Fishing tales aboard Maximvs: 06 Mar 2016 - flat as a pancake!

[John F]

After a long time out of the "relaxed & no-rush" kind of fishing outing, we went out again this past weekend.

With the forecast for Sunday looking a lot better than Saturday's (although a strong easterly was predicted to blow early in the afternoon), we decided to rather have a "smooth short" day, instead of a "long bumpy" day. So Sunday was chosen. Water temp was 26.3-26.9o C and what a surprise: the strong easterly never came and we had the most pleasant day at sea. The water was VERY clean!

A few keywords summarize pretty well our plan: Light tackle; slow drifts; live and dead bait; spinning, trolling

We kept to our plan. At 04:30 we (myself, peterblace and Manuel Jr) met at the club. Preparations were completed the previous day, so it was a matter of launching the boat with the Cruiser and off we went. A small hick-up on the way out saw us checking the instruments and no power! A loose ground connection was sorted quickly and off we went with pancake flat seas to catch live bait at Baixo Ribeiro.

With the neap tide upon us, we expected to catch a few livies to add to our sards, jap mackies and half-beaks. After about 20 min with sabikis we had only 6 maasbanker and decided to shoot to our couta grounds.

We trolled rappies and drifted with dead and live baits. Also tried my luck deep dropping and got a nice rockcod.

At the end of the day the tally was 1 barracuda, 2 couta and 3 YFT, plus the rockcod. And a nice triggerfish!!!!!

All in all, a fantastic day out with very relaxed fishing and a nice sight of a baby black marlin at the surface. Almost went over it at 20 knots!!!!!

[REEFMAN]

Good fishing Marcos! 

[WalkersKiller]

Nice Marcos!

[jrahme]

looks great John
i luv looking at the fish pics. i'm trying to learn all the species.
please can u put names to them.
i think there is a couta , 2 mackerals and bonnies. not sure what the first 2 are?
please correct me.


shot John
 

[jrahme]

sorry i,m a donkey
i just read ur post properly and saw the list.
ignore my last post

[Shaun17]

Looks like a lekker day out Marcos... Shot for the report and 


Are those triggerfish any good to eat?

[John F]

Thanks chaps.... it was a very nice day out. Good laughs and nice weather. Some fish to top it off!

looks great John
i luv looking at the fish pics. i'm trying to learn all the species.
please can u put names to them.
i think there is a couta , 2 mackerals and bonnies. not sure what the first 2 are?
please correct me.


shot John
 

If you look at the pic, from left to right:

Bridle or masked triggerfish (Sufflamen fraenatus)
Duskfin rockcod (Cephalopholis nigripinnis)
Pickhandle barracuda (Sphyraena jello)
Couta (x2) (Scomberomorus commerson)
Yellofin tuna (x3) (Thunnus albacares)

Looks like a lekker day out Marcos... Shot for the report and 


Are those triggerfish any good to eat?

Triggers are EXCELLENT to eat. They make two awesome, white and firm fillets. You need to catch the bigger ones, otherwise it's not worth the trouble to extract the fillets. Check this thread http://www.ultimateangling.co.za/index.php?topic=13574.msg213871#msg213871

Also, I don't eat the pelagic ones (redfang triggerfish - Odonus niger). Being planktivores my gut feeling is they will be the first link to ciguatera... they look creepy too!

[jrahme]

Thanks John.
    i misjudged the size of the fish.

[John F]

Oops sorry...

The rockcod and couta were about 4 kg, the yft 3 kg and the barracuda was 2.5 kg... kinda small fish... but very tasty

[L Hooker]

Lekker Marcos thanks for the report congrats on the catches

[peterblace]

it was precious that marlin moment

when moving from fishing spots and cruizing at about 20knt I yelled....saily saily!!!!!!
(droopy captain didn't even notice the fin out of the water 15mt in front of the boat)

just when we were about to hit him, he just swam away from the boat....that's when we saw it was a small black marlin of about 20-30kg....tiny with all his flashy colors...beautiful!!!
I yelled again...stop...stop!!!!
(droopy captain didn't even bother to stop the boat)
we trowed some plugs and spoons to the area to try our luck but we were unlucky

nice outing

[John F]

The captain was looking for birds far in the horizon!!!! 

[jrahme]

ok ok ok John, i jacked myself up 


 

[Prego]

Nice day out guys, well done.
That rockcod mmmmmm nom nom nom

[REEFMAN]

i luv looking at the fish pics. i'm trying to learn all the species.

Joe, then check this board out... plenty fish pics and ID tips... http://www.ultimateangling.co.za/index.php?board=21.0

[jrahme]

Thanks Cuz
xx