On Saturday 18th May
2019 at 6am, Jurgen and I launched “ABF” out of Richards Bay. I had commitments
for the afternoon so we could only fish for a few hours, but when the weather
is good, you need to get on the water.
 |
| Jurgen with a 20kg Potatobass |
We stopped at the wave rider buoy
and quickly filled the livewell with maasbanker before heading out to the
ledge. The current was flying at over 4 knots and the upwelling that it caused
made it very uncomfortable. I put out a few lures and quickly caught a few
bonnies for cuda bait. While trolling, I looked for a decent showing, but there
was nothing to write home about so we decided to put some baits out regardless.
The current was challenging to say the least and we ended up killing most of
the baits due to the speed at which we pulled them. To overcome this, we rigged
dead baits and tried to maintain position. Just as the baits were swept past
the marks, one was eaten and Jurgen had a hard fight from what turned out to be
a potato bass which was tagged and released. On the next drift, we hooked a
shark that chafed us off.
We decided to make one last drift and try a live
bait. I stopped the boat a long way up current and Jurgen managed to get the
bait in the right spot. He got a solid bite and hooked a fish that gave big
head nods. We thought it was another potato bass but when it finally showed
itself, we were pleasantly surprised. It was a nice GT of 103cm which we tagged
and released.
After catching a great fish in
the short morning session, we decided to head back to port.
