Of Summer, Dorado and Beer…

Benjamin Franklin once said that beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. That is only because he has never heard a screaming reel. If he did, he would have preferred a screaming reel to beer. Zululand is known for its heat but the midsummer months have been the hottest since we moved here nearly 23 years ago. Some say it is a sign of global warming, others say it is God punishing us for our sins. All I know is that we had to stay well hydrated and we therefore consumed copious amounts of beer. It also gave us reason to partake in waterborne activities such as kayak fishing. Cape Vidal was the focus of our attention. A moody sky on our way to Cape Vidal. Before we could reach the water though, we had to run the gauntlet of queues, gates and wildlife. One morning between the gate and the launching site, we were held up by two elephants blocking the road. Vehicles towing ski boats or with kayaks on the roof soon started to back up. We were in a hurry to get on the water, but the elephants were in no hurry to let us pass. A standoff soon developed with the vehicles towing ski boats finding it difficult to give way to the elephants’ resolute use of the road to reach their next meal. Eventually, after some headshaking and ear flapping, the elephants moved off the road and we could race on (at 50km/h due to the speed restrictions) to the launch site. A feisty elephant blocked the road to the launch site. The dorado arrived in October last year and good catches were made. Some days they were thick as thieves and would eagerly devour any bait placed in the water. On other days they were hard to catch and even the choicest live baits received little attention. It was all in the weather. A light south westerly wind warmed the water and brought the fish closer to shore. With the north westerly the fish were much harder to catch. It was therefore important to go fishing on those rare days that the sea and wind calmed just after a cold front came through. Sunrise at Cape Vidal. I caught this yellowfin tuna on an overcast day on live bait and a circle hook. This dorado could not resist a live bait hooked on to a cuda trace. A bar of gold! Freshly caught, dorado glows like a bar of gold. Once it loses it struggle for life, the gold quickly fades to a dull green. Marcus Potgieter landed and released a magnificent sailfish with live bait on a circle hook. Markus Potgieter made it look easy. He caught 5 dorado and a sailfish on one morning. The sailfish was released unharmed. Markus is the owner of “Seafaris” - if you are interested in a kayak fishing trip, contact him on 082 543 6475. Mike (whose surname we don’t have), Markus Schaefer and Taariq Levack with their catches. In any event, we eventually reached the launch site and made haste to get our craft on the water. We made it safely through the breakers and headed for the live bait spot to fill up with live bait on yo-zuris. Live bait was plentiful with big shoals boiling on the surface but catching them was still difficult – as soon as you paddled into the shoal, the fish would disappear into the depths and refuse to be fooled by a yo-zuri. What produced the best results was to paddle past the shoal and let the wind drift you noiselessly back into it. Taariq Levack with a good-sized bull dorado caught on a circle hook and live bait. Even the small ones count. With our live baits rigged, we went hunting for the monsters of the deep. Game fish was difficult to come by most of the time. Only Markus Potgieter made it look easy. When I passed him on the water, he had three dorado in his hatch and I had only one. He fished his live bait on circle hooks tied to a fluorocarbon trace line. I made a mental note to use circle hooks next time I go fishing. Shortly afterwards a sailfish was dancing behind his kayak. He asked me to follow him to get a photo before he released the fish. He wasted no time in landing it and I got the all-important photo. Soon after he released the sailfish he bagged two more to fill his quota of five dorado and headed back to the beach. Karel Hanlun with two dorado caught off his kayak. With my next launch I switched over to circle hooks on a fluorocarbon trace line and landed a dorado and a yellowfin tuna. That evening we had excellent seared tuna for dinner! The dorado season has come to a close and the king mackerel, commonly known as couta, has arrived, so now until winter we are replacing our fluorocarbon traces with steel wire. When targeting big “croc”-size couta, we even use 1mm cable wire with large wala-wala baits with numerous treble hooks embedded in it. If one of those crocs end up in my hatch, you will be the first to know! Just add searing spice! Seared tuna for dinner.