Hentiesbaai 2011, where do I start?
Been going up there every year since 2004 and boy oh boy, this is the first year that I ever saw Henties like this. We caught a trip record amount of barber, barber, barber & more barber, managed to get our quota of gallies, a couple of cobbies & kolsterte, and a seizer steenie.
To make a long story short, the water was basically turned on its head for the whole duration of our stay, normally if we got water like this south of Henties, we travel north & vice versa, but this time it was a bit different. The whole area was on its head. The best results we got were just north of Henties from the Omaruro River mouth towards Trappies/Popeye. We didn’t even try to go north of Mile 108, because all the feedback we got was that the conditions were crappy to say the least.
We departed from my home the Saturday afternoon & travel through the night to arrive at Windhoek at six o’clock the next morning. Here we picked up some meat that Simen has organised for us, as the recent “Bek & Klouseer†that broke out in South Africa had make the import of meat into Namibia illegal. You can see that the Namibian government was serious about the epidemic as all the control/check points on route was manned, and not only the two at Windhoek.
Next was a quick stop over by Simen & Michelle at Usakos for some coffee. Simen & Michelle met the rest of the gang, and the biscuits Michelle provided made a quick disappearing act into our stomachs. Simen told us the “good news†about the conditions at Henties, but also informed us that the conditions should start improving by the coming weekend.
Well, off to Henties we went to start fishing. Seeing the condition of the water the only fish that we had success with was the gallies, with the odd cobbies in between. Me & Armand did a lot of playing around with circle hook’s to try & target the gallies, but we weren’t successful in landing a single gallie, so we revert back to j-hooks. As Stinkmossel told us when we met up, he is dead certain that the mouth of a Henties gallie is smaller than a Cape gallie. It took me a full three days to get the hang of the casting braid, but suffice to say I will not go back to mono for my light tackle.
Had a couple of overwinds with the casting braid, the moment I hear the knot going through the last eye, I had to be extra careful, or an overwind will start. I was using the Bob Sands knot between 0.46mm casting braid & 0.55 leader. Then Simen showed me another knot he uses. You start off with a Spider Hitch in your braid, you then use the loop of the Spider Hitch, make a loop into that like you would when starting a Spyker knoop, pass your leader through that eye, and make a three turn uni around the legs of the braid. You end up with two knots, but they are very small & pass easily through your eyes.
Armand has been eyeing me using the braid, and eventually made me an offer for my spare spool. From the moment he put it onto his reel, he was very happy with it, but was having the same problem as me with the overwinds. This resulted in an overwind of epidemic proportions, that took us more than an hour & half to un-tangle. Climbing in with the scissors was not an option, it wasn’t even paid yet!
We met up with Simen, Michelle & Brian and his gang from KZN on the Monday morning, trying to find some good water for cobbies, but as luck would have it we missed the cobbies while Simen & co. got them not even a 100m from where we left them. The Wednesday we met up for the social, not much to discuss here as AndriesH has already give an in depth report on the Hentiesbay Social Surf Fishing thread.
You’ll noticed that I don’t say much about the fishing, well that’s because there is not much to tell. Catching gallies is nice, but at a certain stage you start hoping for any other pick-up than a gallie. We did manage to find a nice school of Steenies the one day between Sarah se Vals Gat & Sarah se Gat, but of all the Steenies that we caught we only managed one that was size. This was the first time in three years that we managed to hooked into school of Steenies. The bait of choice was crayfish, they would swim right past the white mussel, sard & pike, straight for the crayfish.
I managed to improve my pb gallie with one which had a fork length of 40cm, only to have my moment of glory stolen three days later by Armand, his pb gallie to date, with a fork length of 41.5 cm. He was quite happy because his pb gallie before the trip was undersize.
As the trip was drawing to an end Armand was getting more & more restless. He wanted to get stretched by a toothy critter but conditions were just not playing along for him. Normally he would start the day off getting rid of his mombakkies (he hates a mombakkie), and then carry on the rest of the day full off spirit. The last two days this changed and I could see that the thought of leaving without getting a proper workout was bothering him.
Well, that changed on the last day, with his last cast. The past three days he feverishly collected bait (good old barber, of which there was no shortage caught). On a spot between Trappies & Popeye he patiently baited up, while we were cursing the barbers again. He then took his gear and walk about 200m away from us towards a stretch of beach where there was another nice gully.
