I went out on Wednesday and the weather forecast got it completely wrong, it said the wind would die down by 08h00 which it did, but it also said the weather would improve from there which it did not. When we saw that the wind died down exactly on time with the forecast we made our way out to the deep, and as we were setting the spread a South West wind of at least 30 knots came through along with a heavy rain, and so we packed up and make our way home in the snot getting back at 10h30 and what really made me mad was that by 11h00 all was clear. The weatherman is a liar.
Today we launched at 05h00 and it was really nice, the water surface temps have dropped with this last front and are now just under 23 deg. C. There was a light E wind which progressively got stronger as the day progressed and eventually turned to a stiff NE. We shot out to the deep and set a spread and made our way right out to 350m in front of Umdloti and I was going to make a straight South run to the 600m area by the canyon when the wind picked up quite a bit and so I changed tactics and headed South East back towards Durban instead. The South North current was screaming and as the wind picked up the sea went ugly, it was not nasty but the swells out there were over 4m and were rolling from the West, put a NE wind and a screaming South North Current into this mixture and you get a very lumpy sea which make the boat roll.
The day was very uneventful and eventually I was just silent and made my way to some old faithful marks where after 7hrs of nothing we got lucky and landed a large Queen Dorado (Mahi Mahi) which gave a really hard fight and used that screaming current to her advantage.
After she was landed we started setting out the spread again and as I was feeding my lure out I felt a knock, the boat was engaged in idle and so was making way very slow. When I felt the knock I lifted the rod but there was nothing and so I free spooled and feed out the line as fast as I can and then I saw it was being taken and so I lifted the rod again and there was nothing, this time I just free spooled the line and let it run and eventually it was getting taken of the reel way faster that the boat was going, I just braked it a little with my finger and waited for a real solid put and then I locked the drag and set the hook.
This turned out to be a Bull Dorado a little smaller that the Queen we had just landed and he did not give as hard a fight as the Queen did, well actually he did but in a different way. I think he was angry with me for hooking his Queen and as I brought him onto the boat he came off the gaff and went wild and took his revenge out on me giving me a few solid whacks with his wide tail on my inner thigh which glowed red afterwards and stung like crazy, it was so red and sore I think it would have glowed in the dark.
And so we landed a pair Bull and Queen and for a moment I got soft and felt sorry for them. There was no more action after that and the sea was getting nasty and so we went home.
