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General Angling Topics => Rock and Surf Fishing Reports => Topic started by: ianf on August 09, 2016, 08:19:29 PM
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Leaving on Thursday for another (yes, another) week at Hole in the Wall, this time with my wife Carol, and friends John and Sonja. Will be taking the scenic route via the Free state and planning to overnight in Rhodes, and then on Friday down Naude's neck pass (the second highest public road in the country). I am the only fisherman in the group, but the others have all bought a license, and I have my trustee gillie, Dumpie, to help out with the newbies. Fortunately I have enough tackle for all. Heard via the grapevine that the yellowtail were biting (about a week back). Hoping for lots of :fshn:, but realise this is not a fishing trip only for me, but also a holiday for the others, so fishing time will be somewhat curtailed. I am hoping to leave the laptop at home, which means I will be offline for till I return to work on the 21st August. Will update once I am back.
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:envy have a :fshn: :fshn: :beer: :beer: time , drive safely . :toppie:
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Have a great time Ian! :tite
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Enjoy Ian :envy :tite hope the fish treat you well!
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Enjoy Ian. :fshn: tight lines!
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:fshn: :shd: :blktl: :gt: Stywe lyne !!!
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Eish, me, I am jealous........ swr
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We are back. Will post pics and explain all once I have worked my way through the 360 emails in my inbox! It was a great adventure, and certainly not disappointing from a fishing view point!
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Looking forward to it Ian!
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OK, here goes. We managed to get the cottage at Hole in the Wall for a week, and Carol, my wife managed to get off work for a week and a bit, as her boss was off to CT. And both of these came together at the right time. Yee ha! We decided instead of rushing down to Hole in the Wall, as we usually do, we would take a slow cruise (in the Cruiser), and we left on the Thursday morning, heading down the N1 towards Bloem. We took the Koppies turnoff, heading for Edenville (never heard of it before either). Suddenly the tar became dirt, but we were in the Cruiser....no problem. Then Steynsrus, Senekal, Marquard, Clocolan, Ladybrand, Wepenaar, Zastron, Sterkspruit, Lady Grey and Barkley East where we spent the night. Next morning, bright and early, off to Rhodes, and finally do the Naudes Nek pass (it was magnificent.....lots of snow), a looooong sand road to Maclear, Ugie, Mthatha and then Hole in the Wall. I was there just 2 months back, but it sure felt good to be back!!
I am going to do all the pics at the end ..... not too sure how to imbed them.
I told my gillie, Dumpie 05:30 for Saturday morning. He said 06:00. I said NO, 05:30. SO we got to The Queen about 05:35. Sea was looking good.......like there were lots of big hungry fish just waiting for my bait to land. The fact that there were not many locals fishing did not cross my mind at this stage. I just thought we had beaten them to the draw. The early bird catches the worm (know what I mean). In hindsight, this was not a good sign. If the fish are biting, there will be lots of locals. Baited up and threw in.........nothing! Dumpie managed 3 shad, and between us some little bait stealers. Well at least we had fish for breakfast. Fished again that afternoon.......nothing. Not a great start. My mate John and his wife Sonja arrived at 18:30
Next morning (Sunday) we compromised on 05:45. My mate John, not a regular fisherman, was keen to get out there after all the stories I had told him about Hole in the Wall fishing. Once again, some bait stealers and undersized shad, but nothing you could take home with you. Starting to look bad. Sunday afternoon, nothing again
In the back of your mind, you have this nagging thought, that you are going to have to write a report, and tell all your regular fishing mates, that you caught nothing. This after 2 months ago, when the fish bit almost everything you threw at them. Not a nice back of the mind thought to have.
So by now, we have tried The Queen, Little Danger, Dumba Town, The Hole..................and nothing. Starting to doubt my abilities as a fisherman.
Monday 05:45 ........ back to The Queen. This is the time the fish bite. This is where they bite. Nothing. Getting desperate. Considering driving back to the store at the tar road (about 20km of not so great sand road), to see if they have any other bait. Calm down Ian, they will eventually bite! Monday afternoon ............nothing. Locals aren't catching, visitors aren't catching.
