Fishing report: Ponta do Ouro 19 to 24 Nov. 2012

[Styx]

    I just came back from a very enjoyable week long trip to  Ponta do Ouro.
 
Travel
Going over the mountain towards Jozini was bad, we had  lots of rain and there are a lot of stray cattle on the road. Crossing the dam  wall at Jozini and heading north was also a bit of a nightmare, the first 50km’s  or so is badly potholed and goats and cattle have right of way.
 
Between the border post and Ponta there is quite a few  branches in the road as drivers tend to try and stick to the more solid parts  of the terrain. Don’t worry, all roads eventually leads to Ponta. The whole  road is sandy with a lot of places with very deep sand and steep uphill  sections. I deflated my tires to 1.2 bar and with the diesel Auto Hilux in 4x4  low the drive was uneventful, make sure you have some momentum and keep going.  I was pretty amazed at the Hilux’s abilities as we were heavily loaded and towing  the boat which had 100 litres of fuel on board. The biggest problem on this  road is when 2 oncoming vehicles need to get past each other as most of the  road is narrow.
 
People and regulations
I found all the Mozambique officials I dealt with unhelpful  and unfriendly, they basically don’t care for you as they get paid by the state.  The locals on the other hand are very friendly and helpful, they clearly  understand the importance of tourism and how it affects their pockets. Make  sure all your documents are in order, I don’t believe in bribes so made doubly  sure that I had everything. I could not get a launch permit as my temporary  skippers ticket has expired and SAMSA has not issued my permanent one. I  understand it might take some time because they are getting as inefficient in  handling applications as the SAPS Firearm division is. After producing a crew  member’s skippers’ ticket I was allowed to launch. No safety gear was checked  and they accepted my CoF.
 
The town
No shops of any note, take all you need with you. Cooldrinks  and water are sold at the garage and petrol and diesel can be bought on a VISA  credit card. Cigarettes, beer and some vegetables can be bought at the market.  There is an ATM at BCI in Ponta. Maximum withdrawal was Met2000. There is a  severe shortage of change (rand and Met) so next time I will take a lot of R20  and R10 notes. Cellphones need international roaming activated. I did not see a  single beggar or car-guard for the whole week.
 
Accommodation
We stayed at Coco Rico Resort. Beautifull wooden houses,  all rooms with aircon and mosquito nets and the staff help you loading and  unloading your car. Cleaners come in everyday and nothing was stolen. There is  a swimming pool and reastaurant as well as 24 hour security. We never took our  gear off the boats and nothing went missing. They also have a good restaurant  and well stocked bar. As soon as you enter the town you get approached by  ghillies that want to work for you. Happy Dog (UA member Alexis) always uses  the same ghillie and offered me his number. I forgot Happy Dog’s number at home  but found a very good ghillie and will share his details gladly.
 
Launching and fishing.
I got varied advice regarding the launch. This is my  observation and opinion. The launch is not as easy as some had suggested, definitely  not so calm that you could reverse all the way in. But it’s also not that  difficult. The bay is huge and one can turn as often as you would like before  committing to a launch and then there is enough space to run away if you need  to. I found reading the sets challenging and went over a few waves that I’d  prefer not to have done. None of the launches was dangerous however and the  worst was getting a bit wet. The sandbanks were no problem this week. Some of  the dive-boats take a line more to the right in the direction of the rocks,  this proved to be the better option as the breakers were less there. Watch out  for surfers straying into the boat zone, on one occasion I had to go over a big  wave as I could not turn left as the buggers with the boards had snuck in. I  got some air and banged my knee hard. When I saw them I just turned head on  into the wave and tapped off the power and everything was fine. I thinkthat  a lot of the  boats that go over is caused by skippers using  too much power. At Shelley I got used to a short run to the backline, here it  was a long run which I did not enjoy much.
 
Wind speed averaged between 6 and 12 knots on all the  days we went out. Overcast and rainy weather was the order of the day. We went  fishing on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The weather was bad on the Wednesday  and Saturday.
 
As the conditions were dark we started trolling with dark  rappies and Halco’s. In the end the most successful sub-surface lure for the  week was a pink and white Halco. Of the konas the fish preferred purple and  black, blue and white as well as red and black.
 
Slow trolling and drifting with whole mackerel also  produced results. Between the 3 boats a striped marlin and sailfish were caught  on mackerel. Other catches were bonito, tuna and what was believed to be a  jobfish. I’m not sure it was a jobfish and will post the photo as soon as I get  it for a positive ID. No couta were caught. Time on the water was not enough to  try everything we wanted to. The jetski’s did badly but I believe that’s mostly  due to hangovers. The skipper of the boat that got the marlin estimated the  fish to be between 50 and 60 kgs and the fish was released. The sailie was  caught off my boat. A shark was circling so we chucked in a big circle on s/s  trace baited with a mackerel. The shark ignored the bait and we were shocked to  find the reel screaming and a sailie jumping. The trace cut the sailie badly  under its gills and damaged one eye. We did our best to revive it but in the  end we had to boat it. A newcomer to offshore fishing that was on the boat  could not believe we tried to release the fish, for him it just meant fish  fillets.
 
