Alan du Plessis
SOUTH SEA SAFARIS
www.southseasafaris.co.za
alan@southseasafaris.co.za

WHAT'S HAPPENING ON THE LOCAL SCENE - Tuesday 11 January 2005

Well, the winter has come and gone and at last the new boat is up and running. Albeit two months late.  This is another year of the El-nino and we wonder what the weather gods hold in store for us. To date things have already been quite odd. The summer south easters are not here with their normal gusto and the Cape is in the clutches of a drought. It seems to me the weather is unseasonably hot, but that may just be my perception. On thing is a fact, the yellowfin season started off with a bang and we had yellowfin tuna coming out of our ears. And big ones at that. Problem being, whilst they were around in huge numbers, "Lynx" was still not ready to go to sea and guess what. The day I finished her, the yellowfin tuna disappeared as thought someone had turned off a switch. More about that below. Then the yellowtail put in an appearance ant Cape Point, and boy did they appear. Thousands of them, some small, and some really nice sized fish. We had days out there where clients could not believe there were so many fish in the sea.

Offshore

I my last report, this paragraph started off with "The best yellowfin season ever!........" I can tell you now, that then it was. Now I'm not so sure. The fish came in huge numbers and the commercials and recreationals had an absolute ball. Problem was, whilst everyone else was catching them, we were working to get the new "Lynx" finished. I joked with a friend of mine about how the yellowfin would disappear the day I completed the boat, and guess what. To the day, Sunday 14 November, the day I was finally ready to run, the yellowfin were gone. And when I say gone, I mean GONE. Nothing, not a fish was caught by any boat out there. Two weeks later in the Cat Power Tuna Derby, 41 boats fished for three days and 7 yellowfin were weighed in. Lady luck was smiling on us and we managed to boat two of the seven, one of which was the winning fish, in the process earning us a cool R 40 000. And that is the total of "Lynx"'s tuna to date. Two fish. It must be said that the tuna did disappear early this year. We fully expected them to hang around until mid-December or so, but it was not to be. Perhaps it was the effects of the El-Nino, perhaps it was any one of a hundred reasons, fact is they did disappear and are still gone. Hopefully they will be back in Feb or early March so that we can have another crack at them. I do not particularly like the commercials, but to give you an idea of how thick the fish were, one of the commercial boats caught 228 yellowfin tuna in ten outings on rod and reel during October 2004. As for the longfin tuna (albacore), catches of this species have been very sporadic for the last two seasons. It is quite worrying to see how the catches have declined in the last two years, hopefully this trend will not continue.

The number of trips this year where first timers got a yellowfin of over 100 pounds was the norm rather than the exception. It was a case of virtually being able to guarantee a prospective charter client that he would at least hook and fight a big yellowfin. Whether he managed to land it was a totally different story. I have noticed, that because we have caught many big y/fin this year, the average angler begins to believe that catching a 100 pounder is a trivial thing. IT IS NOT. Yellowfin is, if not the strongest, pound for pound, then certainly among the strongest fish in the sea. They will test you, your endurance, you tackle and your skills to the utmost. Some will be lost and some will be landed, but the truth of it is, you will never really understand until you have boated, and/or lost a big yellowfin after fighting it for an hour or more. You would certainly not be the first angler to choke on a bit of emotion if you did. We had one lady angler into a fish of around 45kg at the beginning of November. The fish behaved itself quite nicely for a while and then, with an unexpected burst of speed, it ran toward the stern of the boat, pulling the unfortunate girl from the cabin and into the transom of the boat with quite a bang. Fortunately she was made of stern stuff and half an hour later she proudly displayed her first yellowfin tuna for the camera. If the autumn season is anything like the end of 2004 was, then I for one can't wait to get out there again with the new boat.

Cape Point and False Bay

Cape Point also really happened this year. Thousands of yellowtail gathered around Rocky Bank and for a month or two it was just a case of going to fetch them. We had great times and some clients expressed disbelief at the quantity of fish they saw there. We were surrounded on one day by a shoal of y/tail smashing mercilessly into a hapless shoal of anchovy. The sound they made from whipping the water into a froth was more akin to the thunder of a waterfall than a school of fish feeding. It was absolute frenzy time. Everything we threw at them got eaten so quickly it was almost embarrassing to catch them. Our average has been around eighteen fish per day. Last week they started thinning out at the point, presumably they have spawned, and moved into the bay where we found them at Seal Island. The fish there have been somewhat more skittish, but we are still getting our ten to 15 fish per day. I have also seen some real brutes around (I estimate the odd fish to be 12 to 15kg). We have not managed to hook any of the real big ones, but the average size of 7 to 8 kg is still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Spinning for yellowtail is still my favorite kind of fishing and when the 'tail come up, there is very little to beat it as far as excitement goes.

The geelbek have been quite prolific at Cape Point during the night, but a bit scattered during the day. I am hoping they will make their presence felt in the bay shortly. Cob have also been thick in the dark hours of Strandfontein, but our regular daytime cob spots have been absolutely stone dead. We have not yet caught a single one of Lynx or Le Boat this season.

Struisbaai has been pretty good this season, and although I have not been down there, reports coming in indicate that fish are big and on certain days quite plentiful. De Mond is fishing particularly well as far as grunter go and Breede is also experiencing some really good fishing. Last week a friend of mine caught and released 23 grunter on the edge of one of the deeper channels where the tide pushed over a sandbank and into the channel.

Whilst up in Cape St Francis recently, an old friend, Wally Walters, hooked and landed a very nice yellowtail (15kg) off shark point. This spot is a shallow water spot and the yellowtail more often than not end up in the reef with line, spinner and all. The end result is a frayed piece of line at the end of the rod and a very glum fisherman. To land a 15kg fish here is quite an achievement.

That is about it for this report. We have been flat out busy when the weather has allowed us out. The next report will not be six months away, hopefully I'll get another one out as soon as the yellowfin pop up again. Till then, tight lines. To those clients who booked and could not get out due to inclement weather, I really hope to see you on your next visit.  

Last, but not least, we are sending out regular reports and fishing updates to our friends and customers, both in South Africa and internationally.

Till next time, tight lines and happy hunting!!

Kind regards
Alan