Banga 2004 according to Spumbu 

Thursday
Left early with the Burns, 2am, and headed north got to the bustling town of Manguzi at 7 to find everything opens at 8, so Drove to the border fo good measure. Got to the spar as it opened. Did the shopping, that I had not done the day before. Burns then decided to have a look at his license, expired… Chances of finding a post office that offers spearing and bugging in Manguzi, well it was a breeze. Decided to wait for the other boy's to catch up, before heading to the coast

The camp of 8 spero's would have frightened any hostile indigenous, spears, guns and ski's. A frenzy of activity followed as the race was on to get into the water. The Burns and I decided to get the camp sorted before heading down to the water.

An hour and a half later, weighed down in our wet suits we headed north on foot for a shore entry, walking into a north east wind in soft sand soon found us lacking a sense of humour, but we managed to get a few km up the coast. Got in to 25m plus vis and a slight north south currant. Burn's went down first to get a very good ka-karp of 8kg's and was spending more time on the bottom than a potato bass. I was very tiered from the walk and only managed to get down after 20 minutes into a nice jobbie and was screaming to the Burns to double up for me, as my shot placement left a lot to be desired.

The good man will give you all a very different account of events that followed, but, my fish was not secured and the fellow surfaced with a very nice jobbi of his own, mine was very secure in a bass's mouth in over 25m of water. I was a little despondent by this stage and I think the bass and Sean learned new language. Eventually, after a few down's I managed to dislodge the ka-karp and was very pleased to get a personal best of 9.7kg's, much to my unhappiness the Burn's fish was 9.8kg's.

Back in the camp I was very relieved to find the biggest fish was not the Burns's but Mike Cooks with a magnificent 10.5kg jobbi, well done boet.

Friday
A south west wind of around 10 knots woke us in the early hours of Friday morning, Both Sean and I decided that it was going to swing round to a moderate North east during the day. So we got onto our ski's [Thank you to Dan for that] and headed north as far as our arms would take us.

At beacon 11 we had had enough and got in. Coral reef and fish of every kind where everywhere and ka-karp where the first on the list of fish landed, all by Burn, I was threatening to start plugging reefies but the sight of the 1.3 Rob Allen pointed on my direction every time one was lined up was a deterrent enough. After Burns had boated 5 fish the fun and games started for me, at around 15m, a shoal of sangora Kingies came onto the flashers and where forming huge circles around us, I descended and chose the closest fish, not the biggest, landed a beauty, my personal best.

Ka-karp, Kingfish, ka-karp, kingfish followed, until we decided that we where not going to shoot any more of either species. Paddling deep to hunt cuda we pulled flashers for a few hours, all the time waiting for the south winds to die and for the north to start pushing. morning.

How wrong we where, it picked up till the white horses came and we made the call to head home. 30kg's of fish each in the ski's made for very very hard work on the return trip. A sight that got Sean shouting over the exhaustion was two Wahoo of over 25kg's zigzagging in less that 10m of water. Big fish but no change of getting in to hunt them, next time.

Got to the beach broken and had to chill for a while catching breath. Went to the camp and got all the photo's done before heading to the fresh water lake to get the filleting behind us. Thanks to Doc Uys for the loan of his gas freezer, a massive plus trip like this. Thank you.
Got all the prep work done, for the launch the next

Saturday
Launched early and headed north with a moderate North West pushing into us. Got to beacon 7 and got in, in 20m+ and started to pull flasher harder than Sean had hit the cane the night before. He was again the first into a fish, ka-karp, I doubled up for him and had just reloaded and got the breathing back to normal when he went into the classic cuda hunting spiral.

I decided not to let him be the only on down there and started to drop when three cuda materialized out of no where. Two moving to my left and the third the biggest heading away, I followed the biggest and moved into his blind side turning him for only a moment, just enough time to let loose a solid shot just behind the peck. Sean was keen to plug him but I didn't want him to waste a shot if the cuda where going to file threw. What a mate I am!!! Hahahah got him into the ski and was reloading when Sean was again into another good ka-karp. Re-loaded and was very happy to see another smaller cuda on the flasher. Got him with a long shot and he fought like a machine, towing the ski. I learned that one need to pull the ski towards a fighting fish on order to stop the barb pulling out, even with a boingi!!!. It would have been good for us to head home then but the competition between all of us would not allow it. Heading deeeep once again, to pull flasher, nothing so we headed back to camp to photo's and filleting.

We where going to have a rest arvi, but decided to head down to the beach to collect the ski's. Got there and conditions, although rough where clean. Did a point drift towards the south sanctuary, we split up for the first part of the dive in order to try and be as quiet as possible. I think this was the dive of the tour for me. No fish but rays of every description, Skates and more rays, reefies, coral and reef, crayfish and shrimps. I forgot to hunt and just let the magic of the place settle over me.

Was joined by Sean, Robin, Sparki and Drew on the point, got a little crowded so we headed out to pull flasher for some snoek, Drew got a snoek fish of 5kgs in the morning. But very quiet, split up again to head back to the edge of the reserve, stumpies of over 7kg's and snapper bigger that buss's, all the reef fish that must have been around years ago in Natal where there. Drew shot a 7kg's iggi and two kingfish also came out.

Work recalled me early and so we had to pack up camp, sorry once again Burns for making you leave early, not sure of the conditions the following day, but we drove threw a very big busta on the way home. I hope the rest of the boys had the opportunity to get in and hunt those gamies.

Sharks
Every dive we encounter then, some of the Zambo's where very aggressive and came onto us very fast, backs arching, some would swim into our blind spots and circle just within our vis. On one occasion Sean was next to me as I was loading a kingfish into the ski, with my head out of the water and a very cheeky zambo flew off the bottom after the still grunting kingie. I didn't see it till Burns moved and swam at it just a few feet from my fins. I think seeing Sean bearing down on him terrified him!
On the last deep drift over the 30m reef off beacon 5, I was descending to the bottom in search of some jobbies when I saw a small white tip reef shark being pestered by some yellow tailed king fish, in the same fashion and weaver birds harass a eagle. Hitting it, just behind the dorsal. I was out of air but Sean saw the same thing as he passed me on the way down.
The last dive and we had shot some small ka-karp for the dark angles helping us, Burns's ski was over mine and I was pulling it with my left hand while holding the ka-karp against the barb with my right. After I had moved all the rope out the way I pulled the ski to my left to come face to face with a big zambo. His fin out the water and eyes on the small fish on my hands. Curling into a ball and teaching the shark some western Tswana, he backed off as fast as he had come.

Bass.
They where every where and where better trained than a NASA monkey. As soon as the trigger was pulled they where around. If the dive buddy was not on hand the huge fish where scoffing. Brindle and potato's where big and far too many. Also I felt more threatened by them that the sharks.

Ski's
Diving off these is hard work, I have a lot more respect for the fisherman that fish off ski's. It is a very quiet way of hunting fish and althought it is hard work. Paddling into a head wind with a full hatch almost killed me. But it is a lot better to have a platform to get fish into especially in areas that have a tax problem. The other thing is that one can move against the currant and wind, covering more ground. Having it as a bouy has its draw backs, fish where lost due to the extra drag generated from its size. Even with a 2m boingi some of the shots pulled out of the bigger ka-karp. May have something to do with the shot placement!!
So…

Iain Ewing