Firstly Happy new year to you all, secondly excuse the English!
Early in March 2014 my father in law asked us to go on holiday with them in December but that we could decide the destination. Well seeing as I bought the boat the previous August (2013) it was a no brainer to go down to the coast but where? Rumours came through that Renamo’s Shooting everything in Mozambique and that the whole country was either being Shot, robbed, tortured or that was how it sounded if you listened to the piss poor second hand story and sensationalist news articles floating around SA
. Rumours of police stopping every possible tourist and using them as mobile atm machines are still full up if you go do a bit of "research" on Facebook with guys being stopped and fined for every possible thing under the sun. So it was quite a fast and easy choice to make, we are going to Morrungulo north of Maxixe! Father in law was informed of our choice and Mother in law started researching all the news stories from "reliable" family members who got stuff stolen from there camp site in Ponta do Ouro ("it's apparently close to where we are going" or thats what there family said
) but they trusted me as I laughed off all the stories and confirming with a couple of mates of mine working in and around Moz.
Now the problem is skoonpa is not a fisherman and making it clear to me that he will only launch with me once or MAYBE a second time (remember this part) and my wife getting sea sick just from watching ASFN, Freespool and Inside angling I knew I was in a world of pain with regards to crew. Luckily my dad confirmed that he'll be going along come hell or high water and he'll not miss the first time that Ship Shape wets her deck with salt water. So the holiday was set in stone, in laws with sister in law in tow and my dad with my sister in tow. Rest of the planning was easy, get there, eat, drink litres of
and get back.
The trip started with a small problem the night of the 16th of Dec, I tested the boat on the 14th and all lights work on the trailer, come the night of the 16th fully packed and ready to go and the lights went haywire! Struggled for 2 hours to try and find the problem and as a last resort decided, at 22h00, to put a new plug wire from the front to the back and problem solved! Went to bed at 23h30 and left the house for our first leg to Casa Lisa at 02h00.
Arrived at Oshoek after a couple of stops, I was knackered, at 06h50 went into Swaziland and reached Naamacha, that is where the fun started. The Swazi chief cook and bottle washer of the gate into Moz wanted to check all the papers and I mean ALL the papers, which is his job and is expected of him, so we handed him reg papers, Insurance and bank papers for the bakkie and he checked every last detail then he checked the bakkie against the papers, the vin in the door, on the license disk, front number plate, rear number plate and finally moved on to the boat for the whole process to repeat itself. After 20 minutes of this he walks back to me and promptly replies that he'll be back he needs to go and recheck everything in his office and verify it on his computer. Now this is not my first rodeo and I've driven across many a borders in my life so I relaxed and started cleaning my bakkie with a cloth repeatedly after another 20 mins and nobody exiting the swazi border as the boat took up to much space he came back and we entered Moz. Be vigilant on the Moz side, the runners are a pain in your arse and they will try everything to get money out of you. We simply ignored them and went our merry way but they kept hassling us and threatened to call the chief because paper A was not signed by person B and jail time was the next step if you didn't pay them X for signature Y.
Moz was a breeze driving through, I was stopped once just outside Naamacha and after a friendly smile and drive safely was never stopped again for the whole trip
and by breeze I meant police wise and not traffic wise! Man there was a lot of trucks, busses and my favourite taxi's on the road
! Arrived at Casa Lisa just after 14h00 and man it is still a nice place to stay over at! After what happened there in 2013 the place has taken a real financial knock and they are battling but at least it looks like things are on the up again there and with the new detour around Maputo it will be the perfect halfway stop again.
Long story short the next day we arrived in Morrungulo at 16h00 after leaving Casa Lisa at 08h00 and pitched camp. Weather was perfect with a light NW blowing to cool things down a bit and a cold
to settle the nerves and our holiday started. Now for the blow by blow account of the next couple of days
19/12
Sorted the boat out, rigged the rods and reels and started getting a game plan ready, checked a couple of boats launching and got the line right the good news is there is still no surf at Morrungulo! One or two small waves and you’re in back line.
