Chronicles of a Blue Water Hunter

Saturday 01 April 2006

Only two of us on board. We were planning on running to thr tuna grounds, but at about 6miles past the POINT, i see the current line and the water shoots up from 14degrees to 19degrees. A bit further, birds are working. As we move towards the deep, i see what looks like two fish swimming in the swell. I stop and put out two lures. BANG!!!! Almost immediately. Both rods hooked up. We each boat the fish rather quickly and with-in the next three hours, we have our allotted quota of 20 fish on board. We had 14 yellowfins ranging from 14-25kg's and 6 Longfin/Albacore and skipjacks. So with are legal amount of fish on board, we can't proceed to the deep:vangry

Oh well, at least we were very close to home and had HUGE fun with those, perfect eating size YF's!! YUMMY!!!!!

Regards
miles

Wednesday 5th April 2006

Weather report showed PERFECT conditions. I made some calls, but none of my crew could make it!! ARGHHHH!!! After quite a few calls and getting despondent, one of my friends calls me. He has a commercial tuna fishing boat and his crew has also absconded!! None-the-less, between us we can get together 5 anglers.

At 5:30am we arrive at the filling station. Disaster strikes!!! ONLY myself and my friend are there. The others call to cancel. Thoroughly annoyed now, we decided to bugger all of them and go to sea only the two of us.

We launch and the sea is perfectly flat calm. We run to the point at 25knots. Just past the point we see birds and seals working baitfish. Quick check on the FURUNO shows 13.8degrees water. Too cold for any fishing. A few seconds later, we both see the unmistakable yellow sickles cutting through the surface!!! YELLOWFIN!!! Unbelievable!! In 13degrees celcuis water, FEEDING on garfish!!!

Out goes the lures and i'm throwing a surface plug at the feeding fish. No reaction. We troll around the bait schools, through them, in front of them behind them.........NOTHING, even though we can see the YF's on the surface. Knowing that the currentline is very close by, we up lines and run for it. Two miles later we see the current line, littered with kelp debris and birds working. Water jumps from 13degrees to 19 degrees. We put out the lures just before we cross the current line. We're running 3 surface squids/feathers on bungees and two halco's on rods. As we hit the warm water, all five lures are taken!! CHAOS!!! The skipper keeps going whilst i handline the small albacore (longfin) tuna. He stops and i've already landed the three fish on the bungees and am busy fighting a small YF. He grabs the second rod and also fights a small YF. We boat both YF's which are 15-20kg's each. We spend the next two hours working the current line. We manage another small YF and quite a few albacore as well as some small yellowtail up to 6kg's.

Things quiten down and run another 10nm offshore before we find the first longliner. Before we can even get lines in, we have YF milling around the boat in our chum slick!!! Bait goes in......BANG....FISH ON!!! This continues until the longliner finishes fishing. I'm fishing, whilst the skipper is processing the caught fish.

After all that fun, my shoulder and arm is buggered!!! I managed to boat 14 YF tuna in the 40-80kg class on stand-up tackle in under 3 hours. That excludes the two fish i lost to a young mako right next to the boat.

Our finally tally was 10yellowtail ranging from 3-6kg's, 30Albacore Tuna ranging from 5-18kg's and 17 YF of which 3 were 15-20kgs and the other 14 were 40-80kg class. Not bad for TWO fisherman!!!

Unfortunately, there was no time for any photos. The only ones i took were at the boat

Saturday 08 April 2006

Our South Easterly wind, affectionately called the Cape Doctor, is doing what it does best, by blowing 25knt's+. This coupled with a big sea makes diving impossible. So my wife and i went for a hike, which gives you stunning views of BOTH the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Enjoy!!

Regards
miles

Thursday 13 April 2006

Another charter trip. This was a fishing trip, so no diving!! The weatherman predicted a fresh wind in the deep as well as at the point. However, we were greeted by a flat windless sea. At the start of the trip, we had a huge school of dolphins visit us. What a lovely way to start the day.

I ran out to the warm water and we found a boat fighting fish quite close inshore. Out goes the trolling lures……….NOTHING!!!!! The boat had raised a school of Albacore, and were having heaps of fun, whilst we trolled around. I could see the marks in the echo, but the fish refused to rise to the lures.

I see some more bird life and start trolling the area. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ………reel screams………fish on!!!! We quickly get a chum slick going and pretty soon we see the school of Albacore next to the boat. We land a couple but then they sound………….

Looking into the water, watching the sinking chum, I spot the YELLOWFINS!! The rise and start smashing the chum on the surface!!! All three baitlines are hooked up!! Chaos erupts as we have two in-experienced anglers fighting fish. Lines tangling and the other experienced guy turns out to be NOT as experienced as he claims…… We manage to boat all the fish and we kept that school of fish with us the whole day.

Things start living up when a 2.5m Mako decides to join in the fun!! He manages to chomp off the extreme tail part of a YF and now he REALLY gets interested in the other fish. We cut off a couple of tuna’s head and feed them to the Mako. He’s now content and after chomping on my stainless steel prop’s, he departs.

