THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Were it not for the many bite-offs, our
total of twenty two fish beached both
would have and should have been twice
that. Instead, we ran out of traces, and
had to call a premature end to the
fishing allowing us a good night out in
the town.
Piling on the pressure - from both ends
Day six was to be the big day to
remember. Johan took us to the
sheltered side of the bay we had fished
the previous day where conditions were
mirror calm. The beach there didn't look
too steep. But several yards out, the
water colour quickly changed from
sandy brown to blue as it dropped off
suddenly to around twenty feet.
Spurred on by Kob to over forty pounds taken from the shallows by local anglers, four of our party then
decided to devote themselves to fishing for edibles, leaving the rest of us to work on the sharks, which
we did to some tune.
Over the week we had enjoyed numerous multiple hook ups. It was fairly common to see three or four
rods in action at any one time. Here on day six, we had seven sharks being played simultaneously, all
of which were in the one hundred and fifty to two hundred and forty pound bracket.
Total catch for this day was exactly forty, with Dave Devine and Mike Dennehy both taking well in
excess of a thousand pounds of fish apiece in a single session. Quite staggering fishing.
I well remember the golden days of west country wreck fishing back home, when ten anglers sharing a
charter boat would be given loads of press coverage for a collective haul of over a thousand pounds. To
do it single handedly, and from a beach, quite literally defies belief.
My best fish went two hundred and twelve pounds, which I took using my own UK beach tackle on the
last day, and I don't reckon to be any sort of a shore angler at all. Providing you are prepared to listen
to the guide and use the right terminal gear, anyone could enjoy this level of unbelievable quality shore
angling.
As long as the reel is seated low down
on the butt to allow the use of a butt pad
for actually playing the fish, I don't
think any reasonable quality UK surf
rod would find it a problem either. But
you do need a reel capable of packing at
least three hundred yards of thirty to
forty pounds bs line.
Phill Williams, Bronze Whaler on UK surf gear
It's no good fishing light for these
sharks. You have to be able to pile on
the pressure, otherwise they can spool
you out as one South African visitor
next to me found to his cost. In that
regard, both the TLD25 and the daiwa
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