Giant ‘barn door’ catch a very impressive sight
SOME years ago I took an American hunter on safari in the Eastern Cape. He was an elderly man and has now passed on but back then he owned a fishing fleet that operated out of Seattle on the Canadian border.
This fleet operated in the regions around Alaska and targeted a fish called halibut. This old fellow described the fish as a large sole, and sole of course are common to our waters although they are not caught by line but are rather forked.
However, I never imagined them to reach the size of the halibut in today’s photograph, which is 219kg and would provide around 1 000 fillets.
Naturally this species has great economic value and halibut is fished in most of the cold northern hemisphere waters, around Iceland too. That is where this fish was caught by Gunther Hansel, off the western fjords.
Apparently this giant beast – referred to as a barn door – is the new world record on 14kg line. It took Gunther about three hours to subdue this beast – and he caught it on a plastic lure!
BE KNOT WISE
Every angler should be “knot wise”. Over and above the few basic knots we all know there are some video clips that can help you learn how to do knots to help rig up a line for the challenges we have with bait presentation.
This is especially so when two hooks are used for large predators when big baits are presented.
If you are on Facebook send me a message or send an e-mail to wlrudman@mweb.co.za. Many a good fish has been lost due to leaders that have failed due to the incorrect choice of knots.
REPORT GUNSHOTS
Locally, fish are still being caught and some fine pig-nosed grunters were landed at Van Staadens this past week. Good mussle cracker have also been reported to have been caught along the wild side of Port Elizabeth from Willows to Beachview.
Decent spotted grunters have also taken the bait at the Sundays River mouth and its adjacent shore areas.
Sadly, however, some anglers have reported being robbed at gunpoint around the Bluewater Bay area, so be vigilant there.
Then, the sounds of gunshots are still being reported from the inshore fishing grounds off Seaview and this seems to be an ongoing practice that seems to have had little attention.
Please report such activity immediately as the unacceptable practice of persecuting dolphins and seals, where a conflict of interest exists between fishermen and nature, absolutely must be stopped.!
The weather forecast is not favourable for angling this weekend with heavy wind and rains expected tonight, continuing through tomorrow with a westerly exceeding 50kmh around midday.
Sunday morning will provide for time-out with the westerly wind moderating from sunrise with low tide at 9.31am, and then at around sunset the wind turns easterly once again. Strangely we have experienced windy conditions when almost no wind should prevail this time of year.