We had some amazing fishing trips this past week.

On Saturday we had a company book 4 boat loads full of very excited anglers for a days fishing, TwinD Bust tours supplied a buss to transport the 28 anglers from Arniston to Struisbaai and back, and pretty soon we had them all aboard. Unfortunately our plea not to party too hard the previous evening went largely ignored and a few very weak fisherman were safely put to shore within 2 hours while the rest went back to the fun of fishing. Quite a number of good fish were caught and even the casualties could take fish home.

On Sunday we hosted Bloemenkraal farm for a year end fishing expedition with 18 anglers on board the two boats. The challenge of this trip was that the late lunch braai for the rest of the people were dependant on the fishing skills of the anglers that were on the Awesome boats - no fish, no braai!

Both the skippers understood the gravity of the situation and took great care in finding the right fishing spots. As can be seen from the picture there was enough fish caught to feed them all - with a little bit to spare. This was a trip enjoyed immensely by evertone and a great way to end the year.

On a trip to the deeper spots behind the 12 mile bank looking for silver fish we had an interesting catch. As we have found out it is better to catch these silvers (carpenters) on vertical jigs than on bait, and that was the method employed by most of the anglers. The skipper, Tjoppie du Toit, thought he had a super size silver on, but when the fish came to the boat we saw it was a red steenbras that was caught on the Jigstar jig. This is a pretty unique way of catching these fine predators and the 2nd time we have managed that. Now we still want to test this on the monsters on the 45's - I think the thrill of landing a 30kg+ Red Steenbras on a Jigstar rod will be amazing.

Another very interesting catch was made by Wimpy, one of the local anglers, fishing the shallow reefs with an Adrenalin 9ft dropshot rod  but using a piece of soft chokka for bait. His rod suddenly bent double and there was big cry of "Fish On!"

It took him about 10 minutes to bring the fish alongside the boat, and we were suprised to see an unknown species of rockcod. As the fish measured 55cm and was under the legal limit of 60cm for most rockcods we returned the fish - after a few happy snappies - to the sea.

The photos were sent to the JLB Smith institute for identification and this was the answer we received:

I wish to confirm that the fish caught at Struisbaai was a Moustage Rockcod and NOT a halfmoon rockcod. A distinguishing feature of the halfmoon rockcod is a semi-circle pattern on the pectoral fin, which this fish doesn’t have.

I might add that this is a range extension for this species. It was previously known south to Knysna. So it appears that climate change (global warming) might be pushing some rockcod species further southwards. We have also witnessed a big increase in the occurrence of catface rockcods all along the eastern and southern Cape regions.