2012 and its almost time to compete in the Two Oceans Marlin Tournament again.
This year the Marlin fleet will consist out of roughly 37 boats in all. Some will travel by road from the north in Mpumalanga, and some will steam form Houtbay and Gordons Bay.
Everyone, especially the Captains are now preparing terminal tackle. Replacing old worn leaders with new ones, sharpening hooks, and respooling some of those big 80 to 130 size reels with IGFA rated line of between 37kg and 45kg in most cases.
The most labour intensive job, is to make up new wind on leaders from scratch! It takes a while to make each one, and you never underestimate the power of the fish that might test the line you are making up.
So far this year, I have heard of 4 marlin spotted in the vicinity of the 12 Mile bank, at least two were confirmed Black Marlin. I have been to the 12 mile last week to test out some equipment, and decided after a while to swim a live Yellowtail in the area. Unfortunately we got stuck into a wopper of a Bronzie, and called it a day.
Looking ahead, the weather is turning out to be good next monday, according to Buoyweather
And it seems that a cold inshore current from east to west, is neigbouring an abrupt temperature increase quite close offshore.
Huge shoals of Sardine have been hunted to saturation right off Skulpies-baai, where some of us even got bucketloads of sardine in the pools, all chased there by a relentless flock of Malgas, and lots of Kob, Shad, and Leerfish. We have been having a good couple of days rock and surf angling since the easterly was pumping quite hard for a few days.
We need some west south westserly now to bring in the warm water, and with the moon at its peak position for Marlin next week, who knows, maybe a new world record Marlin for Struisbaai?
Last year we had the good fortune to land 3 Striped Marlin in one day at the Alphard banks. Not only that, we had 13 strikes, and 8 hookups in all. Not really a good catch ratio, but I can tell you that a full house strikes on a Marlin spread of 6 rods, is not for knuckleheads!
We learned a few good lessons there, and as it goes with fishing, you never stop learning new tricks. The trick this year will once again be where to find the buggers, and pray that if we have a huge Black Marlin on, our gear holds, and we manage to catch and release it with proof in HD VIDEO!
"Born This Way' is chartered for the tournament and with a little luck, we might pull off a good week of Marlin fishing!
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 07 February 2012 00:00
Neil Bezuidenhout
