As usual Maximvs was the first boat in the water at 4:35am and we slowly made our way to Maritimo waiting for the green light.
Team Maximvs had Manuel Jr out (traveling to Nelspruit), and the 3 of us kept with the plan of getting into the action, catch fish and then think about bills.
Water temp was always above 25 degrees and even reached 26 in the afternoon (peterblace you need to calibrate your unit!) and the wind behaved as predicted: slight SSE breeze in the morning and a 8-9 knot E on our way back. Sky was clouded the entire day, with little drizzling here and there.
At 5:30am the "go" order was given over the radio and we made our way to Baixo Ribeiro at about 18 knots to make some bait. Got there, and not a SINGLE scad, mozies or other little fish! Oh well, rappies would have to do it...
We got to the spot and rappies did it all right! We had lot's of fun on 20/30 lb tackle with multiple strikes! Couta all over.
By mid morning, we had our share for the pot and decided to move to deeper waters to try for dorries, tuna and maybe a bill.
As we approached the poco area our 4 rappies and small feathers were simultaneously hit by football sized (2-3 kg) YFT! Yeeha... Live bait! By this time, one of my crew was getting seriously green. And I mean seriously
! I've never seen anything like that.
Anyway, the 4 YFT were brought in. Two went into the tubes and the other pair got a pair of 20/0 circles and were tossed back in the water... waiting for their moment of glory. We were on the +70 m mark and slowly (~3 knots) made our way out to the 250 m line looking for a black marlin... 3.5 h later those 2 baits were as frisky and succulent as before. Not a single bite! Not even a shark!
By that time my crewman was really changing color and becoming white... and shivering profusely!
I was getting worried. Looked like the bills wanted nothing to do with us, we had our fair share for the pot and my friend was really sick. Time to go back. We pulled the baits in, got a half beak with a bird and a strip bait with a bird on the 'riggers, a nice smoking kona with a bird in the shot gun and two large konas in the short positions. Speeded up a bit and moved towards Inhaca. A few minutes later in the 75 m mark we had a nice queen dorado hit the strip bait. Reeled her in and decided to head straight to the island. Time: 2 pm.
45 min after chilling in the island, we headed home. He recovered his color and was felling much better.
While the bills didn't pitch, we had a blast with the couta and a great day out with fresh fish for the family to enjoy!
Final tally was 9 couta, 4 YFT (small but properly bled) and 1 dorrie.
