We launched out of Durban harbour at around 04h30. I wanted to find warm water and see if we could get our first Dorado for the season. I also wanted to use my new light tackle trolling rods for the 1st time.
It was a super day with no wind, warm weather and a few clouds, the sea was flat, but the water was green and not crystal clear. The water surface temperature in shore was around 21.6 deg. C. It was really good to have such a nice day after all the foul weather we have had lately.
I rigged 2 jet feathers which we could pull at high speed and headed SE for the canyon, the boat had just got on the plane when the 1st rod went and it was an Eastern Little Tuna of around 4Kg (8.8lbs), which I decided to keep and use as live bait later on when out in the deep. As the sea was so flat we were able to maintain good speed and our trip to the 450m depth at the canyon was not as long as usual and the feathers produced us nothing else along the way. The water here was slightly warmer at around 22.5 deg. C, but not warm enough yet for Dorado which was a little disappointing. I set up my spread anyway in hope of a stray and we started pulling lures at around 8 knots heading north towards the ledge and trolled our lures along the ledge on the 300m contour. There were no chases and when in front of Ballito, we turned to head back in shore in a SW direction.
I changed our rigs and put the Eastern Little Tuna out as live bait and we also put out 4 sardines to pull with it and made way at around 2-3 knots. I was not watching my speed and we went a little faster than planned at the 200m depth contour and the sardines came up to the surface and the birds had a go at them and we caught an Albatross and another Bird I still need to identify. Luckily the birds were only tangled and once we had sorted them out and made sure they were Ok and there were no injuries we released them. The Albatross is a huge bird, and it was not aggressive and allowed us to help it, it has the most beautiful eyes and its feathers are really soft, it was a privilege to se this magnificent creature up close.
During this commotion we had stopped the boat and the Eastern Little Tuna and gone deep and a huge Shark which I estimate at well over 150Kg (330lbs) had taken the live bait. It felt as if I had hooked a submarine, I only gained a little line and after about an hour into the fight the shark bit through our 75lb steel trace. I am pleased that the new light tackle was able to handle the amount of pressure that I put on it.
After the bird and shark encounter, I rigged up some smaller lures and Rapala's and made way at about 6 knots and at 170m depth we hooked up 4 oceanic Bonito all at once, all between 3-3.5Kg (6.6-7.7lbs). After that we carried on passed the Well towards the flats and reef no. 1 where we did a little reef fishing on bass tackle and we put out a drift sardine which caught us a Hammer Head Shark of around 8Kg. We then headed back to port at around 15h00.
