On Saturday 21st September at 13:00, Johan de Jager (aka Patat), Angie and
I launched “Joy Toy” out of Richards Bay. The rugby was not really worth
watching so we decided try for a snoek or two. The boats had caught them in the
morning so we were hoping that they were still there.
As we left the harbour, we saw a lot of birds working off
the point of the south pier. We headed over to investigate and found a big shoal
of sprats that the birds were picking off the surface. We drifted there for a
few minutes and saw the water erupt as a Garrick smashed into the shoal. Despite
throwing a few lures at it the fish ignored our offerings so we headed north to
join the fleet that were seeing a few snoek jumping.
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| Patat with his first garrick of the season |
When we arrived, there was quite a few bait balls on the
surface. There were a few blacktip kingfish amongst them, but not many snoek.
Every now and again there would be a bit of a bust but so spread out and short
lived that it was almost not worth chasing them. This carried on for about an
hour. We could see that we were flogging a dead horse so I headed into the
backline to a patch of birds working a bait ball. I stopped next to it and the sounder
went solid red from the showing. Patat and Angie both threw spoons and went on
immediately. Each of them landed a nice side shad which went into the live
well. In the meantime I sent down a set of jigs and before the last one dipped
below the surface, I was on with a string of shad. The water around the boat
went black as a massive shoal of shad chased the sprats to the surface. At that
stage we were dipping the shad, hanging the lure over the side and lifting a
shad out, without using the reel, shot for shot. In minutes, the live well was
full of big shad. We caught and released about 50 shad before focussing out
attention back to snoek.
I suggested that we make the short run south of the
harbour and look if there was any action there, away from all the other boats.
Passing the point of the south pier, the water was a beautiful colour with a
rip formed by the incoming tide. I could not resist and stopped to pull a livie
just to see if there was anything there. The lively shad had just been put out when the reel went
away. Patat hooked up and fought a lovely Garrick to the boat. There was heavy
blood trail from its gills, so we loaded the fish.
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| Angie enjoying close range combat with a garrick |
We rerigged and made a few
more turns without any success so we pushed on south to look for snoek. We had
not seen any activity all the way to New Mouth so we gave it up as a bad call
and went shallow into the backline where we pulled for Garrick. Unfortunately, apart
from a small shark there was no action. After an hour we ran back to the pier
and shortly after setting the lines, we went on with a nice Garrick. Angie was
on the rod and fought the fish to the boat like a champ. I was reaching out to
grab the leader then the leader parted. On closer inspection, you could see that
the leader was nicked. Probably from the small shark that had eaten the bait earlier.
Oh well…
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| The skipper taking his time on the rod |
The conditions were text book perfect and as I trolled into the
area, the far line went away. This time Angie evened the score with her first Garrick
of the afternoon. I made a turn over the same spot and saw a mid water mark on
the sounder. No surprise when the surface line went away and I caught my first Garrick
of the day. We had drifted a fair distance so I trolled back to the point. As I
got there a Garrick chased a baitfish on the surface. Almost immediately we
went away and Patat hooked his second fish. While he was fighting, another rod
went off. Angie hooked up and we found ourselves fighting a double. After some
fun and games around the boat we managed to get both fish. One was a good one
of around 11kg.
There were obviously a few fish in the area so I put the
boat on the mark and stemmed the tide, holding the boat in one spot, giving the
baits more time in the zone. It didn’t take long for a pull but unfortunately
the fish spat the bait. Patat brought the bait in to check it and a Garrick chased
it to the boat but didn’t eat it. He rigged a new bait which was barely in the
water when it was eaten. After hooking up, Patat handed me the rod to fight the
fish. While I fought, the boat drifted along the rip. As luck would have it, we
had another bite but pulled the hook after a short run. My fish in the meantime
had me hanging over the side trying not to be cut off on the keel strips. The
fight ended in my favour.
There was not too much light left so I made one last pass on
the point. We had a half-hearted pull but were left with a squashed shad. With
that, we packed up and headed home. Our game plan didn’t go as expected, but it
turned out great in the end.
