Today was a perfect day at the office, for those of you who don't know the Indian Ocean is my office and the boat my work station.
We headed out of Durban Harbour at around 06h30 and were greeted by an orange sky sunrise which looked so beautiful; leaving the water with a reddish glow and it makes you feel like you got what you came for and so the rest of the day was going to be a bonus.
The water is still warm averaging around 22.5 deg. C on the surface, and we will need this temperature to drop at least another 3.5 deg. C if we want to see any sardines.
The wind started out as a North Westerly early in the morning and slowly changed throughout the day to a South Easterly and eventually ended up as a light North Easterly, in the morning the wind blew a little harder and the sea was not big, although the surf was, but it was somewhat unsettled, gradually it became calmer and it was a superb day. We eventually headed back at around 15h30
The plan for the day was to target some Natal Snoek (Queen Mackerel) early in the morning, and then to collect some live bait and try our luck for a Sailfish and end the day doing some reef fishing. The thing about fishing is that the fish are completely unaware of your plans and things do not always go according to the plan and one needs to improvise and modify the initial plan as one becomes aware of the prevailing conditions.
We shot from the harbour mouth straight out to the Umgeni River mouth where I trolled 4 strip baits and 2 lipless crank baits all along the back line until we got to St. Lucia, we did not find any Natal Snoek and the surf was huge and so I stayed on the 10m depth contour.
We then pulled in the lines, and there were two whole strip baits missing, complete with steel trace and the line looked like it was cut off by a pair of scissors, it was strange as the reels never made a sound and the drags were not set that hard.
After that we shot out to the Fonteo to collect some live bait where we got a lot of Mozzies and I am pleased to report that we also got a lot of Mackerel also. Whilst the guys were fishing the Yozuri's I jigged a small Snoek spoon and hooked a Mackerel about 500mm long.
This Mackerel was immediately put out on the trap stick with no weights in to hope of finding a hungry Sailfish, but instead it found itself in the Jaws of a very large Shark that kept the guys busy for some time until the main line parted, must have been a kink or something.
I then set a spread with 2 live Mackerel and 2 teasers on the outside still hoping for a Sailfish and we took a slow troll, when going over the Glen Ashley pinnacles we saw a lot of activity but no takes and when we went over Yarning dales one of the reels let out a high pitched yelp and lost line at a high rate of knots and I yelled SAILFISH, and then all the other 3 lines also went but not like the first one, we landed 3 Yellow Fin Tuna all around 5Kgs from the other 3 lines whilst we were still kept busy with the first one for some time and then suddenly the line went dead, we reeled it in and there was our live bait still strong and everything looked untouched, it is strange and I never saw what it was
After that I set a spread of 6 lures and tried to find the Yellow Fin Tuna again without luck; but we did get a small Eastern Little Tuna, and after circling for some time we headed out over Honeymoon and the No.1 pinnacle towards S Brick when all the lines went and we landed 5 Eastern Little Tuna of fair size and another Yellow Fin Tuna.
After that we fished the reef for a while, the reef fishing was slow and we caught several small Eastern Little Tuna on light spinning tackle with small spoons whilst enjoying the perfect conditions and eventually decided to call it a day. I was disappointed that I did not get any of my target species and was really hoping for my first winter Sailfish, which for a while I thought we had; I cannot complain and am satisfied with our catch for the day, especially the 4 Yellow Fin Tuna.
