As the northern hemisphere celebrate the spring solstice we in the south can feel that winter is almost upon us. Getting up at 4am to launch at 1st light becomes hard when you are feeling cold.
We also had spring tides and a sudden 2 degree celsius drop in water temperatures, making fishing a bit difficult. Many boats and ski's have been returning to shore empty handed but we were a bit more fortunate than that.
10 min after our launch Mark hooked a biiig fish on a beautiful pink and yellow feather with bright flashers. At first we thought that it could be a shark because of it head nods but we were pleasantly surprised to see it was a sailfish!
We managed to get some great footage of the fish that I will share with you at a later stage.
I must say being on a ski with a massive sailfish jumping around can be a bit intense and intimidating and I m glad it wasn't my battle to fight. The sail fish was safely released again.
The rest of the day was slow and we had to try every trick in the book to get more fish.
Jigging was tough as we were fishing in a screaming reverse current, big swell and the wind blowing us towards shore at one heck of a pace. I finally managed to land a Couta on a multi color feather with bright flashers and Mark got a small green job fish on lumo yellow bucktail.
Some fishy facts about Couta.
Couta are pretty easy to catch compared to most game fish and give up after a couple of runs.
They have a sleek body that has stripped flashes when they are in hunting mode.
These fish have large mouths and very sharp teeth that can do alot of damage if they get hold of you. Handle with care!
These fish swim in schools as juveniles for safety. Larger specimens are many times caught by locals fishing off their kayaks just behind backline using a sardine on slow troll.
Couta are fast growing fish and are found in sub tropical regions.
Couta has white meat and I would rate it a 9/10 for taste.
We will be fishing in the Couta grandslam in Bilene again this year. It will be the second grandslam ever held with mainly Inland Angler's participating. I'll also be covering the story for Angler's talk magazine 😎
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