Painful end game!

On Saturday 6^th January, Terence and I launched “ABF” off Richards Bay. We were hoping to get a few gamefish. At 5am we were on the pipeline and found a few decent size maasbanker and one mackerel. With the well full, we headed to the ledge. 

On the mark, there was a good mid water showing so Terence send down a live bait on a jigging rig. The bait was on the bottom for a few seconds when it was eaten. Unfortunately, the hook turned into the bait and missed the fish. On the next drop, Terence went tight with a fish that pulled line off the heavy drag as if it was nothing. There were big head nods and strong short runs before it started to tire. Terence had it about half way up when for no apparent reason, the hook pulled! We made a few more drops but had no more luck so I put out a surface bait. It did not take long to get a pull and I went tight with a tuna of some sort. The fish was very stubborn and after a strong fight, I had a big kawa-kawa next to the boat, where we released it. We made several more drifts but the fish seemed to have vanished. I suggested we head into the deeper water on the drop-off and see if we could find some dorado or possibly a marlin. 

We ran out to 100m and put out 2 big live maasbanker and the mackerel and trolled them deeper. Things were very quiet after 2 hours so when I heard that there were a few dorado in shallow I suggested we move. Terence slowly cleared the teasers and two nearby baits. As he was retrieving the far bait, there were a few flying fish that spooked and took to the air. Moments later, Terence shouted he was on and fed the fish bef

ore hooking up. The fish’s first run was hectic, taking a lot of line in a hurry. I chased after it, allowing Terence to gain some line. The fish sounded very deep and settled into big circles. It was obvious that it was a tuna. The long rod took its toll on Terence and after an hour, he passed the rod to me. I pulled as hard as I could and soon it was on the leader, but after 20 minutes, I put Terence back on the rod with the fish still in sight. After a further 20 minutes, I was back on the rod. This was getting ridiculous, so I upped the drag a bit and used what little strength I had left to get the fish on the leader. Terence was able to get the gaff into the 35kg fish and end the pain. The fish was bled and spined before being boated. Both of us were pretty over catching tuna so we called it a day and headed home.

Ending the year with a blue

On 31^st January, Herman, Quinton and I launched Mitsufishi off Richards Bay. We were hoping that the last day of 2017 would be good to us. We worked the drop-off straight off the harbour but despite finding some bait and current lines, there was no action. The day wore on and out of desperation we headed shallower to see if there was a black marlin that would be interested.

We were in about 80m when I saw a fin flash behind the ruckus on the left short. The rigger popped and the 130 took off. The fish never jumped and just made a constant run on the surface. This gave us a chance to clear the other lines and get Quinton into the chair. It was the first time he had fought a fish on the big tackle and was lifted out the seat a few times. After a few minutes, he settled into a good rhythm and had the fish near the boat. The fish was on the leader, but by no means tired! It made a few big head nods, turned 180 degrees and took off on another good run. Thee heavy drag took its toll on the fish and it was soon on the leader again. It was extremely stubborn, and I struggled to get its head out from under the boat. At one stage, it touched the boat and went mental, ripping the leader out my gloves as it took off straight down. All we could see was the electric blue tail kicking hard as it swam into the depths. After a few minutes though, the fish was on the leader again. This time I managed to get a few wraps on the leader and pull the fish up against the side of the boat. We were all surprised to see that it was in fact a blue marlin of about 120kg and not the black we were expecting. This fish was hooked in the top of the eye socket which is probably why it gave us such a tough time. On closer inspection, there was also a longliner hook in the corner of the mouth, so the fish obviously had some experience. Herman removed the hook and sent the marlin on its way.

With the new years festivities happening later that evening, we decided to head back to port, ending off the year in a good way.