I spent a long weekend at my place in the transkei for the long weekend last week with my parents and my wife and kids. I took the thursday off to maximize the weekend. The weather forecast was not great with strong NE forecast for the whole weekend, with just a small window to fish until mid day friday.
The trip down was typical transkei driving. The 10 car overtaking manouvres on blind rises etc. I think every 3rd animal in the transkei decided to stand int he road infront of me, or tried to run in front of me, but we gott there safely.
Ther west was blowing pretty hard and the swell was pretty sizeable, but it was forecast to drop off over night.
As I drove over the hill there was a suspicious looking vessel (trawler looking) sitting what I would guess was 4km out on the same line as our shallow copper reefs. My dad also saw it a n hr later in the same place, and when I walked along the beach in the eve it was still in the same area. A vessel that looked pretty similar was seen by my brother moving up the coast about 2 weeks ago in shallow water. Maybe we have been protecting the coppers so these guys can get decent catches of them.
Friday am we launched at 6am to a pretty decent looking sea. swell was down. thewre was a beautiful colour line fromt he green dirty water to a very nice deep purple about 700m off shore. We trolled between this area for about 1.5hrs with no luck. I had at the last minute taken my gilly with me as it was jsut my dad and myself. Everywhere I went it was just bait balls. Every drop witht he yo-zuri was a full string of mackrel and redeyes. We got a good few strings of these, but Gregs mates were aboput in force. They were picking off the baitfish right under the boat from 1 to whole strings at a time. We could see them smashing bait ont he surface all over the place. A few tuna were seen busting but no takes on the raps.
Bottom fishing was very slow, and the fishfiners were not showing any fish, just the bait balls. I Went out to about 60m and picked up 2 dagarad and 2 soldiers. The fish were just not biting properly. A few decwent bits but would not take you down. The east wind had picked up and this along with the current meant we were drifting way too fast. The gilly lost a very nice fish on 20lb braid as he thought he could hold it. Next time I will make sure I take him an 80lb KP.
We trolled back with no luck and had another drop off the launch but the wind was howling so we decided to head in. I put the raps in to troll the 1km home into the green water. It was about 1min away from lines up with the tld30 went away. I took it and the fish gave a good run, then came back a tthe boat, ran then back at the boat. I had to get my dad to drive away from it. I got it next tot the boat and saw it was a vey nice tuna. It would not give a gaf shot at all, just did the tuna circles around the boat for about 5 min. My dad had 2 goes with the gaff, missing both times and leading to the fish charging off again. I was pretty worried about sharks as a lot have been eaten off lately and this one wass not bleeding from the miss gaffs. I eventually got it in and it was boated. A very nice 22.5kg yellowfin. The buiggest we have got in about 20yrs down there.
We didnt another circle int he area and had a full house with 2 coming off. My dad and I landed these 2 both around the 12kg mark. As I let out the raps again a small hammer climbed on to the rap, but luckily came off after a bit. Thats when i realized my tiagra was stuffed.
The birds were going bananas about 1km out so we went out there. There were some very big sharks amongst the bait ball and we had one strike with a small yellowfin that the gilly lost.
We headed in at 1pm.
The saturday afternoon I took the kids on the river with my dad. The wind was howling again, but up the river it was beautiful and sheltered. The tides were not ideal for the river with high tide around 9pm so the river was quite low at 4pm. It was pretty quiet trolling rapalas but My daughter managed to get a little kob and my son (3.5 yrs old) managed to get a small yellowtail kingfish, unassisted. Both were super chuffed with themselves, but I think dad and grandpa were more chuffed. Both were only too happy to let the fish go and understand that we dont keep fish we catch in the river.
All in all a grat weeknd with family swimming in the lagoon, a few decent fish, fresh prawns, a few crayfish and a pretty chilled weekend.
Bring on the long weekends after easter when i will spend a week there.
The rather angry sea on thursday from my bedroom
Decent YFT
Isabellas kob
[size=78%] [/size]
