Winning Fish for a late entry

 I was the last person to enter on Friday with 10 minutes to go before the comp, so it was a bit of a rushed, late decision. Anyway, I managed to get an entry in. Saturday, tried for about two hours to get livies, and eventually got one, was like a big mozzie or scad type thing. That was my only livie, and that eventually got eaten by a shark, so no other pulls Saturday.

On Sunday, I tried for livies in the morning, and spent about an hour or so looking for bait, and nothing. I then just pulled for snoek along the way, and eventually at Umhlanga Lighthouse, I had a pull on a crystal minnow. That ended up being a Garrick, so it didn't obviously count for the comp. So I thought, flip that's probably bad luck, but anyway, I released that. Maybe it was actually good karma, which I didn't know at that time.

Then I went on to Umdloti South, and pulled wala’s a bit from there to the chain pool, and turned, and then came back, and got off Peace Cottage, and I saw a little splash. I didn't know if it was bonnies or snoek or something like that, so I did a loop, and as I turned, yeah, I probably went 10 meters in the opposite direction. It was actually the only time I did a loop that day. Yeah, anyway, had the pull on my down-rigged wallow, right on the bottom.

It was a down-rigged wala wala, right on the bottom, and I came into about 15 meters of water off Peace Cottage. And I just heard a very slight, maybe two clicks of my ratchet on the reel, and I turned, and I just saw the rod, like, bobbing. And I looked, and my line was going up the front of my boat, under the back and up the front. So I quickly pulled the rod out the holder. As I got it out, it just started taking up the slack and screamed off out the front of the boat. I dipped the rod down and then brought it out the side. Then it came up to the surface and just screamed off, and I was like, oh, it's got to be a Couta. And it just didn't go as fast as a smaller Couta. It was fast, but not that fast. So I thought, oh, it could be a shark. At that point a boat came in next to me. They came right up to me, and said, “We've had sharks here the whole day. It's probably a shark.”

So I got a bit disheartened at that stage. And then they buggered off on the boat. The fish then turned and kind of went down, and was head shaking, and I thought maybe it was a Couta, and then it got taxed. And it just went heavy. I was now thinking this is like a 200 kilo Zambia or something. I couldn't even move it. Suddenly it just started going again. It came up to the surface, and it did another run to the side. I had hope again. That is a Couta I thought. And then it came around the boat, and I saw it on the surface, and because the water was so dirty, I just saw like this brown top.

My thoughts cartwheeled again- that is a shark! I was disheartened once again, and then it kind of did a loop around the boat and deep, and I got it up, it  came up next to the boat, and still deep, so I couldn't really see it. Then it rolled over probably a meter and a half under the boat, it turned on its side, and then I just saw this big silver slab!!

And then, flip, I had a little panic, managed to get the gaff out the gunwale, and I got the fish up close enough, and I got a solid gaff shot. The fish didn't even budge or shake when I got the gaff in it, it just was this big heavy slab just lying there. Yeah, I managed to put the rod in the boat, and in two hands and I slid this thing over the gunwale, and when it landed on the deck, I just like stood back, and I realised, oh my hat, this thing is huge.

And then I thought for, I don't know, it was probably a couple of split seconds, should I put another bait out, and then I said to myself, "no, you idiot, you're not going to get anything bigger than that." So flipping full taps home, I stopped, I probably went 500 metres and then stopped, and I messaged or phoned Carry, and I told her to get down to the club, I've got the winning fish here. Then I went about another Kilometre, and I stopped and I messaged my mates on one of my WhatsApp groups - "ous, I've flipping got the winning fish here",  and then flipping screamed home and hit the beach, got the thing to the scale, and ........29.86 kilo Couta.

I think there was about an hour, hour and a half left to scale closing, so yeah, there was a little bit of dry mouth time there, stressing that someone was going to come in, but I was pretty sure no one was going to get a bigger fish, but it can always happen. But yeah, thats the story and then obviously I fished on my own, because I left it so late, but what a weekend.