We left Durban harbour at around 07h30, and the seas were flat with water surface temperatures averaging 22 deg. C and there was a light wind blowing. We started out collecting live bait and there was plenty around and we had the live well filled up in a short space of time.
We then set a drift and put 2 live baits out on down riggers and fished another on the surface, one of the down rigged baits was a very large Mackerel that we had caught and it was not long before this reel went off. I immediately new it was a Shark by the slow intermittent run of the reel.
It was a big shark and it kept the guys busy for a long time whilst dragging the boat around and eventually the line parted, we never saw the Shark, but it was a big fella.
Whilst on the drift we observed a giant Manta Ray breaching twice and he was magnificent with a wide wing span.
We were hoping for a King Mackerel (Couta) but the shark had taken too much of our morning time and so we decided to set a spread of 6 lures and look for some Yellow Fin Tuna in the deeper waters, as we went deeper the water temperature rose to 23 deg. C. We saw a small Whale on the way out and at 140m depth we found a current and debris line and trolled along the side of this, when we were picked up by a pod of Dolphins over 100 strong who stayed with us swimming in our bow and wake for some time. I was hoping that after the Dolphin left we would pick up some Yellow Fin Tuna as often they swim behind the Dolphins but there were none.
Whilst we were trolling this line we hooked up a diver's flipper which really had us fooled and we thought it was a decent fish until we saw what it was, but it really put up a convincing fight. Then we hooked up something that really made the reel scream and after all the excitement it was a rally heavy dead weight and we then saw this dark shadow behind the line and for a while we feared it was a body that belonged to the flipper, thankfully it was a long length of netting.
When we tuned to go back into shallow waters on the shore side of the current line we started picking up Bonnies and they provided us with some good sport. In the ended we landed about a dozen of these and then eventually headed home.
