We got up at 04h00 and were already on the water before 05h00 there was a stiff SW wind blowing and the water surface temperature was averaging 31 deg. C,. Within a few minutes we had a hook up with a large Sea Pike (Pick Handle Barracuda) which gave us a good fight, we then carried on to a drop off which I had identified as a good spot for GT's (Giant Trevally King Fish, Jacks) and before long we had a double hook up with 2 GT's, the one fish was huge and striped us over 300m and we had recovered him to around 200m when the line went slack and we lost him.
I am very annoyed about this as this was a brand new Rapala X-Rap still with original hooks and the wire at the back of the Rapala had broken out. I find this unacceptable and when you spend all that money on a trip you do not expect what is supposed to be the top branded lure in the world to fail on you, if the hook had bent open I would be OK with that, but not complete failure of the lure. IMO Rapala not only owes us a new lure, but also a GT. I am a big Rapala fan, and am interested in how they are going to deal with this as I cannot accept this.
After a gruelling 20 minute fight we landed the other GT that we had hooked up and he was a superb specimen who also ran well over 200m and gave us a good few runs, this was our prize fish for the trip and we had now caught all 3 of our target species.
We fished for a little while longer and managed to land another large Sea Pike which gave us a good fight and a great end to a morning session, we got back to the launch site at around 09h30 and headed back to Kosi Cabins to relax, and have a braai for lunch before our afternoon session which was to start at 15h00. All our fish were safely released.
We launched again at 15h00 and the SW wind was blowing at a near gale which picked up some nice waves on lake 3, and we headed through the channel to lake 2 which was a little calmer, the barometric pressure was low and falling and we found no feeding fish there and came back to lake 3. Only after it got dark did we get our 1st strike and our only fish for this session which was a decent size Sea Pike and he was extremely aggressive and fought hard, and when on deck was snapping at us. After an entertaining photo session with a flapping snapping toothy fish we released him and got back to the launch site at around 20h00.
