Tag: yellowtail

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20kg Sangora Yellowtail by Carl Werner

Carl Werner with his 20kg Sangora Yellowtail

20kg Sangora Yellowtail by Carl Werner

Another informative spearfishing report by our hard working Jason Heyne…story goes he writes these reports underwater!

The diving conditions this week have been pretty average. Garrick have started filing up the north coast and some bigger couta and snoek are around.  Saturday a light offshore blows in the morning switching to a light onshore wind in the afternoon with the swell running at 1.5m. Sunday morning a light south West blows in the morning dying off later in the day with the swell running at 1.7m. So Saturday is the day for a dive if you can find viz. National spearfishing camps will Finnish up on Saturday with the team event. Also on Saturday SAUFF is holding a free entry comp weigh in at DUC 15h00 prizes for biggest snoek garrick and couta. Well done Carl Werner on getting fish of the week a 20 kg Sangora tail. As always dive safe and straight spears. 

Trawler watch 2017 - keeping an eye on the horizonCarl Werner with his 20kg Sangora Yellowtail

This report is sponsored by The Umzimkulu Marina. Very well positioned family and fishing lodge, with slipway into The Umzimkulu River. Or launch at Shelley Beach – just down the road! Too easy…straight into the tail of the Mozambique current.  Protea Reef being the main attraction.

 

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Twin Tail on SKZN Coast

Twin Tail on SKZN Coast


. Twin Tail by Marc Lange on the KZN South Coast. These are Tropical Yellowtail.

 

Tropical Yellowtail look just like Amberjack, but their lateral black GT stripe goes all the way through the eye. They are also more tropical and can often be encountered on the KZN coast in the summer months.

 

The much bigger yellowtail, and the huge amberjack also inhabit the KZN south coast reefs, and in winter months come right in close, sometimes hunting along the backline and in the surf zone.

The world record for yellowtail, held by Ray Bannister-Jones and caught way back when, off Hibberdene, weighing 56kg’s, was actually an Amberjack. The photo is in black and white, and confused the crowd for many years, until finally in 2009, it was corrected. Huge Amberjack – some over 50kg’s have been taken in the last few years, by Mike Lang, Neil Campbell and crew, also off Hibberdene, in deep deep water – 60 to 80 metres! Strangely, for many years, Amberjack weren’t caught in this region.

 

The world record for Amberjack is 70 kg’s, and some of over 100kg’s have been reported.

 

The yellowtail we catch in Southern Africa’s world record is 52kg’s, caught off New Zealand!

 

The tropical yellowtail world record comes in at 59kgs. La Paz, Baja.

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Hard fishing…

Doug Oosterhuizen Yellowbelly_1

…on the Niteshift this Saturday. Mark Shone, Doug Oosterhiuzen and Josh Moore headed out for a shot at the geelbek salmon and yellowtail. What started as a lovely day soon turned into a challenge as a huge east built up steadily through the morning.

Fishing rough seas
Fishing rough seas on the Natal Lower South Coast on Saturday

Starting out for livebait, some nice shad, pinkies, seapike and mozzies (maasbanker) were feeding and soon we were headed straight out to sea off Umtentweni. But by the time we got there, the combined forces of the east wind and the north south current, made it impossible to anchor. A few drifts later and it was south to Protea Reef, in the hope for a yellowfin.

Josh Moore fights a fish
Josh Moore fights a fish

The current was so strong, it took no time to get to Protea Reef, trolling an awesome spread of live baits. It was quite active when we arrived with a few fish breaking the surface and when the live shad on a pink number 5 Mydo screamed off, we held our breaths. Half an hour later the strong fish broke the surface with an ominous brown glow – shark! The sea was wild by now, so we changed tactics again and headed in to Boboyi, where we have been catching a few afternoon geelbek lately. The anchor held but the reef didn’t. No fish.

Doug Oosterhuizen Yellowbelly_1
Doug Oosterhuizen tags his first Yellowbelly Rockod…a nice fish of 400mm
Mark Shone Yellowbelly
Mark Shone Yellowbelly

So it was we headed inshore and found a nice little reef, the anchor kind of held, and the determined crew tussled with some nice yellowbelly and catface rockod. Doug tagged his first ever fish…a nice yellowbelly of 400mm. Fishing with a huge number 6 Mydo is revolutionising bottomfishing. No tangles and foulups, and the shape of the baitswimmer uses the current to it’s advantage and get’s your bait down there in no time – and in good shape.

Mydo catches catface rockod
Mydo baitswimmer number 6 catches a catface rockod. The Mydo’s fished on the bottom make it too easy!