My fishfinder with new transducer worked well and we  could see shoals of baitfish and individual fish quite clearly.
 
We also cast poppers at jumping tuna but did not get any  takes. We saw no dolphins nor any whales but did see a huge turtle and a manta  on the surface that I swear was as big as my boat.
 
Live bait was easily caught of Doodles but we caught  nothing on the live mozzies. Between the other boats 3 big remoras were caught  on sardines while slow trolling. If I did not know the guys so well I would not  have believed it.
 
Water temperature reached up to 24.9deg. Trolling rigs  were Shimano TLD 25’s with 42lb line, a loop tied with a spider hitch (I’m  still not tying a bimini lekker) and cats paw to a 100lb wind-on leader and  then a fig.8 knot to a snap-on swivel. All connections and knots held. Every  time I go the coast I learn some more. Also got seasick for the first time in  my life, after chumming some R&R I was fine and enjoyed the rest of the  day. Quite a few of the guys chummed that day, we spent the previous night  drinking R&R at Fernando’s.
 
Photo 1. Me and ghilie. I believe fish on left to be  Kawakawa and one the right Skipjack tuna.
Photo 2. Crewmember (Corné) with I believe a Yellowfin  Tuna
Photo 3. Crew and relief skipper (Nelson) on the far  right with sailie.
 
Please correct me if I made a mistake with the fish ID’s.
 

[SAfish]

  Good one, Oelof. It is nice to see you guys got some good fish! 

[Prego]

Welcome back Oelof, and congrats on bending some rods and screaming reels.

Thanks for your report

[CLS]

Great report well done.

[super_daav]

Nice report Oelof! I returned on Saturday from Milli which is about 60km from the Kosi Bay Border. Interesting to read your report as I had very similiar experience!
 
We fished off fishing skis on Wednesday afternoon (arrived only in the monring), Thursday and Friday. Saturday was horrendous and with the big west coming that evening we all decided to leave 1 day early.
 
The Mozam border staff were average with not much excitement to them but no hassles. South African staff were pleasant again no hassles. So    for that part!
 
Drive up was easy on both sides and the road to Milli very easy but we did avoid the marsh road which did cause hassles for vehicles earlier in the week.
 
Fishing was pretty dismal in truth! Water was warm and crystal clear. colour was insane! We had Ne / SW / NE / Ne on the days we were there and it blew around 15 to 18 knts.
 
Very few couta (read 10 between 20 skis over 7 days) were caught and not 1 dorrie. The spearos also reported very few shoal couta around but some seriously sizeable zambies!!
 
Yellowfin were fairly abundant and bonnies too. A couple of kingfish came out on deeper marks with green jobfish plentyful!
 
1 chap also caught 3 remoras in 1 session which was first for me! Other noteworthy fish were: 1 sailie with 3 more being dropped.
 
And a punt for Halco sorcerer 120 red & white head:
1 chap decided late Friday last week to join the trip. He took only 1 rod, 2 lures being halco sorcerer 120s in red & white and hot pink. He was 2nd in the standings in number of fish caught during the week with every single fish caught on the red & white!!
 
He even pinned a jap mack to the back treble and that delivered 1 couta to him!
 
Just makes you think!

[super_daav]

In a combined 85 kms of paddling between my mate ("The Snoek Whisperer") and I we caught 1 YFT of 6kgs and 1 bonnie of 6kgs! Sore arms but still lekker fun.... Beats the office anyday!
 
We did have a sailie hit our spread of halcos as we paddling very close to each other but no hook up! He / she did some serious aerial moves around us which was awesome to see!

[Happy Dog]

Nice one Oelof good to see you made those launches after stressing and good to see some fish. Well done. That Fernandos and R&R are dangerous

[shagnrelease]

Great report and good results!! keep em coming sir!

[Capt. Hook]

Excellent report and well done on the 

[isivuba]

  Oelof  nice report.... an excellent  you caught

[jaenswart]

great report and well done on great catches

[MIKE PIKE]

   , great report Oelof and some nice catches despite the the weather conditions .. .

[dugong]

Lekka report, spot on with the fish ID! And we'll done with the sail!!

[yatoivo]

Very nice report Oelof and well done on the  . Just something i picked up in your tackle. If fishing is a bit slow up there next time, try using 25lb line and only up to 60lb leader without the snap on swiwel, just straight knot onto your trace. It does make a difference if you fish lighter.


Cheers
Pieter

[John F]

Thanks for the report! Glad you had a good time!

Congrats on the

[Kumz]

Great Report .. Super cathces ... Thanks ...

[Fishaholic]

Great report, thanks. Congrats on the saily!

[lebaka]

somehow missed your report and a very good one it is 

[L Hooker]

I also missed this report somehow? Thanks for a great report i'm going to Ponta in April again yeehaaa