Fishing Encounters

Today I went on a mission and popped in at the Hunterski workshop. Brian was happy to show me around and explain how the kayaks got made. Unfortunately they where not making any hunterskis today, but I will be back to see it in action, I am also keen to bring my camera next time. The hunterski kayak is router molded and Brian popped open a mold and explain how they put powder plastic into to aluminum mold and then clamp the two halves together. The mold is a bit like a sheep on the spit, it rotates slowly so that the plastic can end up all over the inside. They then take the mold and pop it in an oven, the oven tilts up and down so again the powder plastic can get all over the place. The oven blasts hot air all over the mold, which then melts the plastic and makes it stick to the sides. Once that is done the mold is taken out the oven and allowed to cool. The cooling process is assisted with fans and misters. Once it is cool it is popped open and one blank hunterski is born. They then add all the rod holders and other bobs and bits. And in the end you have a very cool fishing kayak made right here in Johannesburg South Africa.

Thanks Brian from http://www.hunterski.co.za/ for showing me around and I look forward to selling your home grown South African product. Please contact me Lantz Mattinson email lantz(at)fishingencounters.co.za should you want more details one pricing.

Wow I did this many moons ago. Man now I just want to get in that water and get some crayfish.

I got a few bucks for my birthday and the first thing my wife asks me is am I going to buy some more hooks. I said I am not sure. Well I just watched a video for the Halco hammer and I must say I think I am going to buy me one of them. I am big into art lure fishing and cannot resist the casting into a swirling mass of fish on a feeding frenzy. The water is boiling as the big fish are attacking the bait fish and the birds are diving in a hope of getting some scraps. Often I get so besides myself I will end up with a bunch in my line or something will go wrong and I will miss the action. It is a helava job to stay calm and focus on what you are doing. When you cast and are busy retrieving that lure and you can see it skimming along the surface going through the mass of bait fish and the big fish come up and gulp it down. That is one huge rush. You get hooked and the reel starts screaming as the fish races off. You scream because you are just all part of the crazy excitement. Wow I am getting goose bumps just writing this.

With art lure and fishing it is not always like that. Often I will be casting because it looks like a spot that could have some fish in it. I do that a lot at Sodwana. I will walk up and down the beach and just cast over the waves. I feel that also has it own bit of excitement because you never know what will happen. I must say that 90% of the time I come up blank but that 10% is just so much better I keep coming back for more. I also think my imagination has a very large role to play in why I think fishing is so exciting. When I end up at a fishing shop and you see all the lures I just can't help myself and think about the fishing and what I might catch and how. But hey that is all part of it and I would not like to give it up and I hope to pass on that excitement to my kids. Until next time enjoy the fishing and your local tackle shop, I know I am.

I did mention in my intro that I am a big bass fisherman. My
introduction to bass fishing started on the farm in Eshowe. We where
lucky enough to have a dam just down the hill from us. So we would
walk there offten and do a quick spot of bass fishing in the
afternoon. The dam was fed by a spring so the water was rather clean.
It did have king carp in it that was also great fun to catch. The
other fish was tilapia, there where a few species. We would catch them
using meliee pap.

Many years later after school my mate moved to the richmound area very
close to Pietermaritzburg. He had a dam on the property that he wanted
to stock. Lucky he was a very keen fisherman so he got to know the
locals fast and find out the dams he could fish in. I would come and
visit him we would go to some really cool dams and catch lots of bass
and keep some to put in his dam. He managed to buy a boat and that
also opened up the spots we would fish from. One of the bigs things I
love is fishing from a boat. You are just able to explore so much more
and get to places your would not normally be able to get to from the
bank. The fishing sessiond would be such fun with heaps of banter and
abuse on the boat. There would be lots of cheers if you got a strike
and landed a fish.

I miss the fishing in richmound and think I need to plan a trip down
that side of the world for a good bass fishing trip.

Know of someone who needs a fishing ski, canoe, surf ski or just anything that floats?
Saturday 2nd of July is our annual winter clearance sale....Stealth will be having a second hand clearance sale! We have over 30 different types of fishing kayaks, surf skis, river canoes and more for sale. Some are priced as low as R500.....We even have second hand paddles, life jackets, fishing reels, fishing rods and more....Come in and see what we have because this is a first come first served sale...Starting at 8am on the Saturday morning and no earlier...Good news for all of you not in Durban, our resident Sea Ape will be running the stock lists and details of all products on our website homepage which you will see live and updated as it happens... A special email account will be available from 8am to 1pm. It will then be closed. So for those who do not venture into the store go on line from 8 am and buy from him... remember it is all on a first come first serve basis and if you like , you pay, you send proof and he reserves it before anyone else tries to get it!!! For online members this is how it will work. Check the stock on the website; be fast to send an email with the subject “I would like to reserve these items for payment”. I will immediately send a confirmation. You will have 10 minutes to send a proof of payment to reserve your purchase. Any later and it goes back on the market. SO NO DIDDLE DADDLING! We will also not reserve the same item for any online user more than once.

