Cape Point and Cape Agulhas Fishing Report - Friday 14 January 2011
In my last report, October 2010, I mentioned that the tuna had not yet arrived. Those of you who have been fishing and/or keeping your ear to the ground will know by now that our spring 2010 tuna season was practically a non-event. But, more of that in the offshore section below. Then came December and the general consensus is that it was the windiest December in many years, so much so that the water along most of the coast was icy cold. The yellowtail at Cape Point made way for the biggest shoals of snoek that many of us have ever seen and at least when we could get out, the snoek fed like they were running out of time.
False Bay has been her usual finicky self and up the coast things have not been much better. Not because there were no fish, on the contrary, I heard reports of massive schools of yellowtail off Struisbaai, but no-one could really get out there to catch them, and when they did, the buggers would not bite.
Meanwhile we still wait with forlorn hope that the tuna will arrive late and give us something to cheer about......
OFFSHORE
I was still in Gabon in early September when I received reports of a couple of yellowfin being caught in the canyon area. I got back on 16 September amidst a general air of excitement and anticipation, and a few more reports.
The tuna "professors" were saying, and I'll put it in the words of one of them, "A tuna bomb is about to go off in the deep".
I will admit that I also expected the most. For the first time in a couple of years, the early winds were blowing from the SE and the water was looking good. All the "signs" were there. But nothing happened. The winds dropped away, the water remained greenish, never got warm, but most of all, for whatever the reason, the tuna arrived in what could only be described as drips and drabs. I managed to do five trips on Lynx in October and caught five yellowfin. Three on one trip, two on another and zero on the rest. Tyler caught one fish of 82kg. Of the five fish on Lynx, two were over 90kg. One was 98kg and I caught it on 50lb tackle. A personal best for me!! And that was it.
November came and went, we did not do a single trip for tuna and those few boats that did venture out caught a longfin here and there. Then came December and the SE came with it. I do not have the stats, but it blew practically every day. So much so that I heard of a number of holiday makers that said "Bugger it", packed up and left their holiday behind them.
On the odd day that the wind did drop, the water in the canyon was green and cold. All we caught were snoek at Cape Point. At least they did not let us down.
The question begs to be asked. What happened to the tuna this year?
I am certainly no authority on the subject, but I did have the priviledge of listening to someone who is. The chief scientist of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) is of the opinion that the Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna stocks are in a severe state of depletion. The IOTC is a body governing the harvesting of tuna in the Indian Ocean and is represented by about 27 nations fishing in the entire Indian Ocean. In the last five years, these nations (SA is a very small fish in this pond) have literally decimated the tuna stocks in the Indian. According to the recommendations of the IOTC, the sustainable yield of yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean was around 250 000 tonnes per year. By now, due to over fishing, it is much lower. During the course of 2005, 2006 and 07, the participating nations removed over 500 000 tonnes of yellowfin alone from the Idian Ocean.
Where does this leave us? In a nutshell, unless the IOTC changes the way they fish, our yellowfin are effectively a thing of the past. We will continue to catch the odd one, but the catches as we have come to know them are over. We find ourselves at the extreme end of the yellowfin tuna's migratory path and each spring and autumn it is the overflow of the Indian Ocean stock that reaches us. With the state of the stock, there is far less overflow and hence less fish in our water. The findings of the IOTC is based on a tagging program that was undertaken three years ago in which around 180 000 tuna were tagged, roughly 40 000 of them were yellowfin.
This is a very simplified version of the current state of affairs, and there are many other factors to be taken into consideration, but it surely paints a bleak picture. I hope everyone is wrong and that the only reason the tuna did not show up is because the water, wind and currents were not right. We will have to wait until April to find out...............
On the bright side, he also told me that the activities of the pirates in the Indian Ocean are severely curtailing the fishing operations and a number of countries have already told their fishing fleets to pack up an go back to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans where they were operating until a few years ago. Every cloud has a silver lining.
INSHORE AND FALSE BAY
Cape Point has delivered snoek in abundance. Basically it has been a case of "when you can get there, you fill up". The water has been between 10 and 14 degrees for most of the summer and this probably explains why the snoek are still there and why they are still in superb condition. I cannot remember a December season when the snoek have been as plentiful. The downside of this little scenario has been the absolute lack of yellowtail. Personally I think they all froze to death. Well, not quite, but almost. There have been a few caught ten or fifteen miles off the point where the water is a bit warmer, and there have been some in the far NW corners of False Bay. i.e Fishhoek, Simonstown etc. The beach seine netters hammered them a few weeks ago and I heard rumours of tonnes of fish being trekked. There has been no sign of them at Seal Island or any of the other regular haunts. I did see a few from the fly-bridge of Lynx when I was in Buffels Bay the other day, but they were in a screaming hurry to be anywhere but there and they did not even turn on my spinner.
The rest of False Bay has been OK. Down at Strandfontein, Swartklip and Macassar the thresher sharks have provided us with some brilliant fun on light tackle, but the cob and cape salmon have been scarce. The shore anglers have been doing very well on cob and have even caught some cape salmon from the beaches. I can only ascribe this to the fact that we have had so much SE wind that there is a severe thermocline in any water deeper that a few meters. In addition to this, the continuous wind has blown the warm surface water into the shallows and this has resulted in the fish staying very close to the shore. So, False Bay is worth a go, but fish close to the shore.
STRUISBAAI AND CAPE AGULHAS
I was down there three weeks ago and although there were not many fish being caught, (SE hammered them as well) when the boats did get out they were reporting plenty of yellowtail on the banks. Since then the SE has still been making its presence felt and although I have not been there myself, judging by the reports, the weather and fishing has not been great. A friend of mine got some nice yellowtail (up to 14kg) on the Alphards a week ago and I have spoken with a few divers who shot some on the shallower reefs.
The shore anglers have been getting into the cob quite regularly and I have heard that the Pearly Beach area has been outstanding.
On the bright side, the Two Oceans Marlin Competion is coming up in Feb and just this week I have had reports of good water, flying fish, birds, bonnies etc. A few marlin have been seen and if the weather plays ball we should be in for a banger of a comp. I hope so. I need something positive to say on my reports. If I keep going as I have been above, we won't have any clients coming fishing. Times are tough in the fishing business you know.
On that note, I need to let everyone know that we will, as we did last year and the year before, be going down to Struisbaai with Tyler for the month of Feb and maybe March. We have had a few enquiries for the Marlin Comp, but no-one has made a firm booking. If you are keen, get hold of me. We are working on a "he who books first, comes first" basis. We have also got a few firm bookings for the Alphard Banks and the Forty Fives. BIG RED STEENBRAS. We have the right co-ordinates and although we have yet to land one of those 40kg plus brutes, we have had them on the line and landed fish in the 20's. In addition to that we often get dorado, yellowtail and all sorts of other things on those trips. We have really had some awesome days out there on the deep reefs and I can recommend a trip. Weather permitting of course.
That is about all we've got this time around. Lets hope I have good news shortly and that 2011 is a cracker of a year for you all.
Till next time, tight lines and good fishing. Regards - Alan .
