11 minute read
THE WINDOW
NEGLECTING WORK TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A GLORIOUS GAP, JAZZ KUSCHKE FINDS SUCCESS TARGETING BONITO OFF THE ROCKS IN THE SOUTHERN CAPE
Photos Johann Rademeyer
“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain” - Jack Kerouac
The window creaked open at the worst imaginable time, dusting my keyboard with a load of guilt and blowing my notebook, with its two full pages of to-do’s, clean off the table. For the first time in my ten-year career as a freelance writer, I had recently had to turn down work. I had not breathed much fresh air.
The dictionary will tell you that a weather window is, ‘a limited interval when weather conditions can be expected to be suitable for a particular project, such as laying offshore pipelines or reaching a high mountain summit.’ Or, in my case, chasing bonito on fly from the shore. For that to happen, the window meant a spring low tide, an open ocean swell of below 1.0m and a light breeze in the right direction. And the most important factor. The fish had to be around.
Consider the humble bonito (Sarda sarda). Prolificbreeding, fast-growing, beautiful. It is so iridescently easy-on-the-eyes in fact, that the Spanish and Portuguese ‘bonito’ translates to ‘pretty’ (although there is some disagreement that this is the true origin of its name). For those that pass through Southern Cape waters, bonnies’ great downfall is that they are regarded as baitfish. The hardcore rock-‘n- surf manne see them as shark fodder. To target them is regarded on the same level as cast-netting for mullet. When the summer south-easterly pattern is at play and the water is above a certain temperature and the bonito are aggregating in reef-sized shoals, it is a fourrods-off-the-back-of-the-boat-and-trawl-to-fill-the-quotaas-fast-as-possible kind of situation. One might be bled for sashimi or bound for the smoker, while the rest are destined to be bait for big bronzies and raggies off the deep water ledges. So, in many people’s eyes, a bonito is a trash fish. But then there is, of course, the cliched adage about ‘one man’s trash’ …
In fact, so much of a treasure is the Sarda sarda that Peter Coetzee of Feathers & Fluoro once referred to fly fishing for them – when they’re on the full boil – as ‘the most fun you can have without rum.’ That fun, for the likes of Peter, a salt-encrusted veteran, Henkie Altena, my fellow Southern Cape local LeRoy Botha, myself and others, has traditionally been boat-based. Each year, come October/ November LeRoy and I start obsessing over bonnies and, as he so aptly says, ‘In faith we tie,’ because it’s not every season we get to go. I have been fishing for bonnies since I moved to the Southern Cape around eight years ago. While these sessions are mostly offshore, for the past five years I’ve been paying serious school fees off the rocks, blanking and getting beaten up, but learning. As with most of these things, education comes in bursts, followed by long
periods of silence. There was nothing to ‘figure out’ about the species. It was all about accessibility, tactics and the right tools. Mostly though, it was about timing. ‘It’s not THICK thick, but we’ve each gotten a couple,’ read the text from Johann Rademeyer. I was sampling some rare fresh air on a sneaky cappuccino break from my desk, when the message came through. He and a mate were fishing a spot that can only be accessed for a couple of hours on either side of a spring low tide, that is if you know how to navigate your way through the labyrinth of gullies and dodge the mussel beds and sea urchins. It’s a place that eats lures and leaders, but when it’s on, it’s always a story. Johann is one fishy fucker so I never take any intel from the big brah lightly. I’d never really considered this particular spot for fly because of the height above the water and the wash around the rocks. Even on a small swell, your running line would surely be sucked down into the mussel-covered ledges…if you manage to get a cast in at all. Cuppa in hand, I drove to a vantage point from where I knew I’d be able to see them, thinking just the view will be the fix to carry me through the afternoon work grind. As I got there I nearly spewed up my coffee… Squinting through the glare and my -1.50 specs I saw Johann and his friend each bring a solid bonnie to hand… all in the space of two minutes. I raced home, not to make my 11 am Google Teams call, but to grab my spinning rod rigged with a shiny pink spoon. I didn’t even bother to change my clothes and waded the knee-deep gully in street sneakers (barefoot would’ve been too much of an urchin risk).
Boiling. In a word, it was absolutely boiling. One of those shot-for-shot days you simply can’t describe to someone unless they’ve experienced it themselves. Rock dancing. Broken leaders. Taxed by seals. I’d never seen the bonnies as frenzied, nor as close to shore. They would go off the bite for five minutes and then someone would get the big yellowtail plug out and throw it way beyond the reef. Each time that would trigger another wave of pandemonium. After 20 minutes of mayhem, I scrambled back over the
For bonnies off a boat, Surf Candies are the way to go. Off the rocks in the Southern Cape, you’re going to want Clousers.
