On Tuesday evening at 17:45, Andre,
Hansie, Tjaart, Terence and I launched “Good Time” out of Richards Bay. There
had been the odd daga salmon around and the weather had given a gap to try for
them.
We headed out to the pipeline, sounded
around until we found a bit of structure and put out the anchor. We went about
catching a few shad and maasbanker for live bait. It didn’t take long for us
all to have a live bait in the water and the waiting began. The sand anchor was
slipping a bit but we decided to leave it so that we could cover a bit of
ground. There were about 15 boats in the area, and none had any luck, so we
thought this might work in our favour. After a few hours, Hansie had a bump,
but the fish only nipped his livie, killing and discarding it. At about 9pm, we
decided to up lines and position ourselves again. When Andre and Tjaart
retrieved their lines, their livies were also dead with the small pin hole teeth
marks on them.
 |
| 36.7kg Daga Salmon |
We rigged up a sand anchor and
rock anchor and set it over a likely looking spot. It was absolutely dead and
at around 11pm I suggested that we start packing up. Slowly we upped lines and
I noticed that Andre, Tjaart and Terence were tangled. While they were sorting things
out, I pinned a fresh livie and sent it down. With the tangle sorted, we were
about to pull anchor when I felt a solid bump on my rod. I dropped the tip and
let the line come tight before setting the hook. The rod keeled over with the
weight of a good fish. It went on a short but strong run with big head nods. I
could not do much with the 10kg tackle, so I let the drag on the spinning reel
do its thing and slowly tire the fish out. After about 15 minutes the fish was
on surface in the lights where Andre could get the gaff in the mouth. He
struggled to pull it aboard and only when it was lying on the deck could we see
the size of the fish. It was a really good size fish, well over 30kg. With a
fish on the deck, we were happy to call it a night and headed home. We weighed
the fish at the club and it registered 36.7kg. A possible record on 10kg line.
Thanks to Andre and my mates for
a magic evening. If you are looking to book a fishing charter, give Andre a
call (072 639 9366).