Tuesday 05:45 back to The Queen. There has to be a fish out there somewhere!! Two locals, Dumpie, John and I. Not a great sign. Some guys from Durban fishing on Little Danger. They were not catching anything, and neither were any of us. Aaaaaaaaagh! Beginning to wonder if I was the JINX (we have this among some mates that I used to fish with, that if we weren't catching, then one of use was the JINX, and you never wanted to fish next to the JINX, else you would never catch anything)
Wednesday morning 05:45, back to The Queen. Second or third cast, just been baited up with a delicious looking sardine bait, 3-way swivel, 2/0 hook, and a nice 2 ounce sinker (home made), I flicked out my bait aiming for the gap between Big Danger and Little Danger. I have a great rock that I sit on (about 30 feet / 10 meters above the water). This allows me to fish, and when I need to be re-baited, I can turn around and with a little flick, land my bait at Dumpie's feet, and he will re-bait the hook, give my line a slight tug to let me know it's ready, and then I don't even have to stand up. (Let me take this opportunity to say that the Transkei Gillies have no equal. A good gillie is amazing. And Dumpie is good. He is my gillie of choice, and is the always available to the cottage we are staying in. And he is also en excellent fisherman! Anyway, I am getting side-tracked here.....cast in with Berkley Air Extreme 10 foot (nicely customised by Fishatic), and without a regular knock, to let me know there is some interest, I feel a nice pull, similar to when there was a big wave, and then a surge of water between Little and Big Danger. So I thought, that was a big surge! and it just kept surging, and then running, and I was ON! I could feel it was quite a decent size, so I gave it a good pull to make sure the hook was set, but not too much.....didn't want to break my line. Tightened the drag a bit and started winding, and then it took off like truck going down hill. Shouted for Dumpie. Did a bit of winding in when I could, loosened the drag a bit to let him run, and then handed my rod to Dumpie and said "Dumpie, I will see you at the pond". The pond is a small pond of much calmer water, where one can actually get down to water level, as opposed to The Queen, where you are 10 meters above the water, and between the two, is a mass of rocks and boulders you need climbing ropes to get over, that is if there is a gap big enough between the waves. I have seem Dumpie take numerous large fish over these rocks over the years I have been going to Hole in the Wall, without getting the line cut off, and he makes it look like child's play. Dumpie played it like a pro (that he is) and managed to work it around to the pond. It took me quite a while longer to negotiate the rocks. While climbing over 1 large boulder, I found a cell phone. Thinking it may be have fallen out of Dumpie's pocket, I picked it up and put it in my pocket. When Dumpie finally brought the fish around to a place where it could be taken out, he was fairly soaked, and he asked me "did you find my phone?" He had taken the time to take it out of his pocket, knowing he was probably going to get soaked. Well, Dumpie and I managed to catch a 93cm cob!! Some may questin my decision to hand the rod over to Dumpie, and I can understand that. Last year I saw a guy from Durban hook a +- 25kg Steenbrass, get it to the rocks, and then lose it because he refused to hand over his rod to a gillie to get it around the rocks and into the pond. I know my legs are not great on the rocks, and if I wanted to see that fish, getting Dumpie to get it around to the pond was the only option for me. And it did not end there....
So now we are STOKED!!! Bait up, cast in......nibblers / bait stealers! Bait cleaned off again. Dumpie was using my Assassin, which he passed to me, and I passed the Berkley to him to bait up again...........and onto a nice size shad on the Assassin! DUmpie said it was time to move to Little Danger, as the water there was looking good for bream, so we packed up headed to Little Danger. John and I were lagging a bit, and Dumpie was off like a bullet, and by the time we got there, he had already cast in (among the 4 Durban / JHB guys already fishing there). I baited John up, baited myself up, and we cast in. Next thing I see, Dumpie is ON, and it's big. He fought it for about 30 mins (that's what it felt like, anyway), and popped out a beaut of a grunter (85cm). We took enough for breakfast (and for Thursday and Friday breakfast, and gave the rest to Neliswe (the cottage maid), and to Dumpie. Very STOKED!!!
Wednesday afternoon.....took a break. Still pumped.
Thursday morning 05:45 back to The Queen. Going to catch me another huge cob........nothing. Slightly less stoked. Thursday afternoon......nothing. Even less stoked
John and Sonja left early Friday morning, and Dumpie and I were on The Queen by just after 06:00.......nothing. It's just Dumpie, I, and 3 locals. In the middle of the nothing, Dumpie gets a phone call. Winds in like crazy, says he has to go. Off he shoots around the side of The Queen, where his mate has hooked into a cob, on a small rod, with light line, and no leader. Between them, with Dumpie doing lots on coaching / encouraging, they managed to get about a 6kg cob into the pond, and get it out. Dumpie immediately baieted up for cob and headed around the corner to what we call the "cob hole". You sit about 20 to 30 meters above the water and fish into this hole when the water is nice and brown. BANG, and Dumpie is on. To watch these guys dancing over the rocks (and there are no 2 level rocks on The Queen) is a sight to behold. Jumping over wet rocks, dodging waves......just amazing. He landed another +- 6 kg cob.
We did not fish Friday afternoon. The water was crystal clear, and I know from experience that very little to nothing bites if the water is that clear. So I packed up, cleaned the rods and reels, and started getting ready for the long ride home the next day.
Set off at.......05:45.... for JHB, this time going via Kokstad, Underberg, Howick, and back up the N3.
The Cruiser drank petrol (but we knew it would), but other than that, it was magnificent.
A frustrating trip in some ways, awesome in others. We never got to weigh the cob and the grunter....such is life.
Until next time.......................
Photos to follow in due course.
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Snow on the mountains as we head up towards Rhodes
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Strangely it was quite warm up there!
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Sunrise from The Queen. My favourite place to watch the sun coming up!
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How fishable does that water look??
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Almost the perfect shot of the Hole in the Wall......
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The cob and the grunter
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Dumpie's catch from Friday morning
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Whales just off The Queen, on our last afternoon there.
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:cgrts: :win: :tkx: great report , you must have had a ball. :toppie: :+ cred:
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(clap) awesome stuff Ian , great report , great catches and :clfoto: .
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Lovely stuff Iano! (clap)
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Nice Report! I think your Grunter is in fact a White Steenbras unless you call it a grunter for pig nose grunter.....looks like a proper fish!
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Nice Report! I think your Grunter is in fact a White Steenbras unless you call it a grunter for pig nose grunter.....looks like a proper fish!
:corrct:
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Nice trip Ian, always have considered taking the back roads when traveling but normally in too much of a rush to get fishing :blush:
As for handing the rod to your gillie, I suspect that a lot more rods have been handed over than make it into the reports :hehe:
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Awesome report Ian, great stuff!
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Thanks for sharing, great report !!
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Great report and responsible fishing! (clap)
Thanks for putting it together.
As for imbeding pics into the text... check here
http://www.ultimateangling.co.za/index.php?topic=823.0 (http://www.ultimateangling.co.za/index.php?topic=823.0)
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Thanks for a great report :+ cred:
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Great report Ian. Well done. :+ cred:
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great report. thanks for sharing (clap)
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Great report Ian. Congrats on the fish. Those photos are great.