could put
some line back on the reel. After about 20 minutes or so I could get hold of
the leader and grab the bill. The current junior 37kg SA Record for Striped
Marlin is vacant, so we decided to take the fish home.
Despite trolling until late into
the afternoon, we never had another strike so headed back home.