By 3:00pm the guys are sore and tired and they request me to call it a day. They had a AWESOME trip!! A day they will not ever forget.

Final tally: 32 Yellowfin Tuna. Largest fish was 88kg’s and the others in the 45-70kg class AND 19 Albacore in the 8-18kg class.

Sunday 16 April 2006

Forum member, Johan from Denmark arrived here in Cape Town on Friday evening. Check the weather on Saturday and it looked good in the deep. How-ever, there was a bit of wind inshore, BUT the offshore conditions looked ok. So plans were made to go out on Sunday.

I picked Johan up and we spent about 10minutes at the waters edge, waiting to see if the inshore wind would subside. With a slight decrease, we went to Tommy’s place. Hooked up his boat and off we went.

At the launch site, the wind was blowing quite strongly. After some coffee, we decided to launch, with the wind report showing dropping wind at the POINT. After a bumpy, but dry ride, we reach the point. Outside the point, the swell is bigger, but since its open ocean swells, it makes riding easier and less bumpy. Fortunately the fish have been very close, sort of 17-18nm from the point. That’s about 10nm closer than our normal hunting grounds.

With it being Easter weekend, no longline vessels or trawlers are out, so we knew that we’d have to find our own fish. Tommy sees some fish on the surface and out goes the trolling lures……………NOTHING………. Water temperature in 19degrees and there is some bird life. Looks good, but no fish action yet. Sooooo, we have breakfast. MISTAKE!!! Reel screams half-way through my sand which!!! FISH ON!!! Boat stops and I start a chum trail. I grab the rod and start pulling……..mmmmm…..feels like a Albacore(longfin)…….no……feels like a small YF……….mmmmm….no…….feels like a Albacore…………….

Tommy puts the harness on and after 5 minutes we have an YF next to the boat. Unfortunately, the YF was tail wrapped, which effectively drowned it. I gaff and we have the fish on board. Not a bad fish weighing in at 78kg’s. Meanwhile I had continued the chum trail, but couldn’t see any fish in the water. We suggested Johan get in just to see if the YF were feeding just out of view from the boat. He jumps in and soon his shouts of glee herald the arrival of the YF’s!!

Johan kits up properly and jumps back in. After hearing from Tommy and me how fast these fish are, he manages to almost STONE his first YF with a 130cm Rabitech Carbon Apex!!! BRILLIANT shot!!!! Almost 10 minutes after he got into the water we load his 54kg YF!! Unfortunately, by now the other YF sounded and we have Albacore in the chum trail. Johan whacks a couple of albacores in the 8-14kg class.

We move and find another school of fish. Unfortunately there are very few YF around and only LOADS of Albacore.

We then caught some Albacore and at one stage we had a school right against the boat smashing chum on the surface. I and Johan jumped in with cameras and got some great footage of Albacores eating chum next to the boat.

Final tally, one YF of 78kg caught on Rod and Reel, one YF of 54kg’s shot and 23 Albacores from 8-14kgs, caught on rod and reel and shot.

20 April 2006

Unfortunately, the wind started blowing at 25knts+ and we had to make it a short day. Even with the limited amount of time, Danish spearo, Johan managed to take some quality fish!! He also found out first hand, when a multiple band wooden gun is far superior to a normal euro gun when hunting these large fish. I'll let him explain his experience!!

Pity about the weathet, but we really can't complain too much!!

Final tally: 12 YF with the largest being just over 90kg's and 2 albacore.

24 April 2006

DANGERS OF DIVING IN SOUTH AFRICA!!!

Problem#1 : we're launching the boat and need to lower the motors. Big spider is sitting where the lever is!!! I'm too scared to remove the spider and Tommy finally gets to the boat and informs us that its a harmless spider. He takes it off the motor and Johan releases it into some trees close by.

Problem#2 : this bird kept on eating the chum and was particularly keen on seeing what Johan was up to UNDER the water!!

Spearing wise, it was dismal. Water temperature was OK, viz. was good, but simply very little fish. We ended up with 5 Albacore and 2 YF of about 50kg's on Rod and Reel, as well as some hake, kingklip and a HUGE John Dory which we picked up behind a long-liner.

26 April 2006

I had a fishing charter today. Unfortunately, the water was a murky green. Not exactly the Blue Water stuff the anglers were anticipating. Unfortunately, my deckhands were off sick, so i was all on my own with 6 anglers. To further complicate matters, there was a fishing competion being held and we had boats all over the place, none being very succesful. We did how-ever manage to find some YF's. The action was thankfully very slow, with us taking one fish every 30-40minutes.

Our final tally was a spectacular 14 fish between the six anglers!! No really big fish, all ranging from 40-65kg's. It was still the largest fish each one of the 6 anglers had caught in their lives!!

Unfortunately, due to me being alone on the boat, i couldn't take any pic's. How-ever, on our way out to the deep, i can across this vessel (see pic's), which i thought was simply STUNNING!!! Looks like a sailing vessel from the 16th century!!!