Fishing, Cars 'n Bikes

Welcome to my wee selection of Big Boyz Toyz ...a little fun!

Below read all about Deep Sea Fishing off Hout Bay - catching monster tuna that weigh as much as you do...and about my bikes and super fast car that does the standing 1/4 mile in 3.7 seconds!!!

Deep Sea Fishing off Hout Bay

On the left is a photograph of me with a 60 kg Yellow Fin tuna. These fish are caught 40 miles of the coast of Hout Bay, Cape Town. We go out to sea in 24 foot GRP ski boats. Typically they have 2 X 90 to 115 horse power engines on the back. On a good day up to a ton of fish can be caught. A ski boat cannot carry more than that amount of fish safely, so this is sometimes the limiting factor on exceptionally good days. The sea off our coast can be very dangerous and unpredictable so it would be considered fool hardy to take any risks. You have to bear in mind that at 40 miles off shore it would take 2 hours to get back to safety on a flat calm sea. In under an hour the wind can change from calm to 35 knots plus and you don’t want to be out there in that kind of weather!!

There are two predominant tuna species found of the Cape waters, the Yellow Fin tuna and the Long Fin tuna (Albacore). Yellow fin tuna vary between 35 and 110 kilograms, the largest I have caught being 81 kg’s. Long fin are far smaller (10 to 20 kg average size) but make up for lack of size with volume. These are your bread and butter fish where a ton in a day is possible. Competition fishing is a big past time in the Cape. There are numerous angling clubs and they all host tuna angling competitions. Prior to embarking on an international computer consulting career I was a serious competitive angler. I fished in numerous competitions both in Cape waters and further north in Natal, Mozambique and Kenya.

The highlight of my fishing career was being selected to represent South Africa in the FIPS M World Championships hosted in Ortranto, Italy. It is with great regret that I find little time to pursue my favourite sport at the moment due to work commitments.

Another memorable time for me was the commercial tuna trips I did with my good friend the late Brian Clark, a well know commercial fisherman, Springbok Free Diver and boat builder. He owns a 60 foot commercial fishing boat that is specially fitted out to catch Yellow Fin, Big Eye and Blue fin tuna for the sushi market. Fishing is within South African quota restrictions and fishing laws. Occasionally observers board the boat and an electronic monitoring system is used. Brian's favourite fishing grounds are 150 to 200 nautical miles south of Cape Point where the deep water hake fishing vessels can be found. It takes almost a day’s steaming to get to the grounds. The fish are lured to the surface by throwing chum in the water. They are caught on long bamboo poles with a short length of line and a hook at the end. From the time they are hooked there are seconds in which to stun/kill the fish else the bamboo pole is shattered. The method of stunning them is very interesting ... a stainless steel long barrel .22 pistol with silencer. Head shots are critical as any bullet holes in the flesh of the body devalue the fish. A perfect shot kills them but anywhere in the brain area will stun them sufficiently to get them on board without a fight. Bear in mind these fish are between 60 and 100 kilograms and fighting mad if not stunned!!! When you consider that each fish is worth between US $500 - 1000 you don’t miss to often. Oh, by the way, it was my job to shoot fish on the trips that I did. Once the fish is boated it is bled by making incisions in its arteries with a sharp knife, humanely terminated with a spike to the brain and then wrapped up in cheese cloth for protection from bruising and skin damage. From there they are hoisted into ice slurry tanks to get the body temperature down to almost freezing. At the end of the days fishing they are all removed from the slurry tanks, gutted and cleaned and then packed in ice in the hold below. A trip will last between 4 to 6 days but not longer as it is critical to get the catch to market post haste whilst it is fresh. The fish are graded by a qualified “sushi” grader in Hout Bay and then flown in cardboard coffins packed with ice to the sushi markets in Japan and America.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Super Fast Car
My most recent purchase is a Nitro powered 21XT-R 4e supercharged racer. This is probably one of the fastest cars in the world today. It does the standing 1/4 mile in just 3.7 seconds!!! If you don’t believe me then I am prepared to wager you a bet. Unfortunately it is in a state of disrepair as I crashed it last time out. To give you an idea of the brute power of this machine, I lost the steering and crashed when the front wheels lifted off the ground as I popped the clutch!! This was in spite of the fact that it has a wheely bar on the back. Have to adjust it so it can’t happen again. I have purchased all the parts necessary to repair it, just need to find the time.