Today was a super day at sea with no wind and no swells, and both the Awesome boats were on the 12 mile bank as the sun came up over the horizon, looking for yellowtail.
The fishfinders did their work and the schools of yellowtail were quickly picked up. Hectic fights taxing everyone on board followed as most of the fish were caught on vertical jigs and the rest on bait.
Quite a few of these lovely fghting fish managed to get the better of the anglers and got away with a jig or just simply tore the hooks out, but a few fish in the 10 - 15 kg range were boated.
The fish went off the bite and we moved to the back of the bank trawling for skipjack and tuna when a striped marlin picked up the one rapala lure and sped off. The tackle was no match for this beauty yellowtail_awesome_charters002 and within seconds he stripped 400m of line and sped away...we will be looking for him during the 2 Oceans Marlin Tournament.
We went back to the bank and added a few more yellowtail to our tally, and by 1 pm both the boats and very happy anglers were back in the harbour.
Father and son team, Marion and Gary Williams on their vessel Huck Finn proved on Saturday 23 January 2010 that Marlin is around on the Agulhas Banks, by landing a 150 kg Black Marlin off the 12 Mile Pinnacles. Crowds gathered at the harbour to welcome them back, and helped to unload the fish. It was quite amazing to note that these two anglers loaded the fish onto Huck Finn without assistance out at sea, but with no more adrenaline pumping at the Jetty, it took 4 strong men to unload it again!
The fish was boated because it had a broken bill, and would not have had a fair chance of survival in such condition.
Well done to Gary and Marion.
