Black Marlin Speared On Shore Dive

Paul Jorge 86kg Black Marlin

Every year around this time something really special happens in the world of spearfishing up on the North Coast. Today was that day! Paul Jorge shot and landed an 86kg Black Marlin while on a shore entry up the coast.

His amazing feat is not with out a story tho, first he swam out in the dark to the back of Salt Rock reef, but found that the reef was quiet and decided to swim all 650m back in and find another spot.
He then drove up the coast and swam out at Sheffield, and soon found some Snoek. While subduing the Snoek the Marlin came in and attacked his flasher. He did a quick reload with his 1200 speargun and planted a good shot behind the head.

The shot however did not hurt the fish and it took off out to sea, dragging him out with it. Paul reckons it just did not stop pulling and he just got deeper and deeper out, almost drowning him a couple times! Eventually he subdued the fish and with some quick thinking instead of killing the fish he just turned the massive fish to shore and let the fish swim him back to the back line. I cant think of too many people who would have thought about that.

Well done to Paul on an amazing catch.

Now bring on the seared Marlin steaks!! I'l do my part and bring the soy sauce :-)

Coatesman

Winter Couta Spearfishing Surprise.

Good haul for a shore dive

Lately the spearfishing on the north Coast has been typical of winter. Big swell most of the time with clean water, and baron reefs. It is generally a frustrating time of the year, you can dive 3 or 4 times and hit absolute blanks, with out even a hint of a decent fish.

So you can imagine that expectations at this time of year are generally pretty low when it comes to getting quality fish. Normally it is September before any action starts, and for the most part the big Couta returning from Sardine shoals down south miss us. I think they go out to sea, and only come back in up in Zululand.

This weekend things turned on its head a bit when  I was surprised with 3 Couta and a Wahoo on a local shore dive. Maybe its the no show by the Sardines that have the Couta returning early and coming in shallow to feed due to the fact that they did not find any Sardines to feed on.

The conditions were perfect and I knew the water was clean, fortunately I took my 1.3 speargun other wise I would have been in the bush. I walked a couple kilometres down the beach to a secluded reef I hoped to find some fish. (The reef is marked by a lone tree on the hill, those who know the area will know the place)
The reef was very quiet, as it has been for a few weeks and I started to look along the 14m line for some Crays when a lone single Couta swam past.

The fish striped my reel and half emptied my belt reel before slowing down. This means a whole lot of winding up afterwards but with a good fish on the end I was not complaining. I landed the big fish with out a hitch, sorted my line out and carried on scouting around for any other reef fish and crayfish. I seriously just though that was a luck fish and did not expect to see another one.

Next this a Wahoo swims in on the flasher, damn this fish must have been lost! I tentatively dropped down in-line with the fish. I am notoriously bad at shooting these fish. As was expected the fish turned up for the surface and away from me. I made a hard right turn away from the fish and swan a few more meters down, out the corner of my eye I see the fish stop and do a half turn back towards me. I pause to see if it was going to turn more but it turned away ...... damn I am blowing it!!! In a last ditch effort I haul ass up towards the fish and close the gap just close enough for my 1.3 with 2x 14mm rubbers to deliver a spear smack between the anal and dorsal fins. Once again both reels were stripped and again I was not complaining once the fish was safe on my float.

Now with 2 fish that looked between 15 and 20kg I knew that caring them the couple kilometres on the beach was not going to be fun. That and the fact that the current had turned pushing me even further away from where I had parked. I figured that a slow swim back would be easier and I might pick up a little something extra on the way.

An hour later I was still swimming and only half way home, I had reached the last piece of reef before a good 1.5km of open sand back the the beach by the car. I reefed up to take a break from the current, and while I was resting holding onto my float a Couta comes cruzing in. I leave the float and drop down next to the fish and it does the text book turn to look at me and catches my spear mid body. That's another fish on my float. not as big as the others, but wow another Couta ... This is getting better than a summer dive!

I decide to do a couple dives who knows maybe there are more, and on the second dive while on the bottom a fat Couta swims right over the top of me and once again all my line disapeared on my gun reel and my belt reel was empting fast. After a short tussle the fish about the same size as the first Couta was on the stringer and I was winding in the line. This time around my arm was starting to cramp and I had to take a few breaks in between resting holding onto the float.

