Beasterly Easterly

On Sunday 8^th November, my Dad and I launched “Selfish” out of Richards Bay. After the exceptionally strong winds that we experienced during the past week, we were pretty sure the water would be cold and unsettled. The plan for the day was to look for a bonito on light line. It didn’t sound like much of a challenge, but having tried it before, I knew it was quite challenging.

As usual, our first stop was on the pipeline to catch live bait. There was a strong reverse current but the water was relatively clean and 23 degrees. There was a lot of bait around and it did not take long to fill the live well. I had been requested to bring back a Rockcod for Tammy so just before leaving the pipe, I rigged up a dead maasbanker and sent it to the bottom. It didn’t take long to get a pull and brought up a nice catface rockcod that went straight into the ice.

With something for the pot, we headed to the ledge to look for a bonito. As we headed deeper, the water temp kept dropping. 14km later, the temp was 21 degrees. Not exactly ideal. On the positive side, there was little current and there was a good showing. I rigged up a 2kg outfit and pinned a maasbanker. I was busy letting it out when the reel took off in my hands. I fed the fish a bit and tightened up. The fish went on a bit of a run but nothing spectacular. I managed to lift it about half way before it made a second run to the surface. With the fish up on top, we chased after it and got some line back. A short while later, we had colour on a small tuna species. Only when it was on the leader did we see it was a striped bonito. Not what I had expected. We made another drift and sure enough went tight again. This time the fish gave a few head nods before the line parted under minimal pressure. Looking at the big showing on the sounder I guessed that another fish had swum into the line. On the next drift, I waited a while before getting a pull but finally went tight. This time the fish came straight to the surface and I could get a lot of line back. The leader was on the rod when the fish turned around and took off back down. I got a glimpse of the fish and it was also a striped bonito. 

Not long after, the fish was lifted into the boat. I wanted to take the opportunity to try catch one on 1kg line so rigged up a rod. As luck would have it, the showing had vanished so we moved around looking for them. After a while, a good showing came through so I put the bait out. It was only a few seconds before the bait was eaten and I was tight onto what felt like a nice fish. This fish made a few long runs and I could not gain an inch of line. After chasing it around the ocean for a while, it made another fast run but with quite a bit of line in the water, even with the reel in freespool, the line parted. I was pretty sure it was a bigger kawa kawa that had eaten the bait and not a smaller sarda. My Dad sounded around a bit more, and found another showing. Unfortunately at the same time, the wind changed to a direct easterly wind. It was like a switch going off and the fish stopped feeding. We made about 4 more drifts over the thick showing but could not get a pull.

This was enough for us to call it a day and head back home. The two fish weighed 2,8kg and 2,4kg respectively. Not spectacular, but still pretty challenging.