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The Tackle Box Shelley Beach shows how

And a crocodile couta - definitely not a dart! By Sharon Bennett of the Tackle Box

The Tackle Box Shelley Beach shows how

After a tough and busy season, Craig and Sharon – the new owners and management team at The Tackle Box were quick to sea the minute they got a break…

Which was four days back, launching out of Shelley Beach. And fishing some deep and secret spots. And along the backline too.

And check it out…

Four different and meritorious species of trophy catches! The couta on a livey, the cracker on a squid and sardine sandwich – and the two solid Amberjack on coffee grinder and jig.

Well it sure made up for all the hard work at The Tackle Box in Shelley Beach this December season.

The South Coast and most holiday towns are quietening down really quick – a great time to pop in and meet Craig and Sharon. Ably assisted by Adam, the team invite you all to come in and see the really good prices. And the shop is discount free! You just get the best prices right from the start! Too easy.

Being located a few hundred metres from the Shelley Beach Ski-boat base and down the drag from Orange Rocks surf fishing zone, means the shop is stacked with deep sea rock ‘n surf weaponry. Bass and estuary take up another few aisles, with all sorts in between.

And get some free very good advice while you are there!

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Catching amberjack

Catching Amberjack

For many a while down on the KZN southcoast, we never really caught many Amberjack on Protea. We actually never really even knew what they were, often confusing them for tropical yellowtail. But as the anglers all tackled up to bigger rigs, forgoing the 49’s for TLDs, bigger and more ambo’s started to feature. Culminating in young Matt Defillippi’s huge 46kg beast that won him and his brother and Dad the boat.

Further north off Hibberdene, Mike Lang and crew got themselves tackled up with 9000’s and more. And were soon having huge arguments with giant ambo’s over 50kgs!

It was around that time that the angling records peeps gave way to the speculation that Ray Bannister -Jones’ 56kg world record yellowtail, was in fact an Amberjack. Caught off Hibberdene, long ago, I only ever saw black and whites of that fabled fish.

So, to catch them…

Marc Lange, in Angola, has been field testing the Mydo Luck Shot rigged with a plastic bait…the following results are what can be expected.

More Amberjack stories here…

https://thesardine.co.za/2014/02/01/twin-tail/

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Easterlies, whales, ships, waves, amberjack, bonito and yellowfin tuna!

John van Reenen Yellowfin Tuna

It started out smooth and calm, with a nice launch at 7:30am, but soon the beasterly easterly started to whisper. Captain Brian Lange at the helm of Niteshift, from the Umzimkulu Marina, was driving, with John van Reenen and Sean Lange as crew. By the time we had 10 livies, it was up to 15 knots, but since the tide had run out half, we were stuck out there for the next 6 hours! The ride to Protea was like being in a skatepark, and when we got there, the wind was up to 20. But, there was very little current and we only had to deal with wind drift really – staying on the reef was easy. But the fish weren’t there. Our livebaits stayed live and the wind picked up even more.

We were only entertained by whales exploding all around us. So many of them, travelling north, south, east and west! After no strikes at all, we headed to a deep brick off Tweni, and got the anchor to hold. A ship came out of the south straight for us, but luckily adjusted course and passed on our inside, by a few hundred metres.

It was rough going on the anchor, with the boat going half airborne sometimes…we got a huge Bonito, an Amberjack…on the bottom with the livebaits, and then it happened. Tuna! Yellowfin! Coming up behind us. The home-made plug and the Mydo spoon went flying with the east gale, and both went away as they hit the water. Some 25kg class mixed up with football sized. Luckily we got a few smaller ones to start with, as the gas bottles hammered us…first the popper got annihilated, then the Mydo spoon… John van Reenen had his eye on the Okuma T30 as it started to growl…’wicked tuna’ style…he set the drag to max and strapped in. 30 Gruelling minutes, many close calls and two gaffing attempts later…one gaff got the tuna by the tail and the second gaff swung in…O.D.B…on da boat! So it was a great day…an awesome catch in the end…goes to show what Captain Paul Cook preaches…’Fishing is like school…good marks for good attendance…!’

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Paul Cook and Uncle Skomolo

Paul Cook and Randy Stevens helped us catch about 30 livebaits which we took to Protea Reef off Shelley Beach this afternoon. Expecting everything we got nothing, until we anchored in 50metres straight off Port Shepstone.
Soon rods were buckling under the pressure of Amberjack. After boating one, my Dad hooked a monster which finally broke the trace after circling the boat for half an hour! The one that definitely got away.
Then Paul Cook, down from Inhambane, Mozambique, pulled his first ever Black Steenbras…Skomolo…Poenskop…Musselcracker… and it was home time…

Randy Stevens fed our favourite Skua bird, with live maasbanker on the way home…

Download the video…

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Karl Gouws again!

Karl Gouws and Elton van Rooyen went deep off Port Shepstone with live bait to load this hard fighting and heavy weighing Amberjack. Pulling these things from 60m on anchor is no joke…but they get up to or more than 60kg’s on some of the deeper Kwazulu Natal lower south coast reefs! Protea Reef has produced some boat winners. Hibberdene is a hotspot for very big Amberjack, and there are some crazy big ones up in Mozambique too. On the back of the diving reefs off Tofo they are reported to shoal and the locals get quite a few in the 20 to 30kg class, during the winter months. Hard to catch. Need live bait.

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