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.