South African Fishing

Take a look at our recent pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/denishelfrich/southafricanfishing

Lots of last moment planning and hoping for good weather for our very first Annual Hermanus Penny Pinchers Galjoen Derby.

The entries were coming in fast and furious for the Galjoen season had just opened and the guys new there would be fish around, of course some of the boys had been fishing out of season not being able to resist a fresh galjoen on the coals any longer.

The week gave us lots of North Westerly winds and the fishing promised to be very good come the weekend. 

67 Anglers from all over the Overberg and as far as Cape Town all started fishing at 6 o clock the morning hoping to get a fish or two.

My friend Yster Fouche, my son Michael and myself decided that we would be at our spot at 6 o clock, but we forgot that our friend Yster is not exactly a morning person so needless to say we only got to kafferklip after 7 with the tide going out.  The water looked as good as it did the previous day and I could not wait to get my bait in the water.

We had been having some red tide in Hermanus so the water still had that red ginger beer colour to it that is still preferred by cob, but what could we do but give it our best shot.  With myself always being more organised than the other two I managed to get my line in first, 2/0 hook 2 ounce sinker and two mussel worms I was holding my breath, I just knew there must be fish in this hole?  I pulled my sinker towards me just slightly and I could feel the rocks where there usually is just sand and I knew I had the right spot, it had washed open about two days before and I had been hoping it was still good when we got there on competition day.

By now the other two had got their bait in the water as well and there was a lot of chirping and teasing going on about who would get the first fish when I felt the softest little tug at the end of my line, I fish with a 13 foot carbon fibre rod that is very light so  that the slightest touch gets to my finger immediately, again the soft tug, I moved the lead but an inch when wham, down goes my rod, fish on, a monster galjoen line peeling off my little 30 daiwa grand-wave rod bent double, I nearly had a heart attack the fish was so strong, then………  nothing, the fish had come off, I could not believe my bad luck.

The other two of course had a good laugh at my expense but that’s the way it goes.  I knew I must have done something wrong, I very seldom lose a fish, there it was, I had a blunt hook on the end of my line, I had never checked my tackle after the previous outing and must have damaged the hook previously.  After giving my son the speech so many times not to be lazy and check your tackle, dad goes and does exactly that.

Next cast same spot, 2 minutes vas again, now I had the boys attention and they were not smiling anymore, unfortunately the fish was undersized so back it went, on the other side of the rock of course, the quickest way not to catch fish is to throw back a galjoen into the same water you are trying to catch its mates in.  A very quiet 45 minutes of nothing from anyone, we were just thinking of moving to another spot  when my rod went down again, another big fish.  Off again?? This was amazing 2 fish lost on the same day in the same hole, I was not a happy chappie at all.  Needless to say after another 15 minutes of not a touch I knew there would be no more fish in this spot until the tide had turned and was pushing again, having hurt 2 fish at this spot did not help either.

We decided to pack up and move to another spot, Klein Gemors known to be a low tide fishing spot.  Having got there it did not look good at all, sand everywhere, Yster made a long cast to the back and got himself the mother of all mothers of an over wind, poor guy, but this is what you get for laughing at your buddies when they lose fish.

I decided to make a short cast to feel if there were any rocks washed open, I do this buy bringing my line in very slowly pulling it on the sandy bottom until I feel a rock, if I do feel rocks just leave the bait lying exactly there.  In the mean time Yster was still struggling to undo his crows nest with lots of very colorful words thrown in for good measure not helping at all.  Michael had made a cast as well but was also complaining that he felt no rocks.

The tide was turning so we decided to move to the Langbaai point and get more worms before the tide got too high, I nearly had my rod pulled right out of my hands the fish took so hard, another monster, possibly a steenbras with initial run being so fast, the line was peeling off my reel, then the fish stopped and the typical hard fight of a big galjoen took over, it must be huge we all thought this was it, the winning fish for sure, then the fish was off again, I could not believe what was happening to me on the day, losing yet another huge galjoen.  The fish had actually broken my line just above the hook, unbelievable 30 pound line, just like that?

At this point I should have packed up and headed for the clubhouse and drowned my sorrows, but decided to keep going with the other two guys, maybe they would have better luck.

Yster got a nice fat size galjoen at Langbaai 10 minutes later that he kept for the pan more than the actual weigh in, but you never know it might be the fish of the day.

I left the guys fishing at Langbaai to get more worms for the pushing tide when I met up with my wife Esmê and her friend Dalien at the car park, they had decided to fish with the guys for a change, not that we like it very much when the woman get to involved in our fishing, but they wanted to do it so that was it.

It suddenly became very cold and I could see there was a big cold front moving in from the Cape Town side, we were going to get seriously wet, that was for sure.  The ladies wanted to fish so they must handle the elements with the guys not so?

By the time I had got a good couple of worms Yster and Mike joined me on Kafferklip again where we had started that morning.  The sea had picked up quite a lot and the tide was coming in nicely when we started to fish the spot again.

I managed to land another undersized galjoen and Mike lost a huge fish that woke him up for the rest of the afternoon when I looked up to see the girls on the rocks near us shouting and screaming with excitement, Dalien had a fish on, and managed to land it.  We were clapping and applauding more to tease them than anything else when she was on again with the very next cast and managed to land it again.

Michael did not think this was a joke anymore and decided to move to where they were, the two fish she landed were both small cob and he felt he had better bait and tackle and he would go and show them exactly how it should be done when the rain came down in buckets.  It rained for the rest of the afternoon with cold gusting winds, we felt really sorry for the girls, but they managed to stick it out for about another hour before the cold got to them, we were actually also freezing our buts off so we knew exactly how cold they must be.

Yster is not big on water and waited for the girls to leave and then also packed up and went and sat in the car, 10 minutes later I saw his wife pick him up, moff. Mike and I kept trying for another 2 hours but nothing.  We packed up and went to the weigh in to get a drink and get warm. Except for Yster we were the first there, tough we were cold and had enough for one day.

The worse part for the 3 of us were that we knew the girls had caught weigh-able fish and we had not even one worth mentioning.  Even Ysters wife Debbie had managed to get a galjoen to weigh, we were never going to hear the end of it, of this I was sure.

We made two huge fires while we waited for the other fishermen to come in, and of course had a couple of dops to drown our sorrows. 

We were surprised at the amount of cob that was weighed in on the day, the heaviest weighing 6.84 kg. Total amount of cob weighed in was 9 and galjoen only 2.  The winner of the day was Andre Lourens with a galjoen of 1.26 kg, second prize was one of the ladies(ouch) a galjoen of just under a 1kg.  The heaviest other edible was caught by Mark Kruger, a cob of 6.84kgs.

Our next social competition will be held on the 14th of April and will be advertised in our local paper, The Hermanus Times.