By now the east had picked up and the current was getting stronger. If I was going to make make it home any time soon I was going to have to leave .... even if there where more fish around. Now the fish were a serious drag and the only way I could get ahead was to have the stringer over my shoulder and the fish on my back and in my wake as I swam. I tried the inshore but with the large swell I was not going any were fast. Walking was not an option with the 50-60kgs of fish.

The swim took almost 2 hours with only the stoke of an amazing catch fuelling my legs. That and possibly the fact that I had no other options. I eventually washed up the beach and was greeted by a black fisherman who helped me get the fish out the shore break. Had he not been there I don't think I would have managed.

Tiered, broken and smiling this was a day I wont forget in a long time.

Coatesman

Shark Attack at Tiffanies!

Dale with 1 time half chewed off fin!

Quinton White sent me this mail about a shark 'attack / bite' at Salt Rock on Sunday!!

On Sunday a couple of us returned to Tiffany’s only because the day before had 100’s of good size snoek. Unfortunately Sunday only had bad viz and between 5 of us only 1 couta was spotted. We decided to get out of the water, Dale, Craig and myself swam in together, I was through backline first and dale followed, once you were through back line you we were on a sand bank, I managed to get over the sand bank quite quickly, and dale was still on the sand bank 4m away from a surfer. Dale got jerked about a meter or two back wards and was under the impression someone was fooling around when he lifted his head out the water him and the surfer was looking at each other not knowing who did what, later when we tried to put the puzzle together, it cam out that the surfer thought that Dale’s fin hit him the same time Dale jumped up. The scary thing is that is was only waste deep water and we think the only culprit that it could be is a Zambezi with a reaction bite in white water. Would be interesting to send the fin to ORI and see what they say. I have attached a pic of the fin.

44kg Wahoo .. South African Spearfishing Record?

Brod 44kg Wahoo - La Mercy

Not only is this the biggest Wahoo shot in SA, it was shot off a shore dive!!! There has been an unpresedented flurry of great fish being shot off shore dives ... but this one tops them all!!!!
Brod planted himself at the top off SA's spearo's at nationals and with fish like this well .... no body is saying different!!
The only thing is that I am not sure Brod has even sent in to claim the South African Spearfishing Record!!

A Record never the less!!

Coatesman

Spearfishing the Eastern Cape

Terance Bellingan - a good Miss Lucy and a Poensie

I think us chaps up the north coast are seriously spoilt, I mean the water is generally warm and we can get some seriously good gamefish. Take the last few posts for example ... all very good fish ... and they are big!!
Then on the other hand you have the Eastern Cape, the water is sum what fridged and well you dont often get any big pelagics ... well other than Yellow Tail and Tuna. But for the most part its sneaking around the cracks looking for good reef fish.

Terance sent in this pic from a shore dive near Port Alfred, I must say if it wern't for the Miss Lucy and Poensie it could have passed for Mozam ... looking good, but just a tad colder! I have never dived Port Alfred, although I have surfed it and it has some epic waves. Another mate of mine did a surf trip there a couple years back, he took his dive kit along and when it went flat took a boat out to one of the spots.
He said the water looked clean but it was very gloomy .... apparently thats normal for there?
Anyway he said that on almost every dive he bumped into Raggies, and some of them he had to push off as they were quiet frisky!!

So I suppose we have it too good here ... I should stop complaining that the water is 20deg and the Cuta are scars!! Anyway nice fish Terance .... keep the pic's coming.

Cheers

Coatesman

Spearfishing - Shoredive Madness

Morne Muller - Wahoo 22.5kg & Cuta 21.3kg

Some would say what a luck!! A Wahoo and Cuta both over 20kg and both speared on the same shore dive, and at a spot that is dived alot! Hang I have spent hours out on the drop off and have not come close to this feat.

I suppose any great part of fishing has some element of luck to it, but when you consider that when every one was milking the snoek in the shallows for the last few months Morne was on the sand in the deep .... and most times came in with nothing to show for his efforts. So I suppose luck and opportunity were to collide some time.

Like Gary Player once said "the more I practice the lucker I get.." or something to that effect!

Ok so we have delt with the luck issue ...how about the jealousy??? Gee I am green I can think of a single spearfisherman who would not want to be able to say they got a wahoo and cuta of this size on a shore dive.

I mean mates of ours spent the who week down the south coast (were all the action is supposed to be) & with a boat ... they dived all the spots and no 'luck' - nothing!!

And back home .... well ...nothing wrong with home!!

Anyway now the bar has been raised..... its gonna be a tough one to beat!!

Coatesman