In the 40+ years I have been fishing I had the good fortune to fish with many fine anglers and have learned a lot of valuable lessons along the way. Most of these lessons had to do with fish and bait and rigs, but a few lessons had nothing to do with the basics or even advanced skills needed to become a great angler.
One of the most important lessons I have learned was to persevere, no matter what the circumstances. I was extremely lucky to learn this lesson early on in my life and it has helped me, not only as an angler, but also as one of the most important life skills I have acquired.
I loved to go deep sea fishing and was 10 years old when I launched from Arniston harbour on my first deep sea trip aboard one of the local chukkies. A chukkie is a wooden fishing boat with a 4 stroke inboard engine used for many years now by the local fisherman at our coast. The name is derived from the distinctive sound the engine makes as the boat merrily chucks along at a steady 6 knots to the fishing grounds. The hard wooden seat I spent so many hours on over the next 3 decades fishing for geelbek, cob, yellowtail, red roman, red steenbras and other fish became my high school and university bench in my study of deep sea fishing.
The first lesson you learn from this experience is patience. Where a skiboat will get to the fishing grounds in 45 minutes it would take us 3 hours to get there, and vice versa for going back home. This time is used normally to make sure your lines and traces are ready and that your knife is sharp, and sometimes I used to catch up on some much needed shuteye.
The second and most important lesson I learned was one of perseverance. As we couldn't run from one fishing spot to the next and the next like the skiboats could we had to work our fishing spots very hard in order to catch the fish. If all else failed we had to resort to drift fishing switching the engine of and letting the current take us on a slow journey over the rock and sand below.
This method of fishing can be extremely boring with long periods of inactivity followed by a fish or two. Yet many a time this way of fishing has meant the difference between going home empty handed and going home with a fair to excellent catch. I remember the one day fishing off Skipskop bank many years ago when not even the Soldiers (Santers) wanted to bite when the skipper finally decide to do some drift fishing. The tide was pushing us slowly back towards Arniston normally an hours run away and we had our baited lines in the water.
Over the next 4 hours I only managed 1 Red Roman and was getting extremely bored when suddenly my line was almost jerked out of my hands by a violent pull. Two of the other fisherman on the chukkie had the same experience, and the boat was suddenly transformed from a half sleepy "sun cruiser" into a hive of activity.
I pulled very hard and was rewarded with a fine yellowtail of around 10 kg and saw 2 similar fish landed by the other anglers with more lines going taught around us. The skipper immediately ordered us to drop the anchor and we got busy. We have found a school of yellowtail that were frantically feeding and in the next 2 hours managed to land over 15 "bakke" of these fine fish. A "bak" is a plastic container capable of holding around 50kg of fish, bringing our tally to over 750kg of fish. We were an extremely happy bunch of fisherman when we started offloading our catch and the smiles on everyone's faces was a better reward than the money we made.
This lesson was driven home to me recently at Struisbaai again. We heard reports of nice sized Shad (Elf) being landed from Struisbaai harbour wall at night, and armed with our light Shad rods we made our way to the harbour wall at 7pm. On our arrival we were greeted by about 30 anglers hoping to catch some of these fine tasting fish, but on our arrival were told that although conditions were perfect no Shad has been landed yet.
We still rigged our rods and started to fish but over the next 4 hours no fish were landed at all. Our baits were quickly cleaned by the little nibblers and we had to constantly rebait our hooks. The only reason we kept on fishing as we saw the one angler after the other leave the harbour wall empty handed was that we all thought the conditions were perfect and that the Shad just HAD to come on the bit at some point.
My hands were getting cold from working with the sardine bait and having a constant spray of water from the line on them, and I could feel the autumn chill creeping up from the cement into my legs and at 11.30 I was prepared to call it a night when my son in law begged me to stay just another 30 minutes. When midnight came I stated to pack up my kit, looking forward to hot cup of coffee and a very warm and inviting bed when suddenly the shout went up from Wynand: "Fish On!!", followed by Wep and Brood, each fighting a lovely Shad. I have never in my life before managed to get a bait on my hook as quickly, and within 30 seconds my line went taught as the fish grabbed my bait.
Over the next 30 minutes we each managed to catch our quota of 4 fish, all around 40 45 cm in size and perfect for a meal. At 1am the morning I was sitting on my couch with a steaming cup in my hand a fresh fish in the freezer, waiting ready to surprise my wife with a lovely breakfast of fresh caught Shad and toast.
There are many such stories I can tell where perseverance was the key to a successful fishing trip, but I think you now understand how important it is never to give up.