I stood at the slipway at Durban Marina waiting for my guest to arrive when I saw a lovely Kingfish of around 5Kg swimming around the moorings. For some reason my guest and I missed each other and we where actually standing right by each other – Go figure, but mobile phones saved the day.
We left Durban Harbour at around 06h15 headed South and proceeded to collect live bait, and after all the bountiful mackerel catches we have been getting the past few weeks, today was disappointing and we only got 1 mackerel, but plenty Shad and Red Eye Sardines, whist fishing for live bait we had a whale come within 10m of the boat and he hung around for a long time. First I swam some live baits looking for Tuna without success and then there was a huge splash and moments later on of the reels screamed and shortly after that a Gannet popped out the water and he was hooked. I slowly wound him back to the boat and my guest distracted him with the back of the gaff whilst I grabbed him by the neck and pulled him on board. (I am getting good at this now and did not get a nip today) I then gently and slowly removed the hook and then tended his wound for him. This was a young Gannet and not as aggressive as the older ones and he was is superb condition his plumage was immaculate, these are large and beautiful birds with awesome colours and markings around the head and the bluest of blue eyes which watched every move I made with great intent until I eventually released him where he swam away and still hung around the boat.
I then went to look for some Queen Mackerel (Natal Snoek) and this was frustrating as near the "Fence" I could see them but the surf was too big and I decided not to target them.
We then ran some trolling lures and we headed further South into deep waters and then we saw 2 of the rods banging around, 1st one, then the other and so it continued for quite some time before one of the reels eventually screamed and we landed the biggest Garfish I have ever seen off Durban (Mozambique size). He was released.
I carried on trolling over many of my Geelbek marks, but there were no showings of any fish and so we carried on trolling.
In the morning there was a light NW breeze, but as the day progressed this picked up to a strong NE wind and the sea got very choppy and so I turned and started heading North, at around 110m depth we came across a huge Black Marlin of over 200Kg (est.)
Whilst trolling we picked up a dozen or so Eastern Little Tuna between 0.5-1.5Kg with a few double hook ups and one quadruple hook up where the guest had a whale of a time fighting 4 fish in a row. These fish put up such a gallant fight for their size. The wind got too much and we ended up with a huge tangle of all the lines. Whilst untangling we got another Eastern Little Tuna who hit one of the lures whilst I was bring it back by hand.
After that I put a Geelbek trace down with some live bait, but something kept on biting our baits in half, I also had a live Eastern Little Tuna out on a drifted trap-stick which eventually got the attention of a large Hammer Head Shark which eventually bit through our trace which had no steel.
It seemed as if the Whale we saw in the morning was following us as he came close to us several times even when trolling, it could have been more than one, but I think it was the same one, it is rather strange as we had him near the backline and out at 120m depth. We also had a large pod of Dolphins come around the boat for a while.
