Early Winter Trip to Port St Johns – Day 1

A few of my friends and I decided to drive through the night from Durban and we reached Port St Johns in the early hours of a very cold morning.

Although we were excited to be there, we had to rest for a bit after the long overnight drive. Finally we decided to slide out some live bait which we had brought with us from Durban. About 10 minutes after our baits settled, my friends rod just takes off, and he was Fish On!

The fish had us guessing a bit as it came close to the side and kept fighting up against the rocks. After a heart racing tussle which felt like forever until we could finally get an ID on the fish. It was a Black Mussel Cracker (aka Poensie). We were shocked and thoroughly excited but we had to calm down and after a proper tussle that had us running along the rocks trying to get it to a decent landing spot, eventually my friend landed a once in a lifetime catch of a monster sized Mussel Cracker with a Live Karanteen on Slide.

We were barely over the celebrations of this amazing catch when my rod took off, with line peeling of my spool at an alarming rate. I set the hook only to see the fish spring out of the water. To my dismay it was a Blackfin Shark, which I immediately knew I was not geared for as I was using a nylon trace. The fish broke me off a few minutes later which was expected.

After that things did quietened down a bit and we switched to edible scratching which paid off with us landing a range of species which included, Blacktails, Silver Bream, Bronze Bream and Wave Garricks.

By the afternoon we called it a day and opted to give our tired bodies some much needed rest.

Stay tuned for Day 2 of our trip. Coming Soon