Yellowfin Tuna, Dorado & Big Sharks

[Fishing Adventures]

On Saturday afternoon whilst waiting for a buddy to arrive I was sorting out my box of Rapala’s when one of those precious life moments happened. The local Cormorant that lives at the Marina and often frequents my boat where I feed him decided that he really liked the look of my Rapala’s and perched himself right on the edge of the storage container, he showed no fear and was very inquisitive having a good look at the contents of my container with the most gorgeous emerald green eyes I have every seen.
For me these brief moments of natural interaction with nature are the most precious of my life and I hold them dear. I had to retrain myself from reaching out and stroking his head as he was so close to me.

Eventually we got going at about 15h00 and it was to be an afternoon of experimenting with trolling live baits on circle hooks. We started out by collecting some nice large mackerel to bridle on our circle hook traces and then I set a spread of 4 lines with 2 mackerel on the outriggers, 1 on a down rigger and 1 running shot gun.
The water was warm at just over 25deg. C and a light SW was blowing, the sea was calm.
It was not very long before we had a reel scream and after a strong fight landed a Black Tip Shark in excess of 30Kg. There was no steel trace and the circle hook had worked perfectly lodging itself in the corner of his jaw. This was followed by another, and another.
Eventually tired of only catching sharks we shot out deep and a trolled some lures, but it seemed that it was a day for sharks when a Mako Shark hit one of the Kona’s we were trolling and after some hard runs bit through the leader and stole by Kona.
We re-rigged and set out the spread again and hooked up a Yellowfin Tuna. This is where the games started for the afternoon, because the Yellowfin would hit the lure and run and we would strike and set the hook in normal fashion, after setting the hook a shark would immediately take the Tuna leaving us only with the head, and in the end we landed 5 Yellowfin heads and 1 Dorado head. This is one of the rare occasions that I have lost a Dorado to a shark.
We then decided to take a troll home and I set a spread of large lures and about halfway back the one line went, I do not know for sure what it was because on 80lb at full drag I could not stop it and it just took line until eventually we lost it, looking at the frayed leader afterwards I suspect it was another Mako Shark but I did not see it jump like the first one so cannot be sure, but on Sunday in the same area I saw a very large Mako Shark cruising around.

On Sunday Morning we launched at 05h00 in a very heavy rain and made our way up North into the deep where I could see a bit of clear skies and once we past the rain it turned out to be a lovely day, we were soaking wet and it took a while to thaw out. For most of the day the sea was calm even though there was a 2.5m swell running and for about an hour or so the SW blew very hard at midday, but then calmed down again.
Out there in 150-200m of water the surface temp was 26deg. C and I saw a lot of life in the water. Fishing was not easy but we managed 2 Dorado and 3 Yellowfin Tuna for the day. We also lost one Dorado when the line wrapped around the rod tip making a loud pistol shot sound when it snapped. Of the 5 fish we hooked 3 were taken on a Red/Black Alien Kona from Demon Tackle which I had trolled for the first time.

[Seth]

Nice report and too bad for all the sharks. Is that a cat you are on and if so what is the configuration?

[Fishing Adventures]

Nice report and too bad for all the sharks. Is that a cat you are on and if so what is the configuration?

Yes it is a Cat, I am not sure what you mean by configuration.

My boat is a Z-Craft 20ft Catmaran made locally here in SA. Cats are the most common boats used for fishing here on our east coast because the suit the typical conditions that we get here (Short Chop) and they are best for surf launching from the beach.

Here are some pics which I hope can answer some of your questions, I had the boat custom built and finished her off my self.