On Monday we deided to head to the 12 Mile Bank of Agulhas as a strong westerly wind was predicted for later that day and that would make for a difficult run back to the harbour from any other fishing spot. As we left the harbour we were greeted by a few playful dolphins that followed the boats for a short while.
On our arrival at the bank we spotted quite a bit of bird action, and with the clear blue water touching 20 degrees we put out some Halco lures and a few feathers hoping for yellowtail or some bonnies to come along. We trolled for about 15 minutes in the direction of the birds milling about, and the next minute the water around the boat was alive with colour as a school of Dorado and Yellowtail suddenly appeared all around us.
The sound of 3 reels screaming in unison was enough to make every angler jump up, and the rods were quickly passed on to the anglers. It was great to see the rods bending with the strain of fish fighting, and even better to quickly boat 3 awesome yellowtail. We dropped a jig in between the fish around the boat but there were no takers, and then had the lines back in the water again.
One of the reels started screaming almost immediately, this time with a nice dorado fighting hard to get away. The flashes of colour from this lovely and tasty fish as it was brought to the boat was amazing and with the fish jumping sideways out of the water reminded me why these fish are so sought after as gamefish. This was the first Dorado of the season and we are looking forward to another great run of fine gamefishing.
Unfortunately the fish disappeared and no matter what we tried we couldn't get any more so we decided to look for bottom fish at the deeper spots behind the bank. Anchor was made and some serious bottom fishing began. The 3 teenage girls and their dad in the front of the boat had a super time catching some steenbras and bloukoppe while the other anglers all got stuck into more red steenbras, santers and red stumpnose.
While fishing we were also treated to the sight of a minki whale mother and her calve nursing close by, the mom standing on her head with her tail up above the water while the young one filled himself with milk. The predicted strong wind unfortunately put an end to anymore fishing and we decided to head for home on a choppy sea. A bit wet but very happy we reached the harbour in Struisbaai after an hour and all the anglers proudly displayed their awesome catches to the holidaymakers.