http://stealthpp.co.za/

I often go fishing and diving from umhalanga, my in-laws have a flat
there so that is a big bonus as I have cool accommodation in
umhalanga. My mission at umhalanga is listen to the sea from the flat
early in the morning and if it sounds good rush down and go out to
sea. I normally do a few laps along the back-line. There are some
rocks just out from the lighthouse. If you get there early you can
pick up a a few kinds of fish. I have managed to catch some king fish,
sea pike, shad and snoek. The other place is south of the light house,
just off the car park opposite from from the hardware shop. You get a
lot of fisherman there and the bait in the water attracts the fish.
The one time I collected lots of shad traces there as the guys must
have been having a shad run and lost a lot of traces. There where
corks floating all over in the water.

After that I head out to sea to the barge, it is about 1.2 km out and
in about 24 meters of water. Normally there are lots of other boats
around as this is where lots of ski boat fisherman come and get bait.
I caught a very nice grunter not the way I am used to catching them. I
was fishing for mackerel using a yozri, i managed to catch a few so I
popped on on live to a bottom trace and sent it down. I was using a
circle hook so all new to me. I had a good pull and as with circle
hooks you don't strike i just hung on. What a great fight and soon I
had the grunter in the hatch.

So that is a quick sneak into umhlanga and later I will be posting
more stories on my fishing and diving in this area.

The pictures of of me and my brother in-law at umhlanga on an awesome
day. If I remember we did not catch anything.

This was a spot of trout fishing I did off my original fishingski in
the Richmond area in Natal. It was a great fight. I can't remember if
it tasted good. I am not a big trout fisherman but I tied a lot of
flies and I would use them either in the salt or for bass.

I am a very passionate fisherman and was lucky to have some great mentors along my way. My grandfather was a big fisherman and that was in the days of pioneering South Africa. My uncle was another one that I have learnt so much from. All the people that I have meet along my journey had something to share and now I continue this adventure with my 2 daughters and son. Not to mention I still have so much to see and learn.

I lived on a farm outside Eshowe in the Kwa Zulu Natal area. Started with fishing in the rivers catching red tails using bamboo as our rods. Later getting fishing rods and doing bass fishing in the local farm dams and the dam on the farm. My grandfather even had king carp in the dam that would catch using pap. We would go to Kosi Bay for our annual holiday. Such good fishing and lots of fun. My grandparents have a place on the St Lucia lake called Makakatana we would go there on school holidays in July and catch Salmon. I remember having such fun catching bonies (glass nose) with hand-line and then I would hook them up as live bait and catch springer. It was such fun using a scarborough reel, you would just let the live bait swim out and soon enough it would pick up speed and you would know you where on.

I tried rock and surf but it just was not my scene. We would go to Amatikulu with my uncle and spend the night doing rock and surf, but being kids we would have such fun playing in the dunes. When I got older I started going deep-sea and bottom fishing. We would either launch from the beach or through the mouth at Amatikulu. I have done deep-sea at Sodwana, Mtunzini, Mapelane, Cape Vidal, Amatikulu. My father bought a 14ft6 ski boat, so I got my skippers licence to go out to sea. I have also fished in Mozambique which is such a fantastic experience because I am so big into art lure fishing.

I found out many years back about fishingski’s and was hooked! My first fishing ski was from erics’s canoe shop. I had this for many years and patched it a few times. It went to Cape Town with me and I did lots of paddling but no fish, I did have fun catching crayfish. Moving back to Durban I did some fishing on my ski from the south coast all along the north coast. I once even got a lift on a dive boat at Sodwana to nine mile and we paddled back catching bonnies and using them as bait on the way back to the point. That was a trip I will never forget as the guy I went with was later eaten by a shark as he was diving.

All this time I was doing a lot of bass fishing, if there was water I would throw a line in it. Before our move to Capetown I lived and worked at Mtunzini. I would drive up the beach to the mouth and do a lot of fly fishing or just casting lures, those where the days when you could still drive up the beach. I caught some kingfish and moonfish, it would always be such fun as you never know what was going to attack your lure.

I have so many fishing stories and I think I am going to post them on my blog. My aim of this blog is a few things. I want to share my fishing stories and I am going to sell kayaks as they are such affordable boats to allow you to get to fishing waters that a lot of people don’t even know are out there. Because it is so quiet I have also see some amazing fish long before they knew I was there. Keep watching this spot.