Heritage Day

On Thursday 24^th September 2020, Heritage day holiday, Patat and I launched “ABF” off Richards Bay. The forecast was for the NE to pick up to 30 knots by the afternoon, so we only had a small weather gap.

On the way out the harbour mouth, we found a few maasbanker and quickly caught a well full, just for a plan B if we didn’t come right with our game plan of pulling a few wirelines for snoek. I ran up north for a few kilometers then put out 2 wire lines with drones and a small feather on the surface, way out the back to prevent tangles.

Trolling wireline

The water was an off green colour with a few dirty patches. From experience, we know that the snoek tend to hang around the edges of these patches and it’s a good place to start your search. The lines were out for about half an hour when we managed out first snoek. It was a really small one and reminded me of those that we catch in the bay at the beginning of the year. Lines went back in and soon the feather went on. Patat brought the fish to the boat where is started giving him a good run around. Finally it came to the surface where we saw that it was a big striped bonito (Sarda Orientalis), not a fish that we get every day, but its meat is similar to a dogtooth tuna so I like to eat them. I made a lazy turn over the same spot and the small drone went away with another sarda.

Patat with a Heritage Day snoeklet

The wind shifted to the North East and things went quiet. I worked my way North without any luck. The water colour wasn’t great so we turned back towards the area that we had pulls earlier the day. I had just trolled over a small ridge when the bigger drone went on. There was some weight to the fish and Patat managed to lift a nice snoek into the boat. We were hoping that there would be a few more so I made a u-turn over the same spot. The lines had just straightened when the same rod went on. This time it was another sarda. They were now becoming a bit of a menace. In the next hour, we caught several more sardas and a small salad fish. The wind had really picked up so we headed into the backline and pulled some livies through the rips but apart from a few sharks, it was quiet. At noon, we called it a day and headed home to celebrate Heritage Day  with a braai.