On Saturday 9th March,
At and I launched “Avanti” off Richards Bay. The reports we had heard painted a
grim picture of the conditions. Strong, cold reverse currents in shallow and unfishable
N-S current on the ledge. I packed the cuda tackle and a few baits, but didn’t really
have a game plan.
We decided to stick to our
morning ritual of catching live bait and make a call from there. There was a
raging reverse current and we battled to maintain position. We battled to find
decent bait and moved to a few different spots. I suggested we try one of the
spots that I had not fished at in ages. As we stopped there, there was a big
showing. We both went down with jigs and got full strings of nice maasbanker. On
my second drop, something grabbed a livie and broke off the jig. With the
structure on the bottom, I assumed it was a rockcod. At had brought a bottom
rod with, so I pinned a live bait and sent it down. It was not on the bottom
for very long when it was eaten. I hooked a nice fish that gave me a bit of a
pull before getting it to the surface. To my surprise, it was a salmon of about
3kg… great eating size. At put the boat back on the reef and I sent another
bait down. Again, I caught a similar size salmon. My next drop I rigged 2
livies and went down. As soon as the sinker hit the bottom I when on. This time
I had a bit of a run for my money and boated a salmon and a big orange spotted
rockcod at the same time.
By now, all thoughts of cuda had
gone out the window. We took a few minutes down time while At rigged up a
second rod. I moved the boat into position and both of us sent baits down. At
hooked a fish followed shortly by myself. We each boated a nice rockcod. I will
be the first person to say that bottom fishing is not my favourite facet of fishing,
but I was having a ball! We caught a lot of rockies, but many were just
undersize so we released them. The bait showing had moved a bit so At sounded
around a bit to relocate them. When we finally did, I quickly sent a bait down.
Moments later I hooked a better fish that had me backwinding a few times. I took
my time with it and was rewarded with a really good rockcod. By now I had 5
fish in the hatch which was more than enough for me so I took over a designated
skipper. I held the boat over the showing and structure while At caught another
3 fish.
It was now only 10am so we
decided to quit while we were ahead. We headed back to the club and had brunch then
filleted the catch. I weighed the biggest fish that we caught and it was 5,7kg. It was a really great day all things considered.
