Weekend Spearfishing Wrap up

Spearfishing this weekend was fairly good all along the coast, the north coast was very clean. The swell picked up a little making the diving a little challenging in the shallows. The game fish were fairly quiet with the odd report of snoek coming out at various spots. Some guys did not see any fish tho ... and it seems like there were a few large shoals of fish swimming up the coast and those lucky enough to bump into the snoek came right.

The Garrick also started to make an appearance, with reports of large shoals coming past some of the points. The water was a bit clean and few of these fish were speared.

I joined a mate and took my lighty far north for a shore dive. The swim out in the swell was interesting but he managed none the less. The surge ment that we had to dive fairly deep .. for him atleast. We found some good reef in the 10 -13m depth that was no effected by the swell too much.
Braiden managed to get some good fish including a snoek and Catface Rock Cod. I landed up with 2 snoek not too bad, but if you consider that we dived for over 4 hours it was a bit dismal.

Braiden Some good fish ... for a lighty.

Further down the coast the guys dived the HUC Gamefish Open, Darrell sent through this report:

Thanks to all who attended the HUC Gamefish open on Saturday. We had close to 60 entries from as far afield as Northern KZN and Gauteng and it was well supported by local KZN spearos.

Conditions were fine early in the morning other than the cold land breeze but the low spring tide coupled with a moderate swell made for very difficult close inshore conditions (especially for shore entries) with visibility reduced down to 2 meters in the churn and most points were inaccessible due to the tide so most fish were seen along the flat sretches and sheltered side of the points right in the backline area, however the shoals of Garrick were around and a few snoek but one had to virtually swim right into them and it didn’t give one much time to line up and shoot. Viz out deep in the middle S.Coast area was 5- 8 meters which also proved difficult hunting conditions for`couta and though a few good fish were bagged on Friday by ski anglers, none were seen on the comp day.

Those that ventured out to Aliwal Shoal also found game fish few and far between but there were a few Sailfish,Wahoo and Ignobilis knocking about for those lucky to see the fish.

Jaco Blignaut scooped top prize of R5000-00 cash for a sailfish estimated (as the fish were gutted and gilled before the weigh- in) of around 45 kg followed by Ferdi Burger with an estimated 17 kg Wahoo. Carl Werner bagged himself a 15,5 kg Ignobilis kingfish to take third prize of R1500-00 cash and the consolation prizes of equipment and spear guns followed for biggest bag and lesser individual weights mostly smaller Garrick other than Donovan Solomon`s estimated 9,5 kg fish which won him a new Rob Allen  1,2m reel gun.

I was stoked with my 8kg snoek (which I `stoned` in about 1,5m depth off the point at Umfazazane and a 6kg Garrick) which won me the 1,2 carbon fibre JOHRI speargun.

Henk Kranouw had ` hard luck` with pegging a big sailfish and losing it on Aliwal.

I`ll compile the full list of results and email it out this week.

A hearty thanks to the HUC committee,wives and spouses and main sponsors especially Danie Swanepoel of Esteem property builders and renovators, Rob Allen/Dive Factory,Dive and Leisure (Jan and Louise Krynski),Rabitech(Louis Hattingh),Johri spear guns,C-Freaks,Aqua planet,Jaxx restaurant, our other sponsors and the Carousel resort in Hibberdene for hosting the event,prize giving and braai.

Cheers

Darrell

The rest of this week looks bleak until Thursday / Friday and with the high tides early in the morning I am sure there will be some Garrick shot.

Cheers

Coatesman