I watch him as he made the perfect cast, put his rod in the sand spike, and went to sit on top of a sand hill to sulk away the last cast/end of our trip. I resort to the thing I do best, get into the bar to gooi a dop to celebrate the end of our trip. I was just finished when Erhardt told me I must move my ass, Armand was into something. When I got out of the bar he was nearly running up the dune trying to control the monster.
When I got to him he already had the shark in the shore break. I got into the water to help him land his shark, another pb best for him, a spottie with a total length of 1,740 meter. He was over the moon to say the least, and didn’t stop babbling for the next hour.
To end, a special thanks to some Sealiners who made this trip special:
Simen & Michelle (Sarah de Jager) – thanks for everything you did, all your advice, the chat’s & the visits, it appreciated.
Spyker, Marina, Carlos Moran, Duim Spyker (Megalodon) & Shark Ammo, really nice meeting all of you at the social, was nice chatting to all of you in person after chatting on Sealine for so long.
Brain & the gang from KZN, my humble apologies that we didn’t chat more, if we are next to the water we have this wanderlust, we just can’t sit still too long on one spot if nothing is happening.
Angus, Stinkmossel & company (Gary, Bobby & brother who’s name I don’t remember again), nice meeting again, thanks for the dop & chat the evening, and hoping that Armand’s advice put you into a nice spottie as well!
Last but not least, AndriesH, what can I say, I think in the time we spent together at the water & at the fire some serious life lessons was told & shared. And yes, the meat was excellent, but we have to thank Simen for that!
Herewith some photos of the trip, for some reason I didn’t took the amount of photos as I normally do, so no spectacular sunset photos is included.
Evenings spent by the fire, Armand is also a young artist trying to get a music career going, he brought his guitar with & entertained us with a couple of his own songs.
Small gallies where in abundance.
My pb, a fork length of 40 cm, I’m not lying - I’ve got a big stomach.
Armand’s pb gallie, a fork length of 41.5 cm.
One of the rarer catches, please help me if I’m wrong, a red fingered butterfish?
You don’t mess with a guy who is making sandwiches at 05:30 in the morning.
Simen & Shark Ammo receiving their birthday cake & presents at Jakkalsputz.
Baiting up & just having fun.
Armand getting stretch with his spottie.
The end result, congrats, you deserved this one.
Seems like the spottie is getting gatvol of all the attention.
Nou ja - till next year this time.
Been going up there every year since 2004 and boy oh boy, this is the first year that I ever saw Henties like this. We caught a trip record amount of barber, barber, barber & more barber, managed to get our quota of gallies, a couple of cobbies & kolsterte, and a seizer steenie.
To make a long story short, the water was basically turned on its head for the whole duration of our stay, normally if we got water like this south of Henties, we travel north & vice versa, but this time it was a bit different. The whole area was on its head. The best results we got were just north of Henties from the Omaruro River mouth towards Trappies/Popeye. We didn’t even try to go north of Mile 108, because all the feedback we got was that the conditions were crappy to say the least.
We departed from my home the Saturday afternoon & travel through the night to arrive at Windhoek at six o’clock the next morning. Here we picked up some meat that Simen has organised for us, as the recent “Bek & Klouseer†that broke out in South Africa had make the import of meat into Namibia illegal. You can see that the Namibian government was serious about the epidemic as all the control/check points on route was manned, and not only the two at Windhoek.
Next was a quick stop over by Simen & Michelle at Usakos for some coffee. Simen & Michelle met the rest of the gang, and the biscuits Michelle provided made a quick disappearing act into our stomachs. Simen told us the “good news†about the conditions at Henties, but also informed us that the conditions should start improving by the coming weekend.
Well, off to Henties we went to start fishing. Seeing the condition of the water the only fish that we had success with was the gallies, with the odd cobbies in between. Me & Armand did a lot of playing around with circle hook’s to try & target the gallies, but we weren’t successful in landing a single gallie, so we revert back to j-hooks. As Stinkmossel told us when we met up, he is dead certain that the mouth of a Henties gallie is smaller than a Cape gallie. It took me a full three days to get the hang of the casting braid, but suffice to say I will not go back to mono for my light tackle.
Had a couple of overwinds with the casting braid, the moment I hear the knot going through the last eye, I had to be extra careful, or an overwind will start. I was using the Bob Sands knot between 0.46mm casting braid & 0.55 leader. Then Simen showed me another knot he uses. You start off with a Spider Hitch in your braid, you then use the loop of the Spider Hitch, make a loop into that like you would when starting a Spyker knoop, pass your leader through that eye, and make a three turn uni around the legs of the braid. You end up with two knots, but they are very small & pass easily through your eyes.
