365 days of fishing

Started with Josh phoning me and saying the vlei was looking interesting, the tide was high, pushing in. So after a very late cup of coffee, we ran out of electricity in the night, went around and picked up Josh. We walked around the vlei, I saw a few harders, but no large schools that would make fishing for them worthwhile. Josh of course ended up exploring and balancing on a set of poles, ending up unbalancing and getting completely wet at 14 degrees ouside temp.

Took him home to face approbation from Carol and get a new set of Clothes. Then decided to take a drive down to Broken road. I had left my waders at home and so Broken road is aplace where one can fish from the car at high tide. Just cast from  the road.

There were quite a few rods there around 15 in the corner an next to the pool, only saw a skaamhaai, shyshark come out. One guy came back eating chips saying he had just lost a Cob in the narly rocks. So on with the pilchard and in with the cast. Still terible casting, sinkers too light?

Steve from Redham arrived as we were scouting the place, he is a Redham Student and I often see him when i'm out fishing, he mirrors my keenness for fishing, swopped some stories of course. Me telling him about my Gulley shark at Haga Haga and how i now understand the rush of a good reel run and a strong shark on the other end. ALthough at the moment i'm am going to stick to fishing for the lighter edibles.

He telling about thier journey to Plettenberg Bay, where whilst fishing for Stingrays, they kept on getting picked up by Great Whites. I asked him how he knew they were great Whites, he said that they have a very distinctive way of fighting. Apparently the rush out and turn and rush in with their mouths open trying to cut the line, and very often succeeding.

Now as the Great Whit is a  protected species in South Africa, one is not even allowed to try and catch them., but what do you do if you are fishing for other sharks and you get picked up by one.  Chances of landing them are pretty slim.

I met Steve and his Dad, whilst driving back from Beespens, when i stopped to check out some other fishing spots. There the dad was on the beach, dancing up and down with the rod, a strange pumping of the tip, kinda looked he was dry humping the rod. Now i knew that he was sliding having seen the dance before, just never so energetic. I stopped out of curiosity to ask for example how come the sinker doesn't come unstuck. Whilst it is a grapnel. such pressure on the sinker would surely cause it to move, he explained to me that they use tie downs or those selflocking black ties to keep the grapnel hooks from comming loose. He did explain that sometimes it was a big mission to unstick them when the time came to go, or check your bait. With the size of the bait they were using one had to be energetic about sliding it to the sinker.

Seen them several times since, always good to see a friendly face, although generally the fellow fishereman in cape town are some very genuine, helpful and friendly characters.

No fish at broken road though. One guy in Particular using bloodworm was changing his bait and getting baits but nothing landed before we came home around 5:30.

After showering and dinner it is off to watch the finals of the world cup.