Sunshine Days off Struisbaai

Fishing memories that make you smile

By Jack Walsh

CAPE Agulhas,the southernmost point of the African continent,is often noted as being the Point that splits the Indian and Atlantic oceans.However,as currents are wont to do,they meander a bit between Cape Point and Cape Agulhas.

A large variety of fish frequent the waters off the southwestern coastline of our country and the coastal waters east of Cape Agulhas where the temperature seldom drops below 18°C.

On the land,there has always been a very small village around and above the Agulhas lighthouse,with the larger holiday village of Struisbaai,with its line of fish factories,cold stores,and a very small harbour,several kilometres to the northeast.

After retiring from being a fishing skipper out of Walvis Bay,and returning to the Cape in 1972,I acquired an 18ft Hartley Vixen ski-boat named Pisces.With Ray Scott and Keith Crookes as crew,1973 found us fishing in the annual Western Cape ski-boat club competition held there.

Apart from regular catches of kob,Cape salmon and all the main species of reds,Cape Point is well known for its prolific yellowtail in the summer.They regularly congregate on a reef structure of note that’s known as the “Five Mile Bank.”

Today,the venue has also become known as a light tackle gamefishing hotspot out in the deep for marlin,tuna and other species,although the weather does not always play its part!

We arrived there on the Friday evening,prepared the boat that we had towed down from Cape Town,and enjoyed a welcoming braai.The next morning before sunrise we carefully slid the boat off the trailer into the very shallow harbour.It was dead still with not even a land breeze;the water resembled a dam rather than the sea.The eastern horizon’s light clouds were softly etched in pink,whilst a three-quarter moon was still bright and high in the west.

Pleased to have been the first to launch,we set off for the bank,approximately 30 minutes away.

We all knew that for the past few weeks,weather permitting,the yellowtail catches had been very good,with large shoals of sardines keeping them in the area.We also knew that the local commercials had been catching them at night under the moonlight,so we were confident that the early morning hours would find the smaller fish feeding voraciously before the sun came up.

About ten minutes shy of the bank,when we could see several commercials about a mile ahead of us,we were suddenly surrounded by a huge shoal of sardines breaking the surface of the sea.Our rods were ready with spinners,for that was the way you normally found the shoals,and,although it was still quite dark,as our spinners hit the water we were vas.

We drifted in the shoal of sardines for over half an hour, landing medium-sized ’tail as fast as we could get them alongside,until a commercial on anchor lay immediately in our path.

As we could now see shoals of sardine all over the place, we backtracked a few hundred metres into the middle of another shoal and I decided we should try anchoring.At first we were able to cast into the shoal and we continued catching them on the spinners,but when they were out of reach and our hook-up rate declined,Keith decided to replace the spinner with a hook and sinker to try for success in deeper water.

He was immediately successful,although the first fish he hooked was very much larger than the others and took him a lot longer to land on his light tackle.Ray and I soon followed suit and we continued catching larger specimens with regularity.

Suddenly we had a new problem —there were so many small fish under the boat that they were stripping our bait before we could get through to the large yellowtail below,so we changed to very much larger sinkers.

By now the sun was well up and our fish hold was virtually full.There had been no time for each angler to mark their fish,but that mattered not as the main prize was for the total boat landings.

Around mid-morning,I noticed that the bottom of the outboard cowlings were starting to dip in and out of the water, despite the almost non-existent swell.To make matters worse, the deck drain holes in the stern were now under water.The aft deck was now awash,and a slight breeze out of the southeast made me somewhat nervous in case it strengthened later.

I decided our best bet would be to clear out the cabin as much as possible,and move the fish that were lying on the deck into the cabin.This worked like a charm.

While moving the fish we came across our two tunny rods with 6/0 Penn reels filled with 50lb nylon line as opposed to the 30lb nylon on our casting rods.With these,we soon found that,without allowing them to rest on the gunnels which was against the rules,we were able to land the ’tail much quicker.

The competition allowed anglers to use up to 50lb breaking strain — the days of serious light tackle boat angling were still to come several years later.

There was no official time for “lines up”,but the strictly enforced rule was that you had to be back at the slipway by no later than 3pm.We also had to consider that we were already overloaded relative to Pisces’ size,and there was no way she was going to lift up on the plane.

By 1pm the aft deck was again awash and lying low in the water,so common sense said our day’s fishing was over.We cautiously lifted the anchor and set off for home.Over an hour later we crept into the harbour with Ray standing on the bow,which resulted in it been so low in the water that Competition Control asked over the radio if we were sinking.

The first to launch,we were also the first back,and offloaded just over a ton of fish.However the last boat to land was a very much larger ski-boat virtually twice our size which had been able to fish an extra hour and a half,and they pipped us by just 12lb (5.5kg).If I remember correctly,the two of us actually exceeded the next best boat’s landings by nearly 300kg!

