The title of this week’s article sounds like the sermon according to Wayne and for those with any religious connection, you may recognise it as being from the bible, Luke 11:9, which, in the modern translation is, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will fi nd; knock and the door will be opened to you.” As with all sayings and quotes we can twist them to suit our own purposes, so forgive me for using a bible quote as the basis for a fishing trip last week.
For some time I had been planning a trip where catching fish was not the main goal, but rather seeking new fishing grounds. When your priority is catching fish, you tend to go straight to the where you know, so Jungle and I ventured where neither of us had any fishing spots. A check of the Capes marine chart beforehand provided an approximate area to investigate, although at six in the morning, a twenty knot north easter and swell increase meant we were in for a tough day. We dragged a lure out the back hoping for a stray tuna or mackerel ( yes, they are around again ), with our eyes were fi rmly fi xed on the sounder, set to read only the bottom ten metres. In swell, it is very diffi cult to determine rises in the sea bottom, but we persisted with the aim to identify fish signals and then conduct a grid search. So we bounced around the ocean for a few hours, marked and grid searched four or fi ve possibilities, but aft er I landed the third Gurnard, Jungle was starting to doze off and handed the helm over to me. We agreed to head further out and just as Jungle was about to start snoring, I spotted a few colour changes on the sounder and began another grid search. Initially, it looked no diff erent from previous spots, but once we slowed down, giving the transducer an opportunity to pick up better signals, it did look more promising. Out with the sea anchor on a tricky day with the current running north, wind heading south, boat doing 360’s and it seemed everything was against us. One thing in our favour was the bite time predicting to be excellent for the day, right about now. We drift ed through the country and if it hadn’t been for a couple of minor bites at the end of the drift , we would have continued further out.
On the second drift , Jungle hooks up with what seems like his herring rod, but is a Saltiga reel on a strong, but light rod. I bring my line in quickly as it is obvious this is a solid fish and easy for lines to be tangled. After the fourth run, we had all but convinced ourselves this was a massive kingy and Jungle was beginning to show signs of fatigue. The fish had stayed directly below the boat, even as we were drifting fast, but aft er fi ft een minutes of carefully playing the fish, the line started to rise away from the boat and our hopes were raised. About thirty metres away from the boat fl oated a massive male Dhuie, mouth wide open, hooks in the gills and Jungle working hard against the wind and current, but making no headway. I slowly reversed the boat, netted the fish and we were high fi ves as it weighed in at 42lbs with only one 5/0 hook in a gill. Two drift s later we landed another two Dhuies, one safely released, as well as a large black arse. We had seeked, asked, knocked on the door and were duly rewarded.
To answer last week’s question, three skippers in the Capes region would have been rescued much quicker in the last three weeks by calling ACRM Base on VHF Channel 80. Th is week’s question is, ‘What is the new pass mark for the RST theory exam?’