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NOW we are well into the winter season and the rock and surf fraternity are still targeting Galjoen and other bank fish all along the coastline at various spots from Strandfontein to Betty's Bay.

The Aasbankies reefs at Macassar have been reasonably fruitful of late with medium size Galjoen and one or two size White Steenbras at the Cone.

The Strand beaches have been relatively quiet although the water colour has been the right colour for Kob fishing as well as other winter species.

Last Friday an angler who was using a small throw net to catch bait fish from the cement outlet pipe just behind the Strand swimming pool, was pleasantly surprised to catch a Kob of around 2 kg in his net on his second throw along with a few small harders.

The angler had been chumming with small pieces of pilchard to attract the harders just prior to throwing his net.

This once again proves how close to the shore Kob and other fish come in to feed, as the cement pipe is only 25 metres into the sea.

The usual popular spots around the mountainside past the mouth of the Steenbras River, namely Vyf Streepies, also yielded a number of big Galjoen.

One angler fishing from a spot just past Dabatsgat and just before Koegelbaai, said he caught two large Dassie and one Galjoen from this area.

These mountainside spots have always been favourite Galjoen and White Steenbras haunts.

Anglers should always remember to fish these places early in the morning - be warned that vehicles are often broken into later on in the morning.

The Snoek shoal that was so wide spread recently has all but disappeared and only a few commercial boats had tallies of around 20 fish per boat - which did not really make for viable fishing - and Snoek prices shot up to R50 a fish.

There were still no signs of Yellowtail around the point or in the bay.

WP Inshore League

The Western Province Inshore League was fished in
perfect weather conditions last weekend at Klein Baai.

A number of big Red Stumpnose were landed with the best being a fish of over 4 kg, which is a pending WP record on 1 kg line, landed by the new Western Province chairman, Gary Thompson.

Mike Pulcella fishing on Devenish on Sunday landed a pending record Red Stump of 5.95 kg on 3 kg line, while Greg Morrison had a very unusual catch of a John Brown.

The u/16 team that represented Western Province in the Junior Nationals held at Shelly Beach in KwaZulu-Natal came home with the silver medal.

The team captain, Gareth Strydom, finished third overall. The other team members were Matt Swindell and Michal Meyer.

If you intend collecting your own bait these days, prawn and worm are good bets and often produce fish when other baits do not - but getting these baits can be hard work if the prawn pump is not kept in good condition.

One of the best ways of making the pump suck efficiently is to use a squash ball with a hole drilled through the centre of the ball and then placed in between two rubber washers using the normal metal washers with the ridge facing outwards.

Drilling or cutting small holes in the centre of the squash ball is quite a tricky operation - but this may also be done using an old heated screwdriver.

While pumping prawn on the beach where the water is not present, one will have more success waiting for the prawn to come to the top of the burrow as it pushes the water and sand to the top. It is easy to see when the prawns are on top of the burrow without telegraphing your movement.

Pumping for prawns
All you have to do is start sucking as the pump touches the sand, then push the pump into the hole and pump out the sand - this method always produces the prawn although the pressure when pumping the prawn out onto the moist sand can sometimes damage the prawn.

In shallow water blind pumping is a different process, but one should never let the pump go down into the hole further than the handle as this will eventually wear down the pump.

When looking for bloodworms, it is easy to see the worm's hole as these are U shaped burrows in which the worms live.

These worms suck water into their holes which they filter through their bodies and then discharge the waste out the tail.

The suction end of the burrow is a saucer shaped cone and the tail end is a small hole with a deposit of sand which is deposited on the beach.

To get the worm out of the burrow, one needs a length of flexible wire around a metre long with a 5 mm bend (like a small hook) on the one end. The wire with the bend is pushed down the small worm hole where the sand is deposited until the wire stops at the bottom of the curve in the burrow.

The wire is then given a sharp twist and then lifted slightly as to impale the worm. One then has to pump down the dole with the prawn pump while at the same time keep a slight upward pull to ensure the worm stays on the wire.

One must then put your arm into the hole and manipulate the worm in your hand as one pulls the worm and wire out of the hole.

When pumping out the sand, one must pump carefully at a slight angle in the direction of the discharge hole and with a bit of luck and plenty of skill the bloodworm can be pumped out of the hole with the sand and slush. It may then be kept alive in a bucket.

Next week I will talk about how to correctly blood the worm and store it.

Phone Art at (021) 854 3831 for all your reel repairs.

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© Tel. (021) 853-0211 Fax. (021) 853-0234 2003 Somerset Press (Pty) Ltd on all information and photographs.