I got one..... Now what?

Wednesday 13th February
Ian was up at 4:30 to get ready for his fishing trip. He and Heather left just after 5:00 and I went back to bed for a while.
As it got light a little while later, I got up and make a cuppa. Mike was already up and about and invited me to join him on his cliff top walk. It was a lovely walk in the cool of the early morning. Mike and his mother-in-law, my aunt Honor, had medical appointments so I was left to my own devices. I took the opportunity to get the blog up to date.

At 5:00am the coast was shrouded with mist and the highway to Mossle Bay had difficult driving conditions due to the poor visibility. Nonetheless Heather and I (Ian) arrived in good time to be greeted by the crew of the fishing boat 'Dreamcatcher' . We met our 2 fellow fishermen so were now a complement of 6, four optimistic fishers and 2 crew.
The boat was mounted on its trailer and we were told we would have a dry boarding by climbing over the rear transom, so we clambered in and were soon being reversed down the slipway by a tractor.

The sea was a bit rough with a swell at an angle to our course consequently the skipper had, occasionally, to cut the 2 x 90hp motors to avoid us leaving the water altogether! At least once he failed and we were airborne hitting the water with a crash that jarred the fillings of my teeth.

We travelled for about an hour to reach our first 'mark' and down went the fishing lines and after a couple of minutes, I had a bite, reeled in and found a small barbel on the hook. The skipper took charge telling me that barbels had some nasty spines and to treat them with care, so my first fish was sent back to the deep.

Just a small shark!

From there on we fished for the next 6 hours moving to different marks, catching a variety of fish with a bag of about 18 fish for Heather and I (not to mention the numerous returns of undersized fish). The largest fish of the day was a shark,caught by the skipper, but the best edible catch was down to Heather - a Red Snapper of about 4 kg. For most of the morning the mist surrounded us but burned away by late morning to reveal the Western Cape coastline in all its glory.

Just to add some variety, a seal decided to join us and gave an exhibition of its swimming skills. Later we came across another who had caught a manta ray and was in the process of eating it on the surface. The final mark was next to Seal Island in the Mossle bay and gave us a good view of the seal colony; the big bulls showing off to the assembled spectators, and the pups sounding like spoilt kids.