I was invited by Koos to go spear fishing at Mapelane in mid December. I left Durban at 2am,still half asleep and drove through to meet him at his house to load the boat and then drive through to St Lucia. We pushed in at 5.30 and headed to light house reef.
The weather was very good,basically what the weatherman had predicted. The water was easily 30m visibility with a light N to S current and almost no swell. I managed to get in first,just out side the main reef because I had a reel gun and no floatline to sort out. I started dropping my Esca lure and before the bubbles had cleared,to my amazement four Wahoo streaked in. I quickly loaded only one of my two rubbers and dived. The fish came in so close that the single rubber was more than enough to penetrate the spine and stoned the fish.
I had just loaded the first fish and swam back to my lure when I saw the second Wahoo “waiting” for me at the lure. At this stage the last diver was only just getting off the boat. After my fourth Wahoo a sailfish slinked in and almost wrapped itself around the lure. I got of a quick shot and all hell broke loose as I only had a reel gun but… I did have a back up belt reel which I connected to just before the gun got ripped out my hand. The gun reel had 90m and so did the belt reel.
By now I was hanging on and pulling myself towards the fish. I was convinced I had a good shot so pulled myself towards it as quick as I could to subdue it. As I got close it saw me,its sail opened up and then suddenly swam straight at me. Before I could react the bill struck me through my inner,upper thigh. It then swam me down to the bottom with all the line around us. At this stage I managed to pull the bill out and remembered what I was told. “Grab the bill and point it up.” Any struggle from the fish now would take us both up to the top and this is thankfully what happened. On the surface I was very out of breath but had just enough energy to dispatch the fish. After sorting out all the line I was able to take another 5 Wahoo to really make my day.
Koos had taken 7 Wahoo and one Dorado;I think he was “poaching” fish off my lure when ever I was pulled off with a fish. In the same time the other two divers only shot a few reef fish. We were back on the beach at one thirty. My sailie weight 45kg.
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