THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

the point that we were constantly counting the heads
popping up out of the water. Then they'd duck under and
pop up somewhere else, but you'd never know which ones
or where. A very uncomfortable day with a few medium
sized tiger fish to show for our concerns.
When we later moved down to Cape Town, it was primarily
in search of sharks, which was a two pronged approach.
Having done some preparatory dives in the shark tank at the
local aquarium, we drove over to Gansbaai, where on a very
gloomy swelly day, we took a run across to Dyer Island
where there is a channel formed by a reef which great whites
patrol waiting for cape fur seals to come by.
The stench of the seal colony is over-powering. This
actually is the location where most great white shark
documentaries are shot, and in the shelter of the channel
itself, conditions were quite calm. Down at the entrance
unfortunately where we anchored, there were some quite
sizeable swells rolling in over the reef edge scattering the
chum far and wide. Again, not the sort of place you want to
end up in the water.
Dawn Williams, Tiger Fish
A short time later we had five huge sharks up to the boat,
one of which insisted on mouthing the outboard leg, probably drawn by the weak electrical current
created by saltwater contact with exposed bits of the metal casing.
You could actually touch the sharks as they went by. Unfortunately, it was too rough to get in the water
with them, which in hindsight was probably no bad thing.
Great whites are a protected species. That said, you can't help catching them if they take the bait while
fishing for other things, which still regularly happens. So with that in mind, I booked a couple of trips
out from Simon's Town on False Bay where there is a second cape fur seal colony on a small island mid
way across. Another good spot for great whites, plus other species, including the ragged toothed shark
which I had been diving with earlier.
Unfortunately, the planned trip was cancelled each morning due to the weather. However, after
cancellation on the final day, I received a phone call mid morning to say that things were starting to
settle out, and that if I wanted we could give it a few hours, which we did.
At last the shark lines were out and fishing. But other than several pyjama sharks which look like striped
bull huss, it was quiet on the big baits. My wife Dawn meanwhile was having a field day with all sorts
of smaller fish on a small light paternoster rig. Unfortunately, by that stage, all my enthusiasm had long
since gone.
FOOTNOTE: Some time after this visit I watched a documentary about a group of evolutionary
scientists who had found a small colony of coelocanth within diving depth range living in some deep
water caves a couple of miles out in Sodwana Bay. Had I known that at the time I would have given the
kingfish a miss, and who knows, maybe instead caught the first ever coelocanth on rod and line.
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