rocks and raced home once again. This time to get the fly rod. ‘This was it,’ I thought. There was maybe another half hour left on that spot before the tide came to ruin the party and if I was ever going to get my bonnie from the rocks, this was my moment. Now, I’d been trying for them from shore on fly for more than half a decade. This involved scheming setups, trying spots, losing flies and fly lines, blanking time after time and going back to the rigging table with a new idea. They get bonnies Stateside in New England from the shore where, for many, it’s the ‘holy grail of northeast saltwater fly fishing,’ but I’ve never found any info on anyone getting one in South Africa. This mattered little, I had always thought how epic it would be to tussle with one of those little bullets from the rocks. Back at home, sweaty and salty, I half thought to quickly check my emails (but didn’t) and grabbed the 9-weight I keep ready-rigged for estuary leeries. I also managed to remember a stripping basket before screeching back down to the spot. Only to hack. And I don’t mean the cyber kind… The wash was way too much for the floating line and in my feverish state I was crashing casts and hanging-up surf candy after lovingly-crafted surf candy in the rocks. By then the wind had also picked up from a highly unwelcome angle, forcing me to cast over my left shoulder. Somehow during that blur of 30 minutes (in which Johann and his mate pinned another five each), I did manage to get two legitimate eats, but couldn’t make them stick.
That night, bleeding from the ego and the shins, I reevaluated what I had done in the past and realised that all the surf candies in the world (the default starter fly for bonnies off the boat) were not going to work off the rocks. So I tied up a few Clousers and rigged a sink tip line with a short 20lb furled fluoro leader. That night I had nightmares of watching the silver-flashed eat 15-metres out and not making it stick. Next day: Same time, same story, but with a different result. As the news had somehow filtered out, there was one extra guy on the rocks. This meant we could keep the shoal closer for longer. They were less frenzied than the day before but still thick and eating close. As with the day before, the tactic was to get them amped with the surface lure way out deep and then throw the spoons on the light sticks close for 20 minutes.
I was better prepared than the previous day and my head was also more in the game. With a left-shoulder cast and a fast double overhand retrieve, I finally managed to make one stick.
He ran straight into the backing and then suddenly came at me, causing all sorts of slack-line management issues on the rocks. Turns out he was running for the safety of the gully as a seal pup had just surfaced some 20 metres away. After Johann had been taxed by a big blubber bull the previous day I thought this one was a goner for sure. Never had I detested a cute, whiskered little face more. Fortunately, the guys made a huge commotion on the rocks, shouting at the pup as though it was a rabid dog. Somehow the bonnie stayed clear and eventually came close. With GoPro in one hand Johann deftly pirouetted over the exposed reef and tailed it. Some five years in the making, the feeling that washed over me was almost more stun than stoke.
The action was still hot and I had a looming work call that I couldn’t miss. The second fish was a far better one, it ran into the backing twice before coming to hand, fortunately without the attentions of the pesky pinniped. The afterglow was like a lemon sorbet high with AC/DC playing in the background. Think mild, floating euphoria and the peace of knowing you’ve made a deadline (something I’ve missed a few of thanks to Sarda), but behind it all your heart is beating to the slightly irregular rhythm of Thunderstruck… Ah-ha-ha-haa. Ah-ha-ha-haa.The following
WHAT IS IN A NAME?
Sarda sarda
Common name: Atlantic bonito. In waters surrounding the Cape Peninsula, it is most commonly known as Katonkel. It is found across the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean and Black Seas, and around the coast of South Africa to the Eastern Cape. In the Garden Route we simply like to call them ‘Bonnies’.
Sarda orientalis
Common name: Striped or Oriental bonito. Erroneous Latin and common names: Sarda Sarda, Snoek. Oriental bonitos are found in the Indo-Pacific and Eastern Pacific Oceans and, give or take a few nautical miles, are replaced by the Atlantic bonito in the Eastern Cape. Although the species are extremely similar, the Oriental bonito can be identified by having no more than 19 dorsal spines, whereas Atlantic bonito always have 20 or more. day the tide was too high and the swell too big. The window had shut. The bonnies I got were as much Johann’s as they were mine. If he hadn’t alerted me that the gap was open, who knows when I’d have had another shot? What peering through that window did though, was open my eyes to fishing old spots in new ways on fly. And, it made me think of what is possible at some of the other places I’d blanked at in the previous five years. You just need that window. Subsequently, I stole half an hour here, and an hour there almost daily trying to force open the shutters. My go-to setup has evolved into a two-pronged attack. I invested in a Spey-style running line and built a shooting head out of a broken 12-weight floating line, on which I rigged a small Clouser below a big, fugly popper, New Zealand-style. On another older rod is the sink-tip of the first success. This is no country for new rods, precious reels or fancy lines. You bash rod eyes against the rocks and scuff reels. You have to be willing to sacrifice lines, flies and skin.
I also managed to pilfer the odd stupidly good fly off LeRoy Botha. These Clousers would be way too good for fodder off the boat, but I’ve realised that you have got to have every possible chance from the rocks, including dryfly hackled mackerel Clousers. I haven’t been close since those two breakthrough bonnies off the rocks but there is always next season. That window opened at the worst possible time, but perhaps it was the fresh air I needed to survive.