20/12
First launch for Ship Shape and got to know the little Ace a bit. Went to New Year’s reef which is the closes to the launch so that we can see how the boat handles and how we handed it. Skoonpa is greenhorn greener then loftus A field in the summer so it was a bit of a struggle at first to get him to keep the balance and to do a couple of stuff on the boat. He also learned the lesson of "staan vas" when beaching and quickly learned the white knuckle death grip as the sand there is very fine and it stops a boat dead in its tracks.
Water was "cold" and green with the fishfinder showing 24-25 degrees and a lot of jellyfish all over the show.
21/12
Went to Sylvia's for the first time and started looking for the reef, about 600m before the reef we had our first reel screaming and it resulted in my first fish on the boat, a nice little 6kg yellowfin tuna which turned into the best sashimi and sheared tuna steaks you can imagine, GP social style. Not long after that skoonpa got his first ever gamefish on the ocean, a little 3 kg rat of a couta with my dad (Blink Stefaans) getting a nice 7kg couta to round off a good day. The water was still green but warmed up a bit to 25.5-26 degrees with a lot less jellyfish on Sylvia then New years.
22/12
Took my wife on the boat for her first time in the deep blue and what a pearler! There was almost no waves and I'm sure you could water ski behind the boat it was so calm. Water was almost 27 degrees and warmed up to about 27,5 before we beached. Chaos is all I can say for the day because as we finished sorting out our spread of x raps all hell broke loose as we got a full house! Now remember this is my first holiday as a Skipper, skoonpa's 3rd ever day on the ocean and my wife's first. Absalute chaos, my dad quickly fought his fish to the boat, wife and skoonpa's fish crossing each other the whole time and me stuck behind the wheel trying to verbally (and calmly) sort out the tangle and trying to get them to keep the lines tight as well. The 4th rod gets pasted to me and I make quick work of the rat but now there is already a X-rap stuck to my hat after my wife decided that it was a good idea to work the lure, swinging loosely through all the heads to the front of the boat where it came to a standstill in my hat. So I threw my hat overboard so that the hooks can get away from everybody and my Dad see's my hat overboard and grabs it just to get the one trebble stuck in his hand. Luckily it wasn't in to deep and he could pull it out without the rest of us even seeing a tear. 3 fish boated and wife's fish lost. Later got another full house but only landed 2 with one being the wife's first fish in the deep.Started to slow troll a couple of sards and rounded out our telly with a total of 6 rats for the day. Not a bad 4 hours of fishing but not the sizes we were looking for.
23/12
Rest day, forgot how much work it was to be out in the deep so we took a well deserved family break. SW winds started to blow and the sea turned choppy, it sticked with us for the rest of the holiday or that is how it felt for me.
24/12
The sea was a bit choppy but in south coast terms it was a normal day to be out there. Started of like we did the previous days with X raps, the 3x15's(gold&pearl, White with orange stripe, green&blue uv) and one pink UV 20, 10 min into our fishing day and the first reel screams off. As I take the rod it felt like another rat and I started to man handle the fish to the boat but before I could reel in 2m of line the water explodes with a
tail walking starboards side, before I could even tell my dad, calmly again,to up the speed to take up the slack the sailie was gone. At least on the second rod that nobody heard was a small kakaap safely released. About an hour later the pink UV screamed away and it was skoonpa's turn to fight a fish, 15 min later and some seriously tired hands and arms we landed a
, It weighed 12 kg's but looked bigger than that to me. The fish was lifted out of the water for a smile and wave to the Gopro and safely released to fight another day, later that I day realized that the Gopro for some reason was fogged up so you can’t see to much . Skoonpa was a bruised and battered happy man, oh ja we forgot all our buckets in PTA so all fish was fought without buckets which is not recommended AT ALL
!! Fishing slowed down to a stand still and out came the sards and a whole chokka down rigged for hopefully another GT, slow trolled back to the start of Sylvia's and as we crossed the reef in 8 meters of water the chokka ran. After 10 min and me being certain that we hooked the reef a fish started to appear 3m below the boat. It was a monster estimated at 35kg-40kg, it looked like a Patato Bass but the colouring was a bit off so I thought it might be a Malabar Rockcod (it was/is a Patato) but never the less the fish was down rigged and safely released for the diver to take pictures of. Side note, the fish was not boated, nor injured, nor filleted but was caught in 8m of water and safely released by means of down rigging it with ALL of the sinkers I had on the boat and a reversed hook with the barb flattened and 0.8mm leader line tied to the bottom of the hook. After that I boated a 3-4kg bonnie that was a bit of an anti-climax. We beached the day with a lot of fish caught but nothing to show but a couple of grins. Oh and also broke of my left skeg while beaching at low tide and denting my brand new prop a bit, luckily no other damage and we can fish for the rest of the holiday skegless. It broke on an old crack that was welded up so it was the weakest point.
