I met my US clients at Pongola, and then we headed to Lake Jozini for some Tiger fishing. It was a hot day of around 38 deg. C, the skies were clear and the NE wind was pumping. Water surface temperature averaged around 24 deg. C.
We launched at 10h30 and the guys wanted to be back at around 14h30. The water in the river section was chocolate brown and so it was decided to take the 20km ride to the Gorge to get cleaner water, the trip takes around 45 minutes, and I new this will shorten fishing time, but it was our best chance to get fish, the waves were up and it was a following swell and the best thing to do was get up on the plane and move at full speed. When we got to the Gorge the wind was sucking through there like a venturi, but the water was crystal clear and so we went far up into the Gorge and decided to make our way down with the wind tailing us. We started in a bay where I gave the guys instruction and then we started to fish. There was no take in the bays and we found fish at the points and so decided to only fish points as our time was limited. It was clear skies, and so I decided that fishing deeper with jig heads using the drop shot method was the way to go.
All the guys lost there first Tiger on the jump which is normal on your first hit because of people being used to striking up and not down into the water (essential for Tigers), and in the end we got about 6 strikes, and only landed 1 fish which was a super Tiger weighing in at exactly 3Kg (6.6lbs). The fish was landed and the fish kissing started, which is customary on my boat for first Tigers.
Our fishing time allowed was only 2.5hrs and then we had to head back and make the long trip to the launch site, which was going to be a bumpy ride as we had to head straight into the wind, again the best thing to do was get onto the plane and we made way at about 30 knots.
Whilst we were fishing in the Gorge one of the guy's lines went tight and the "fish" took about 100m of line, this "fish" caused us huge excitement for a few minutes until we observed that the line was wrapped around the sneaker prop and we were fighting the boat and not a fish. It was a good laugh and a nice false adrenalin rush.
