WHEN doctors work they work hard – when they play, they play harder. Dr Danie Otto, a surgeon, and anaesthetist Dr Axel Poser proved this when they went fishing off their jet ski rescently.
They launched from Ski-boat Bay and trolled in a north-easterly direction.
About 2km in from Uvongo beach they realised that the reel was empty and that the line had reached its limit.
Only when the gigantic fish (when you are on a jet ski, that is an understatement) jumped from the water did they realise that they had hooked a sailfish.
Sailfish are known to do a lot of damage with their sharp bills and it took a lot of quick thinking and planning to get the fish aboard.
Catch and Release
The seventh annual Port Edward Catch and Release comp will take place from April 29 to May 2.
The actual fishing will be on April 30, and May 1 and 2. Up for grabs is a ski-boat worth R250 000. Each boat will have to catch 10 different species of fish, photograph them and then release them back into the ocean.
This was a format that was started last year and it has been well received by fishermen and conservationists alike.
Whichever boat catches the most of the required species and the biggest sizes will win the boat.
There will be games for children every day including a jumping castle and slides.
There will be food stalls and a beer tent with TVs to provide the adults with all they could possibly need for a relaxed afternoon at the beach.
On Saturday there will be shark dissection, not to be missed.
Prize-giving on the 2nd will be followed by a party with the band Rubber Duc entertaining until late in the tent at Port Edward main beach.
Entrance is free. For more info, contact Jenny Grant at 072 4298101.
Port Edward
There aren’t too many fish around at the moment and anglers have struggled, catching only the occasional bronze bream and shad.
The sea has been very unsettled, without good colour. Even though good rains have come, river mouths are not opening up enough to bring this colour into the sea.
Gentle offshore winds were experienced this past weekend and have always been one of the first signs of the fishing season.
It also signalled the start of the ‘Sardine Run’, although years have gone by since this ‘wonder of the world’ has really taken place in all its splendour and excitement.
One remembers years when so many sardines beached that masses lay on the beaches and local municipalities had to clear the beaches with front-end loaders.
One could smell the sardines along the coast, in fact, one could even smell the oncoming shoals as they approached they were so huge.
What now? Reasons for the dramatic decline stem from global warming to the raping of the sea by mega-poaching.
The gamefish bonanza that followed has begun to disappear as well, so there is a chain reaction in the whole disaster.
Last year a large number of foreign trawlers were spotted just south of Port Edward (during the Sardine Run) within SA’s international limits.
The question arises as to why the authorities are supposedly ignoring them.
Don’t they have the manpower to deal with it?
