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Every Winter one sees them scratching around in the shallow pools at low tide, some with sticks, gaffs or nets which they use to secure their treasures. I am of course referring here to fishermen scouring the tidal pools for pieces of red bait.

Once these bait collectors get hold of a pod of red bait, they throw it onto the beach, then continue their search for another piece which is also deposited onto the beach.

When the angler has enough bait, he gathers all the pods from the beach and puts it in a plastic bag or bucket.

He then finds a spot to cut the bait out of the pod, places it into a bucket or jar and then throws the empty pods back into the water.

There are many ways of storing and preparing red bait. The cut out red bait pieces may be hung in a basket under the shade of a tree in one's back garden, where it is "sun dried" or it may be kept in a small bucket which is then tightly sealed with a lid to allow the bait to "mature".

The lid is essential to keep the blue flies away.

When these flies discover the smelly bait they lay their eggs in it and it becomes unusable.

Many anglers like to use the smelly red bait which has been "maturing" in the bucket for Galjoen, which seem to be attracted by this smelly red bait commonly known by older Galjoen anglers as "vrottes".

This soft stringy mushy bait is just hooked onto the hook and wrapped around the shank with very thin elastic cotton which is used to gather the messy substance hanging around the hook to form a blob that won't fly off the hook when it is cast into the sea.

Storing red bait
Other ways of storing red bait is to keep the bait in tight sealing jars in the fridge for a few days or putting it into plastic bags and freezing it.

There have been many debates about whether Galjoen, the prime species which is targeted in winter, prefers fresh or rotten red bait.

One reasoning is that it would be easier for a Galjoen to open the shell of a rotten pod of red bait and pull the bait out of it than to try and tear open the shell of a fresh, harder pod of bait.

Besides targeting Galjoen, most local shore anglers have been trying to catch a few Kob as well as the odd Geelbek, which are still about and which were caught so frequently this season.

Those anglers fishing for Belman and White Steenbras along Melk Bay and Blake's beaches had little success this past week.

The inclement weather kept most of the boats off the water.

Further afield at Hout Bay a few Snoek were boated, but even along the West Coast the Snoek fishing was bad due to the stormy winter weather.

A few of the bigger commercial boats had a number of Longfin Tunny about 20 miles off Cape Point, but unfortunately the Yellowtail that were in the Groendam area last Wednesday and Thursday had disappeared.

The National Tuna Championships that took place last week was not very successful due to the bad weather conditions, which resulted in only three days being fished.

Blaming drags
One often hears of anglers losing larger fish and then blaming the drags on their fishing reels which they had to tighten when fighting the fish.

Anglers say that the line pulls off the reel in short jerky tugs which of course spooks the fish and eventually causes the hook to either rip out of the fish's mouth or the constant jerking causes the leader knots to eventually break.

A way to avoid this happening is to take great care of fishing reel drags.

Firstly the drag should never ever be left in a compressed state, but should be released when not in use.

This is essential so that the softer drag washers can maintain their resilience and not be continuously compressed, which will cause the softer washers to eventually stick to the smooth surface of the metal drag discs which are made to slip without damaging the softer material in the discs.

The drag washers between the smooth metal plates are designed to be able to slip continuously without too much wear and is designed to prevent it from being burned during the friction caused during slippage.

It is also a good idea to service one's reel after every three or four outings.

Once the reel is dismantled it is good practice to spray the reel with graphite spray or saturate the material drag washers with graphite powder or graphite spray.

Scraping graphite from a soft grade pencil and sprinkling that on the washers will also suffice.

One should also remember that an expensive reel with a well designed drag system is not just a winch, but a well designed tool that allows slippage which is necessary to enable the angler to subdue a fast moving or strong fish.

Graphite grease should only be used on working parts such as gears and bushes and not on the drag washers.

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