Zambezi Shark taken on Rapala – the video…
The story as it leads up to the video…
We do these boat trips on our 28ft retired commercial cat with roof and chairs – as often as possible, and have a long time working relationship some of the backpacker establishments around the southern KZN. They had called double agent Ryan Poisson up, to fetch a willing bunch of worldly young representatives, all amped for the seafood feast and afternoon cruise on the Umzimkulu River, in Port Shepstone. No-one guessed at a Zambezi Shark taken on Rapala.
And so we found ourselves strumming along with two Strike Pro Rapala imitation lures (we have run out of MYDO Luck Shots but there is a new batch in the oven), on two rods borrowed off the Niteshift, rigged for Snoek (Queen Mackeral) with long wire traces (luckily, as it turns out). Conversation always turns to sharks on the boat eventually, and today was no different with the Swedes showing lots of interest in the stories we always start telling at this stage. After years and years of speculation and random but few sightings, it was long though that the sharks were long gone from their old haunt of the 20th century when locals could shoot at marauding bull sharks (Zambezi) and Hammerheads from off of the old combined railway/road bridge that crossed at modern day Spiller’s Wharf.
Then local guide on the river, Marius Awcamp got his beautiful little baby Zambezi fishing off the wharf at Spiller’s, in March this year. Click here for that story… This was the first confirmed shark catch in the river for many, many years. Others had been hooked and just bit through the trace each time, or snapped the line after a long fight.
But after an hour or so of trolling, food was ready and with no strikes but plenty chirps from the United Nations of Fishing Experts, food got collected from the delicious Bela’s Mozambican Restaurant, right on the water at Spillers Wharf, and we headed up to the deep hole underneath Royston’s Hall. Touching up the mud bank we could cast right into the hole and work it’s edges, in the hope of an angry Rock Salmon, determined Kob or stupid Flagtail or just something. Conversation was fairly centred on our fishing abilities and then shark stories…and we were being offered all sorts of advice and even rewards if a fish got caught, least of all a shark. But it was a fantastic afternoon and the sighting of a huge Oxe-Eye Tarpon, a metre long, tailwalking right in front of us, that kept the lures going. We were motivated, Elvis Wabody (Mozambique) and I combined to throw 100 times until eventually – THUD – something substantial, turning out to be the first Zambezi I have caught on a lure, struck.
A fantastic fight, and the fish soon showed itself to be a healthy little Bull Shark pup, and submitted for a clean and entertaining release…
Sharks RULE!
