Other Interests: Fishing at Zandvlei & Kalk Bay

At 5:45am, Gary and I were on the way to Zandvlei, the Rutter Road Pond in Muizenberg to attempt catching some bass. The plan was to be there for sunrise, hoping to catch a bass or two hunting in the shallows. I quickly tied up a bottom rig with a free running sinker, using a plastic worm and got my line wet. I have heard that if a fish stikes a plastic worm and the angler fails to hook him, he will come back for a second try as he would not have been shocked by an 'unnatural hardness' of other lures.
The only thing I caught was lots of grass and weeds. There was nothing doing. I changed to a frog... nothing! Gary, in the meantime, was messing around with his newly acquired fly rod. Also, I am sorry to say, nothing! One of the locals came out and we chatted to him. He pointed out a good spot for bass where he regularly catches, but you can only get their by dinghey (which we clearly didn't have). That was it! We decided to go to Kalk Bay (we were in the area anyways). Back to the ocean... It seems that fishing was bad all over today. All the fishermen on the pier were complaining... Nothing was biting! Then, Gary pulls up a tiny little hottentot! And then a rock fish and shortly after, another tiny little specimen. One of the sea-hardened fishermen came over to check out the hottentot... that is how bad the fishing was!


At around 11:30am, we called it a day! I have been craving fish this past week and I bought bought 3 from the Fresh Fish Market in Kalk Bay, right near the pier where we were fishing. Dinner tonight is thus fresh fish... I just realised I don't know what these fish are called! Oh my word!

While were were waiting for the ladies to scale and gut the fish, we were entertained by the seals. One of the locals showed off his 'seal training skills' by making a seal perform for him, coaxing him on with pieces of fish. I uploaded a video clip on YouTube - take a look.

I also noticed a guy selling freshly smoked snoek. He had whole snoek for R25 & R30, depending on the size. He also had some smaller packages for R12. I bought a small pack to give it a try... Absolutely amazing. Then again, I have always been a sucker for sea food.

All in all, the day was good. It would have been better if I had managed to land a bass at Zandvlei or a Hottentot or Elf at Kalk Bay. Well, you can't always have your cake, and eat it... LOL!