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*WHAT'S HAPPENING ON THE LOCAL SCENE - Monday 7 March 2011*

The last two months in Struisbaai have delivered some really good
fishing for us and our clients. We have raised somewhere in the region
of 30 marlin, had numerous hook-ups and released two very nice striped
marlin. A few big black marlin have also managed to "fall off" after
fighting them for various periods of time. In addition to this we have
had some classy red steenbras, up to 27kg, but the really big ones
have still eluded us. Now, we are wrapping things up down there. We
will be bringing Tyler back next week and it will then be back to tuna
and whatever else we can find in this neck of the woods. The news from
the tuna grounds is that things are starting to happen. Hopefully we
will experience a better second half of the season than the dismal
start we had in October and November. but, more of that later.

Shore Angling
In our last report and on the blog, we reported that Brian McFarlane,
our good friend and sometimes client, caught a magnificent Kob of
38kg. This time he fished in the Five Species Tournament in Struisbaai
and caught a whole bagful of vairous fish including belman and kob.
For his efforts he came second and won a tuna fishing charter with
South Sea Safaris. Sorry Brian, hope you get a better prize next time,
but for this time you will just have to come and pull a few of those
big yellowfins with us. Hopefully.

Further news is that the SA Shore Angling Nationals delivered tons of
fish, well shark actually. Literally. I am not a shark angler and hope
never to become one, but respect to those who do battle with them and
pull the cartiliginous critters from the sea. At least they are all
put back to fight again another day. I am not sure exactly how many
were caught, but last I heard they had caught around eight tons of
various flat fish and sharks. Mostly bronzies I should imagine. Natal
managed to wrestle the most sharks from the sea, followed by Boland
and then our very own Western Province boys. Well done to all the guys
who took part. I should imagine there were a few stiff arms and sore
backs around by the end of the week. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that
they also probably had the best weather week we have had in months. As
far as edible fish go, I am once again under correction, but I am told
there were five Kob caught for the whole competition.

The SA Shore Angling B Nationals were also held recently in
Struisbaai and according to those reports, the guys did equally well
down there too. Plenty of big ragged tooths, big flat fish (rays) and
all sorts of other odds and ends. Whilst down there and on one of the
breezy days, I went to die Walle area and tagged 7 kob in a couple of
hours. Sizes ranged from just undersize to about three kg's. As I
mentioned before, I am not a shark angler so, for me to catch some
nice kob was paradise.

Offshore
On the tuna side there is not much news from us because we have not
been out there yet. I do know that some of the boats did really well
on the weekend with longfin tallies of up to 50 fish on a boat. I also
know that one boat caught a yellowfin of 32kg. As far as our standards
go for yellowfin, this is by no means a big fish, but it is sgnificant
in that at least there is a showing. Since Nov it has been practically
stone dead out there and moving into the autumn season, it is around
now that the yellowfin can start showing up. In fact, they
traditionally start showing up anytime in March and if the signs are
anything to go by, maybe, just maybe we will have some sort of
normality with our yellowfin season in the next few months. Within the
next few weeks we will know.

Cape Agulhas
This is where all the action has been in the last few weeks and we
managed to get our fair share of it. Last week, we released another
Striped marlin and lost a big black marlin that spat the hooks after
five minutes. We managed two days on the alphards and although I was
not fortunate enough to be out on the boat on those occasions,
according to the crew there was more than enough excitement to keep
everyone happy. On the first outing, they raised nine marlin and had
two hook-ups, both of which fell off after short runs. On the second
outing, they raised four fish and managed to release a striped marlin
of 80kg or so, A big black marlin also attached himself to the kona
for a while, but fell of after five minutes or so.

I am acutley aware of the fact that we have a very poor strike to
hook-up rate on these fish and it has been the subject of many late
night debates over many beers. I say "we" meaning all the boats that
fish in that area. Some years ago, when we started catching these
fish, I put it down to inexperience. None of us had a clue what we
were doing and I ascribed the low hook-up rate to this fact. Since
then we have caught enough marlin to move up from the rank of absolute
novice to somewhere between amatuer and mildly experienced. Yet the
damn hook-up rate stays at about 1 in 6. We are still debating the
reasons and have since read many books on the subject. One day when I
know, you will all be the first to share my knowledge. In the
meanwhile, although we are having plenty of fun catching these things,
it is still rather frustrating when one spends a day out there, gets
five or six strikes and every one of them either fails to stick or
falls off after a short time. We will get the bottom of it, watch this
space.

Lastly, the Struisbaai Yellowtail Derby and the Five Species (two
separate competitions) were held on Saturday. We took a group of
clients that had not fished with us for some years and managed to get
the biggest Kob of the competition. Once again, I was not there, but
judging by the reports, the guys had a ball. The yellowtail were
really scarce, as they have been for the whole season and apparently
there were only a few caught on the Twelve Mile Bank. I will do the
blogspot later and put up pictures. For now, I've got to rush. See the
address below.

Go to http://southseasafaris.blogspot.com/ and become a follower. I
will, in time, be doing more pictures and updates there.

Till next time, tight lines and good fishing.
Regards - The SSS team.