On Sunday 5th May, I
launched ABF off Richards Bay. It was a solo mission as my normal fishing partners were either in the dogbox or away for the weekend, but the weather window was too good to pass up. There had been a cold front that passed through
the previous night and the sea was unsettled and dirty but the forecast showed a lull at midday. I scrounged around on
the pipeline and only caught 3 yellowtail scads. Speaking to the other boats,
the water was dirty in the shallows so I decided to head out to the ledge.
On arrival, the water was 24
degrees and a clean green colour. There was a strong reverse current, but the
sea was a lot more settled than closer in. I put out a daisy chain and a
feather and trolled over the pinnacle. There were a few bonnies splashing on
the surface and it was no surprise when I went on with a jube-jube which went
into the tubes. On the second pass, I caught a second one and was ready to rig
up. There was very little showing on the reef and the other boats there had
only caught big bonnies. I stopped above the pinnacle and sent down a live
bait. Just as I was coming off the pinnacle, I had a bite, but missed it. The
bait came back with teeth scratch marks of what I assume was a kingfish. I ran
back up to the start of the drift and sent another bait down without any
action. On the next drift I also came up blank and the bait had expired. I
pinned one of the scads and sent that down. It was on the ground for a short
while when I had a bite. The circle hook found its mark and I was tight with a
really strong fish that was determined to get back down to the rocks. After a
short dogged fight, I had the fish on the leader. It was a healthy GT of over
20kg. I lifted it into the boat and readied my tag kit. Just when I was about
to insert a tag, I noticed that there was already a tag in the fish. It was
covered with growth so I cleaned it, took the number down, measured and
released it. It was great to see it swim away strongly, hopefully for another
person to enjoy the fight someday. Unfortunately there was nobody to take a photo.
The next few drops produced no
action so I caught a few bonnies on the light flick stick. The wind had settled
completely and before the NE wind picked up, I made the long run home.
The tag data indicated that a
friend of mine had tagged the fish last year in April at the same spot that I
had caught it. Its growth was negligible.
