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

 

WHAT'S HAPPENING ON THE LOCAL SCENE - Thursday 11 August 2005

In my last report, April 2005 I mentioned that the tuna had just arrived and that we were hoping for some good weather to get out there and mix it up with the big yellowfin. For once, my wish came true. The weather in April, May and June turned out pretty good according to our standards here in the Cape. Not that we didn't get "klapped" (smacked, for those of you who do not know our local jargon) on a good few occasions. We certainly did, and the more we run "Lynx", the more impressed I become with her seagoing abilities. Fishing was great, perhaps the best yellowfin we have had in years. But more of that below.

As I write, winter is upon us and the northwester is causing the rain to patter against the windows outside. Good weather to do fishing reports and such things. No snow as yet, but it will come, I am sure of it. Thus far winter has been a fairly gently affair, but August, September and even October can and probably will still bring a few shockers as far as cold fronts go.

Offshore

Offshore news, where to start? Shew, lets just say we had a bumper season. A number of highlights come to mind. Firstly, we were top boat in the Gordons Bay Offshore Classic. We fished in conditions that were not ideal, although not that bad either. Unfortunately, the big fish eluded us throughout the three day tournament, but we managed to be consistent enough to win the top boat award. My good friend, Patrick Christodoulou on his new boat, "Magoofter", took most of the big fish prizes and congratulations go to him for finding big fish when everyone else was buggering around with 30 to 50kg yellowfin. The exact size of the winning fish has slipped my mind, but it was in the region of 80kg. A good yellowfin by any standards. Shortly after this tournament, bigger fish arrived in reasonable numbers. They were never plentiful, but there were enough out there to always expect a big one to nab the bait. And there were some really big ones. One fish of 95kg was speared, a new unofficial record. The previous one was 91kg. Our biggest speared fish was a 91kg fish taken by Paul Liebenberg. There is a photo of Paul "riding" the tuna on my web page. The photo was taken by Andrew Woodburn of Divestyle  Magazine. In addition to this, Hilton Levita, friend and charter client, landed one of 97kg and a few weeks later caught another of 85kg. Talk about stealing the cream. These fish were the two biggest we caught for the entire season. The 97kg fish is also the biggest yellowfin ever landed in Gordons Bay. Yet another record for "Lynx" and South Sea Safaris. Hilton's fish took him around two hours to land, and about half a dozen visits to the chiro to recover. He has since gone and gotten himself married and as I write he is on honeymoon. As soon as he returns we will post some photos. There were some hard luck stories too. Pieter Steenekamp lost a fish of 90plus right at the boat after two and a half hours. He was later rewarded with a fish of 85kg, but this one was somewhat smaller than the one he lost.

Then there were the real busy days. Most fish were in the 40 to 50kg class, with the odd big one putting in an appearance, but they were so plentiful that by lunchtime we had to pack up and go home. For about a month, we literally went out to where the fish had been on previous trips and did not even troll lures. We simply stopped in the middle of nowhere and started chumming. Without fail, the yellowfin tuna would come up the chumline within five or ten minutes. Sometimes even quicker. On these days, we were landing anywhere from ten to twenty fish in a morning and releasing as many. On some of these occasions, it seemed the fish were so intent on eating anything and everything in the water that I began to feel sorry for them. On a few trips I actually asked the anglers to stop fishing as we had caught enough. One can only eat so much yellowfin tuna! By the end of the season, we had caught an average of 7 yellowfin per trip and did 39 tuna trips since beginning of April. Average weight was 46kg per fish. We also released about 50 yellowfin. About two weeks ago the tuna disappeared with the onset of cold winter water. Now we wait for their return, hopefully around the end of September.

Cape Point and False Bay

We were so busy tuna fishing that although there have been good yellowtail at Cape Point, we have hardly had time to go out and look for them . The season at Seal Island was very short and as mentioned in my last report, they were really tough to catch, most of the time anyway. By the middle of April, the only 'tail around were at Cape Point and some of the regulars made very good catches. Average size of the fish was also very good and we had quite a few fish of over 10kg.

There were also smallish yellowfin tuna around Cape Point for a few weeks and here and there we caught one or two on our way back from tuna trips to the deep. In one instance, close to bellows (a reef at Cape Point), I threw a yellowtail spoon at a small yellowfin tuna (maybe 15kg) that had chased a fleeing baitfish across the surface of the water. Quite a spectacle it was! The spoon hit the water and as I started skipping it back to the boat, about 50kg of hungry yellowfin erupted from the sea and engulfed my spoon! An eleven foot spinning rod with a Diawa Grand-wave X in NOT the right tackle for a 100 pound yellowfin. Forty five minutes later, my back was about to give in, luckily the line did and although I was a bit peeved about losing the fish, my back was very relieved. I actually managed to get the fish quite close to the boat. Almost close enough to put in the gaff, but not quite!

Currently the water at the Point is about 15degC and the yellowtail are a bit sporadic. They are there, but in the cold conditions, sometimes they bite, and sometimes not. It's all a bit of a lottery, really. The snoek have also put in an appearance. Last week we had plenty on one day and went out the next to find nothing, but so it goes with fishing. Maybe tomorrow, if the weather clears.

Not much happening at Struisbaai, but then again at this time of the year, not much does. We have been down there a few times for spearfishing and have bagged some very nice red stumpnose (up to 5kg), big galjoen and a variety of other reef fish. Conditions at the Agulhas pinnacles have been very good and although the water has been a chilly 15deg, the visibility has been very nice (up to 12m). Even Die Mond was diveable once or twice, but this is always a scarey area and we have not spent too much time in the water there. We did a 35meter scuba dive on a reef I have fished numerous times. In summer I have caught some very nice red steenbras there, up to 11kg with the average around 6kg. I always release them unharmed. It is sandstone with big broken blocks of reef scattered around the bottom. Unfortunately apart from some really big bank steenbras (7-8kg) and plenty of smaller reef fish, we did not see any sign of the elusive red steenbras. Perhaps they move off in winter.

A few weeks ago I spent 5 days fishing off the beach at Blombos. Conditions were great, but the fish scarce. My son, Daniel, landed a nice white musselcracker of about 7kg and a few other fish, but dad had to be happy with a couple of galjoen and one very nice wildeperd (3kg). The biggest I have seen in a long time.

That is about it for this report. Till the next time tight lines.

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