25/12
Family day, slept late(06h00), drank
and watched as a strongish South wester turn the sea on its head. Plus we had a lekker Potjie!
26/12
Potholes, potholes and more potholes! Steering was a bit harder work with the one skeg missing but it was manageable so we went out to the deep, only problem was when you applied power the boat would veer off to the right as if the trim tabs where way of! 3 yellow spot kingies later all safely released and we beached after 4 hours of being slapped all over the place. Temp was still at 26.5-27.2 degrees but the water was dirty with plenty of jellyfish all over Sylvia’s. Other boats went to the deep reefs but the current was way to strong and they came back empty handed.
27/12
A bit less potholes but still a bit choppy, visibility was still very poor, SW was still there and the bloody jellyfish was still all over the reef! The only clean water I found was 100m-200m out offshore of the reef, with 2 lines out and me still tuning the other 2 halco crazy deeps the first rod went and I boated another rat in the 4kg range and then nothing for the rest of the day! Drifted and slow trolled sards, pulled X-raps and after 4 hours beached.
28/12
SW was blowing again but as it was our last day we launched. The rip at the launch was hectic, we watched the first boat launch and by the time the crew got on the boat they've drifted 200m north of the launch. We launched and beached all within 1 hour, conditions where fishable with a strongish SW that started to get a bit stronger but we decided not to screw up a good holiday with one bad day at sea and thus sat, drank
and shared fishing stories of days gone by with the rest of the guys at camp.
29/12
The packing day or better known as the day the rain will start to poor down on you!
30/12
Left Morrungulo at 06h30 after dumping the tents on the back of the boat and reached Casa Lisa at 15h00
31/12
Left Casa Lisa at 05h00 and Maputo still was a dogs breakfest even at 05h40, got through and stopped at Komati around 07h40 and home by 14h00.
Skoonpa who only wanted to launch once, MAYBE twice with me ended up fishing 6 of the 7 days with me and I wound go as far as to say that he'll do it again in a heartbeat. Morrungulo is a great place with an easy launch but maybe December is not the right time, it was the second year that we battled to get fish, some days were good but if you take the average fish landed in the camp by the different boats it was a poor fishing December. The spear fishermen battled to get fish and we often out fished them, visibility was bad throughout the whole holiday that we were there. The current on the deep reef was apparently running at 7-9km/h so we never even went as far and the guys that braved the current came back with nothing a couple of days. Before we got there the one guy caught a nice couta there apparently in the 15-17kg range. There was also a lot of bait out there with you not being too far from a bait ball at any stage of the day, some time we counted 3 to 4 around us scattered from 100m - 1km from each other with literally 1000's of flying fish around all the reefs we worked but working the bait balls brought us nothing more than a couple of bonnies and rigging 2 bonnies got us nothing, the cuta's would come past the bonnies and grab the sards.
There was fish around but they had locked jaw, a couple of friends went diving on my honey hole and reported back of schools of 20-40 GT’s all in the 10-20kg range with schools of rat couta thrown in between. Yellow spot and black tip kingies was also full up in places. I got 2 chases on a halco skim stick but unfortunately I injured my right shoulder 2 weeks before the holiday so I was really battling to keep up the pace and could only do a couple of casts before being forced to put it away.
All in all a great holiday and we all came back well rested
Hope I didn't bore you too much with this novel I wrote but I can't get it shorter.
Cheers
