Hey All,
Firstly I must say a MASSIVE Thank You to Stefano and Cynthia for their incredible hospitality and for inviting Roy and myself up to Struis to spend the evening with them, and to putting all the effort into organising us a trip out with some of the fine Struisbaai folks....
A HUGE thanks....
Roy and myself were priviledged enough to be able to fish with Maans on board his BEAUTIFUL 28ft Butt Catt Aqua Tes, along with Fredrik from Awesome Charters, and Choppie who played deckie for us, and Stefano, myself and Roy filling out the 6 Pack on board...
I must say another huge thank you to Maans for having us on board his wonderful craft... I certainly have not stepped foot on a better laid out boat in SOuth African waters... what a pleasure... all the right attention to detail, so cleverly laid out, and put together by someone who very evidently loves his time on the water... and spending time with Maans, its very easy to see how much he loves being on the water, and his boat... lovely to see, and superb vessel to be on...
The day started interstingly with a very low tide in the harbour, which kept us on dry land for a while ( WHich was great though, as it gave us time to meet alot of folks on the dock, and show alot of our JigStar Africa Gear to some very interested anglers) and a fair amount of swell making the launch a little like my growing up days of running the surf on the KZN South Coast... Aqua Tes took it all very nicely in her stride and we were soon smoothly off to 12 Mile Bank...
Maans and Fredrik found us some birds, which were running here there and everywhere, so we decided to get on the troll and then drop a jig when we got a strike...
5 minutes of trolling, VAS on the back lines and the jigs were deployed......
Roy hooked up first on one of our new jigs, the Saltwater Labs Cuttlefish in Pink 200 grams... I only had one in my jig bag, which Roy had already clipped to hi Assist hook before I could even reach for it... cheeky bugger!
It proved to be the hot jig for the day, as its size, colour and wonderful darting action certainly drew the most hits.
The flat calm conditions got flatter and flatter, and glassed off completely and with the fantastic visibilty we could see the groups of Yellowtail, in 2's and 3's chasing the jigs up from the depths... they were obviously not in full feeding mode, but varying jigging speeed and style, bought us strikes....
Unfrotunately we had a burn off on a fish of Roys which wrapped up another line under tension and the braid sliced through the hundred pound Leader, which sent our SW Lab Cuttlefish simming off with a Yellowtail in the 8 kilo class attached to it...
So if anyone on 12 Mile lands a YT with some jewellry, hang onto that jig, its a winner!
After the Yellowtail died down, we trolled a bit then hit some bottom marks in hopes of a Red Steenbras.... A dream of mine is a big Red Steenbras on a jig.... Well I didn't land a big one, but at least managed one on a jig... I was fishing a squid Jig tipped with octopus leg ( I purist I am not!!!
) and managed a Steenbras of about 2 kilos which was a first for me, and very stoked about that!!
We put a couple other bits and bobs on board, including a pair of Roman on bait, and Fredric and Maans had a few good tussles with some fair size sharkies which was good entertainment...
A ride home in picture perfect conditions on a flat calm sea, on a beautiful boat, in great company with spectacular scenary capped off the day.... I suddenyl realised while heading back, sitting in the bow of AquaTes, soaking up the scenery, that we were right off the Tip of this great continent....... I know that may be obvious to many, but for a first time Struisbaai visitor, and one who has not yet been to Agulhas, it was a magical feeling, which finished off a superb day on the water with some great guys, and some lovely fun fish.
Once again a MASSIVE thank you to Stefano and Cyn for having us, and organising us a ride out. Special thanks to Maans for having us on board and to Fredrik and Choppie for making us feel so at home and welcome on board.
I hope this is the first of many trips to Struisbaai and the surrounding area, you guys are blessed to be ina very special part of the world!
My Many Thanks once again, and hope to see you guys again soon.
Respect
Andre - JigStar Africa
A couple pics... Just wish I'd shot more scenic pics..... but there were fish to be chased....
Roy teaching a lesson to the Tail... and in turn getting a good work out on the JigSTar 250 JM PE 4 combo...
The Result - a Lovely 7 or 8 kilo class YT....
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