Armand has been eyeing me using the braid, and eventually made me an offer for my spare spool. From the moment he put it onto his reel, he was very happy with it, but was having the same problem as me with the overwinds. This resulted in an overwind of epidemic proportions, that took us more than an hour & half to un-tangle. Climbing in with the scissors was not an option, it wasn’t even paid yet!
We met up with Simen, Michelle & Brian and his gang from KZN on the Monday morning, trying to find some good water for cobbies, but as luck would have it we missed the cobbies while Simen & co. got them not even a 100m from where we left them. The Wednesday we met up for the social, not much to discuss here as AndriesH has already give an in depth report on the Hentiesbay Social Surf Fishing thread.
You’ll noticed that I don’t say much about the fishing, well that’s because there is not much to tell. Catching gallies is nice, but at a certain stage you start hoping for any other pick-up than a gallie. We did manage to find a nice school of Steenies the one day between Sarah se Vals Gat & Sarah se Gat, but of all the Steenies that we caught we only managed one that was size. This was the first time in three years that we managed to hooked into school of Steenies. The bait of choice was crayfish, they would swim right past the white mussel, sard & pike, straight for the crayfish.
I managed to improve my pb gallie with one which had a fork length of 40cm, only to have my moment of glory stolen three days later by Armand, his pb gallie to date, with a fork length of 41.5 cm. He was quite happy because his pb gallie before the trip was undersize.
As the trip was drawing to an end Armand was getting more & more restless. He wanted to get stretched by a toothy critter but conditions were just not playing along for him. Normally he would start the day off getting rid of his mombakkies (he hates a mombakkie), and then carry on the rest of the day full off spirit. The last two days this changed and I could see that the thought of leaving without getting a proper workout was bothering him.
Well, that changed on the last day, with his last cast. The past three days he feverishly collected bait (good old barber, of which there was no shortage caught). On a spot between Trappies & Popeye he patiently baited up, while we were cursing the barbers again. He then took his gear and walk about 200m away from us towards a stretch of beach where there was another nice gully.
I watch him as he made the perfect cast, put his rod in the sand spike, and went to sit on top of a sand hill to sulk away the last cast/end of our trip. I resort to the thing I do best, get into the bar to gooi a dop to celebrate the end of our trip. I was just finished when Erhardt told me I must move my ass, Armand was into something. When I got out of the bar he was nearly running up the dune trying to control the monster.
When I got to him he already had the shark in the shore break. I got into the water to help him land his shark, another pb best for him, a spottie with a total length of 1,740 meter. He was over the moon to say the least, and didn’t stop babbling for the next hour.
To end, a special thanks to some Sealiners who made this trip special:
Simen & Michelle (Sarah de Jager) – thanks for everything you did, all your advice, the chat’s & the visits, it appreciated.
Spyker, Marina, Carlos Moran, Duim Spyker (Megalodon) & Shark Ammo, really nice meeting all of you at the social, was nice chatting to all of you in person after chatting on Sealine for so long.
Brain & the gang from KZN, my humble apologies that we didn’t chat more, if we are next to the water we have this wanderlust, we just can’t sit still too long on one spot if nothing is happening.
Angus, Stinkmossel & company (Gary, Bobby & brother who’s name I don’t remember again), nice meeting again, thanks for the dop & chat the evening, and hoping that Armand’s advice put you into a nice spottie as well!
Last but not least, AndriesH, what can I say, I think in the time we spent together at the water & at the fire some serious life lessons was told & shared. And yes, the meat was excellent, but we have to thank Simen for that!
Herewith some photos of the trip, for some reason I didn’t took the amount of photos as I normally do, so no spectacular sunset photos is included.
Evenings spent by the fire, Armand is also a young artist trying to get a music career going, he brought his guitar with & entertained us with a couple of his own songs.
Small gallies where in abundance.
My pb, a fork length of 40 cm, I’m not lying - I’ve got a big stomach.
Armand’s pb gallie, a fork length of 41.5 cm.
One of the rarer catches, please help me if I’m wrong, a red fingered butterfish?
You don’t mess with a guy who is making sandwiches at 05:30 in the morning.
Simen & Shark Ammo receiving their birthday cake & presents at Jakkalsputz.
Baiting up & just having fun.
Armand getting stretch with his spottie.
The end result, congrats, you deserved this one.
Seems like the spottie is getting gatvol of all the attention.
Nou ja - till next year this time.