FIRST MARLIN HOOKED OFF STRUISBAAI ON ROD AND REEL

IN 1974,I sold Pisces and bought a marine-ply Clarke-craft which I named Dunnellon after the last 30 metre steel purse seiner I skippered while fishing for the factory ship Suiderkruis off the then South West African Skeleton Coast. Dunnellon was just over 20ft in length,but bulk wise almost double the size of Pisces,and I replaced her Volvo outdrive with two Chrysler 60hp outboards.

In 1976 I fished in the National Interclub Competition that was also held at Struisbaai with Ernest and a friend of his, Dow,who was interested in buying my boat,though it was not actually for sale.As it turned out,a year or so later I did eventually sell it to him.

This was a gamefishing competition and bottomfish were not allowed.I think the competition was held in March,and at that time the yellowtail had become very scarce.However, rumour had it that there had been some yellowtail and small yellowfin tuna caught on the twelve mile bank south of Cape Agulhas.

The first day of the comeptition was blown out,and although a few yellowtail came out on day two,our team never caught or saw a fish.With nothing to lose,I decided we would take a chance and go out to the twelve mile bank on the last day.That morning the weather was perfect,but in the two hours we spent on the bank we saw no signs of fish or even birds.Deciding it was just not our turn to shine,I trolled slowly back.

The boats had again found very little on or around the inner bank and had spread out all over the bay looking,I supposed,for the apparently non-existent small yellowfin tuna. Later that morning,they did find some and the winning boat actually managed to land nine,but by that time we were somewhat otherwise engaged!

Ernest had been bragging about his new Mitchell reel with a carbon fibre spool,which was a little smaller and much lighter than my Penn 6/0s which Dow and I were using,and he had asked me to try it out.

Fearing that its “plastic”spool might not survive compressed nylon line if we caught a number of largish fish,I had initially declined,but eventually agreed to swop rods with him.It turned out to be one of the worst fishing decisions I ever made!

When we were about 5km out from the Oriental Pioneer wreck,I saw four terns suddenly fly diagonally across our bow;the next minute all three ratchets were screaming.To our minds they must be the rumoured yellowfin tuna of indeterminate size.

The outer two had gone in opposite directions,more or less east and west,whilst my fish headed straight back into the south.I loosened my drag to reduce any resistance to its run,whilst telling the other two to land their fish quickly. They were soon in the boat and we could see that they weighed between 15- and 20kg.In the meantime,my fishwas at least 200 metres behind the stern,and I commenced recovering the line as fast as possible.

Suddenly my fish made a dash into the west,and in the clear blue water we saw an enormous black shape pursuing it.Presuming it to be a shark,I redoubled my efforts to bring it to the boat.Suddenly this enormous shape,now silver blue in colour,rose out of the water,bringing its clearly visible sword down on the fish’s back.

Without thinking,I wound even faster until Ernest shouted the obvious:“Jack,it’s an effing marlin,let him eat the tunny!”I finally woke up,and the tuna sank down not thirty metres behind the stern.

The marlin,which had disappeared,probably wondering how its slaughtered prey had continued swimming away,suddenly swam back in view,and circled once below the tuna. Then it suddenly lit up to a silver blue again and took the tuna crossways in its mouth.All we could see as it swam of into the south-east was its tail showing on the starboard side and the feather lure,which had hooked the tuna,dangling on the port side of its jaw.There was no choice but to follow it,whilst I held on to the rod for dear life.

I then told Ernest to call a friend of mine,who was on the Durban Ski-boat Club boat,to ask him what we should do.He told us to stop following and allow the fish to swallow the tuna first,then allow it to get 200 to 300 metres ahead of us, and simply follow until the fish started jumping which would tire it out.Depending on its size this would probably happen in ten to fifteen minutes,he said.

Over two hours later we were still following when,to our horror,the line suddenly went slack,but then we were treated to acrobatic leaps and splashes that we could hardly believe possible.Finally,I was able to slowly recover line,and within another hour or so,we had the marlin lying on its side about twenty metres away.

We were suddenly scared as it was so huge,clearly exceeding the length of our boat.It was too big to get in the boat, and too heavy to lift up anyhow.We prepared a lasso type rope that we planned to tie around its tail so we could tow it back to Struisbaai,trying not to think of Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea.

We obviously had no such thing as a flying gaff on board, but at least we had three ordinary ones — one about two metres long which Ernest would put just behind the head,a slightly smaller one which Dow would put about two metres up from the tail,and very small metre-long gaff which I would try to place near Ernest’s.

We were nervously ready and I lifted up the rod to try to ease the marlin closer.Suddenly there was a loud crack,and I looked down to see a disintegrated,allegedly “unbreakable” reel! I tried to lever the fish closer,but the line parted at the spool,and although I managed to catch the end,it was impossible to hold it by hand as a southerly breeze pushed the boat away from the fish.

We watched in disbelief as the first marlin ever hooked on a rod and reel at Struisbaai sstarted to sink,then slowly righted itself and swam away.Could we have controlled it with the gaffs we had? Who knows.I just remember hoping it would somehow be able to get rid of the line and lure.

We took four hours to run back to the harbour,where we learnt that Radio Good Hope had kept their listeners informed about our fight since 11am that morning.Fame at last,but not quite the ending we’d hoped for.