Clean and clear diving conditions last week. For a change! Says spearfishing scribe Jason Heyne.
The diving conditions last week were slightly above average with good weather . Big queen mackerel and ambers are coming out. Saturday a moderate northeast was forecast and played out with a 1.6m swell running. Sunday the northeast wind was up early morning with a light offshore blowing switching to a light onshore later on with a 1.7m swell running. Viz was reported north and south. Club merit fish of last week went to Dylan with his 1st yellow fin tunny and fish of the week goes to Neil with his pending SA record amber! As always dive safe and straight spears.
Jason Heyne checks in with Spearo news weeklyreporting typical summer conditions and species.
Well the diving conditions this week have been tough. The sea came right today (Friday) after a few days of big swell . King and queen Mackerel are around with some big ambers out deep. Saturday the swell is minimal and the wind switches from a light south east in the morning to a light northeast in the afternoon. Sunday the swell picks up to 1.8m and the northeast freshens towards midday . Travis gets club merit fish of the week with his first cape knifejaw and Don gets fish of the week with a 17kg cracker. As always dive safe and straight spears.
Bodysurfin’ The Movie: It’s not often you find something that blows you completely away. But this is will. Blow you the hell away. Flung by a masterful piece of artwork in the form of a quasi-ephemeral timepiece movie about the purest wave riding form we know about.
Bodysurfing.
It feels like a hundred years ago when my brother Marc and I were fortunate enough to hang out with a certain Frenchie Fredericks, as kids. The same Frenchie that toured the north shore as a Springbok surfer in a sponsored VW beetle late 60’s. This was way before any doors needed breaking down. Frenchie’s erstwhile and notable companion was Christine Petrucci. The first Springbok lady surfer. Who used hang out with The Rell. And is the mother of *Maya.
Frenchie was heavily into board design and fin technology. And as early teens, Marc and I fell in with his mystical dreamings and fanciful wave riding philosophies. He surfed with aplomb, and a nice twitch which he converted into speed whenever he needed it. An intense surfer, full of concentration. Flare.
Back then, a day on the beach was just that. An entire day on the beach. Starting way before the sun. And ending with it.
Umtentweni, our local beach, was infamous for it’s shorebreak. On a decent spring with some east swell lying around, this dumper could really deliver. With Frenchie’s encouragement, we were all up for it. So much tube time. So many laughs. So many grazes.
And it was here that Marc and I were able to live life through Frenchie’s decades of experience and travels a while. In between waves he would chat north shore and south shore. Names that were God-like to us. Haleiwa. Laniakea. The Pipe. And whilst surfing these mystical meccas, Frenchie was rubbing shoulders and sharing waves with the likes of Nat Young and Rell Sun. He even knew Gerry Lopez!
Those days charging the huge shorebreak with Frenchie Fredericks were right in our formative years. He taught us how to wipe-out properly. How to porpoise a wave. How to survive the sand!
So when I found this. Bodysurfin’ The Movie. I was flung back to those pure and simple days. When having a surfboard didn’t even matter. Because you could just go for a ‘body’…any high tide you liked.
BUT what a movie features just below! If you would like to get real familiar with the inside workings of a tubing wave, watch away! The camera work is straight from George Greenough and the completely custom made sound track and movie score is oh so ephemeral. This movie dollops buckets of kudos onto such a noteworthy and noble pastime as is bodysurfing.
Enjoy and share a magnificent surfing production – these guys really turned it on! You ought to watch every scene. Listen to every note. I did.
Footnotes:
Coincidences?
There are two wild coincidences in this story. Firstly. Christine Petrucci. Mother of Maya. *Maya is Geoffrey Petrucci from JBay. His first name is Maya. He bust his neck bodysurfing the infamous ‘Tweni shorebreak when he worked with us at The Spot. Nineties. He survived just fine, but Christine still blamed us!
Second coincidence. Frenchie’s spearing buddy in the late eighties was none other than The Sardine News’ spearfishing editor at the time, our very own Darrell Hattingh!
At 4 am this early morning, whilst I was tossing and turning (dreaming of marlin perhaps) with another bout of the Big M. (Malaria) – I sensed some activity outside.
My brother Marc was back from Angola. And he had his son Brandon and his mate Tristan Roodt.
They were prepping the good boat Niteshift, and soon headed out through the Umzimkulu River mouth, into a rough and ready ocean. All confused from the day before as the south and north wind argued like they have been. From my angle, the wind just blew and blew, but with high tide all day, I knew they could return anytime they liked really.
But they didn’t.
The first Instagram video came through – wasting time with a shark.
But then silence. For ages.
The wind got right up again. 20 Knots or more. Ideal dorado weather. And marlin!
And so it was, the early birds, after spending a good few hours getting into the swing of the day, found the worm.
The dorado came screaming in and a total of five eventually made it into the hatch for a free boat ride. Many got away and lost out.
Delicious dorado for dinner! Reward for releasing the marlin!
At one point, Marc took a look at his plugging outfit looking all lonely. So in sympathy, he picked it up and gave it a lob. As it hit the water, without any sign or warning, a tasty little yellowfin tuna smashed it! Luck? I dunno?
Marlin!
Then all of a sudden, there it was. An angry 100kg plus marlin picked on the blue number 2 Mydo Livebaitswimmer, armed with those reliable 5x little black trebles from Mustad.
Not wanting to cause the fish too much distress before he let it go, Marc pushed the drag right up and gave the jumping, dancing fish the gears. In 25 minutes he had the fish beat and behaving in front of the boat?! Marc pulled the tiny trebles out easily enough, and sent it on its way a lot more wily and suspicious of those Mydos and how good they are rigged!
The Mydo LiveBaitSwimmer is just like a Baitswimmer, but it has a strong little single hook to pin the lively live bait with. There are two weights, 1 Oz and 2Oz, so you can keep your livies away from eachother, on the drift, or on the troll.
More about the lure Marc used to catch this marlin today…and details of which shops carry The Mydo range can be found at https://thesardine.co.za/mydo/
Jason Heyne checks in with a December 2017 Spearo Report for the KZN waters.
“The diving conditions were appalling over December. Far north was the best option. Saturday and Sunday are dominated by big East swell and strong north east wind. So no diving this weekend. Peter Jacobs managed to get a damn fine eelskin rockcod and Brent Borstlap got a marlin. As always dive safe and straight spears.”
