South Africa part 4 - Durban offshore reef fishing

The weather forecast looked good for our third day in Durban, so we woke up several hours before sunrise and drove to the marina to meet TK for a full day of offshore fishing. We were excited to finally get out of the harbor since we caught most of the common fish the previous two days.

Before we headed north to the reefs we made a stop south of the harbor mouth to catch bait. Most of the species we had already caught, including olive grunter, Cape stumpnose, and Natal pandora. However, one of the horse mackerel turned out to be a different species from the one I caught in the harbor. The Africa scad is differentiated by the lateral line branch just below the first dorsal fin that doesn't extend the rest of the way under the second dorsal fin.

African Scad (Trachurus delagoa) - new hook & line species #596

We moved a few miles to the north and stopped over a reef in around 100 feet of water. I put away the sabiki and tied on a 2 oz iron jig. I tried my hardest to ignore whatever the other guys were catching, and after 10 or 20 minutes I finally felt the thump I was hoping for! My first catch ended up being my best fish of the day, a good sized dusky grouper. After that I pulled up a catfaced grouper that sadly came unhooked as we lifted it out of the water. It was disappointing, but new fish kept coming so I tried not to let it bother me. The jig also produced  a bright red tomato hind and several cavebass. We were in for a good day!

Dusky Grouper (Epinephelus marginatus) - new hook & line species #597

Tomato Hind (Cephalopholis sonnerati) - new hook & line species #598

Cavebass (Dinoperca petersi) - new hook & line species #599

Eventually the allure of small fish won me over, and I switched back to a sabiki. The bites were almost instantaneous when the rig reached the bottom. We had to wade through a lot of species we had already caught, but as the day progressed I added quite a few new ones, including my 600th species, the smallscale grubfish!

Smallscale Grubfish (Parapercis robinsoni) - new hook & line species #600

Whitecheek Monocle Bream (Scolopsis vosmeri) - new hook & line species #601

Masked Triggerfish (Sufflamen fraenatum) - new hook & line species #602

I should probably clarify that when I say offshore, I'm using the term pretty casually. We weren't actually very far from shore, so it definitely fell under the definition of inshore fishing. I'm keeping the term though, because at the time we used it to mean anything outside the harbor.

We picked up more new species in the afternoon as different schools of fish moved through the area. At point it was lots and lots of goatfish. After that I tied on a small bright orange jig and caught the only halfmoon grouper of the trip and an Indian lizardfish.

Rosy Goatfish (Parupeneus rubescens) - new hook & line species #603

Halfmoon Grouper (Epinephelus rivulatus) - new hook & line species #604

Indian Lizardfish (Synodus indicus) - new hook & line species #605

One of my other jigs attracted the attention of a cuttlefish, which does not go on the lifelist since it's clearly not a fish. It was pretty weird looking, and everyone else on the boat kept telling me to not hold it over the boat in case it shot ink everywhere.

Unfortunately ... I didn't listen. That thing shot ink all over my leg, all over my crotch, and all over the floor of the boat. The floor cleaned off pretty well, but my clothes were a lost cause.

After my cuttlefish-crotch disaster it was time to head back in. We weren't in very deep water, but TK decided to troll big tuna lures behind the boat just in case. To our surprise, one of the rods started bouncing and the reel started singing! Fish on! We knew it was most likely a yellowfin tuna, and Josh was the only person on the boat who needed that species, so we put him in the hot seat. He brought the fish to gaff, and we brought back a roughly 25 pound yellowfin tuna for fresh sashimi.

Back at the marina we wanted one more shot at the micros that hung out under the boat and under the dock. I pulled out my tenkara rod and sight fished one new species and got a better daytime photo of the silver moony. Both of these fish reminded us a lot of freshwater tetras from the Amazon.

Commerson's Glassy (Ambassis ambassis) - new hook & line species #606

Silver Moony (Monodactylus argenteus)

TK with Just Fishing Durban took really good care of us the three days we were in Durban. We highly recommend fishing with him if you're ever in that area! Once we got back to the hotel, we changed into swim trunks and walked down to the beach to go for the swim.

What a day!