Kayak News from South Africa
Kayak fishing in South Africa is one of the fastest growing sports in the country with many fishermen joining clubs for the ultimate fishing experience. Locally we call a fishing kayak a fishing ski and we mostly fish on the open sea doing surf launches as you can see form the photographs.
I am based in the province of KwaZulu Natal close to some of the best fishing waters around. We often visit Cape Vidal and Sodwana Nature Reserves and occasionally travel to the tropical waters of Mozambique for its excellent fishing.
We fish mainly for game fish such as king mackerel (locally known as cuda), queen mackerel, giant trivially (locally known as king fish), dorado and sailfish. We fish by trawling our baits about 30 meters behind the kayak whilst paddling into the wind. On the return trip with the wind, we will utilize the wind to drift back whilst still trawling bait. We occasionally trawl lures but this soon becomes hard work and we will switch back to bait again.
We use sardine, Japanese Mackerel, sugar mackerel and live bait as bait. The trace that we mainly use is called a cuda trace and consists of one single hook and two treble hooks. Some fishermen however prefer to replace the two treble hooks with single hooks, as they believe that this will give them a better hook set. Another feature of the trace is a shiner or cuda duster, which attracts fish by reflecting sunlight. It also assists to stabilize the bait and prevent it from spinning and winding up the line when it is being trawled. A small barrel sinker may be hanged on the front hook to further stabilize the bait. The bait is hooked by hooking the single hook through both the lower and upper lips of the dead baitfish with the point of the hook protruding between the eyes. The two trebles are then hooked into the two opposite flanks of the baitfish. See the photo for more details.
I include a few photographs of fish that we have caught in the recent past. You are welcome to communicate with me at combrinckm@vodamail.co.za .
Manie Combrinck
We launch and return trough the surf to fish on the open sea.
A king mackerel locally known as a cuda caught by the author.
Two dorado caught by the author on a double hook up.
A good-sized king mackerel caught by Jaco Sevenster. The tax man (a shark) amputated the tail whilst the fish was being fought.
The cuda trace.
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