Tag: bluefin tuna

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Brian Grobbler catches giant Bluefin Tuna from a ski boat, lands it at Kalk Bay Harbour

“It was a story that could be told to your grandchildren and their grandchildren. But Brian Grobbler died too young to tell that story to his grandchildren.”

 

I want to tell you about the giant Bluefin Tuna that pioneer skiboat fisherman Brian Grobbler caught from his ski boat in False Bay in the late 1960s.

It happened long ago but I heard the story enough times when I was growing up to tell it.

While we do not have a record of what happened on that day, a blow-by-blow account so to speak, we do have facts.

One is a published photograph of the 226-kg giant Bluefin Tuna, published with Brian standing over it at Kalk Bay Harbour. The caption to the photograph reads, “The author with a 226-kg Bluefin Tuna taken after a three-hour battle from a ski-boat in False Bay. He was one of the pioneers of small boat fishing for giant gamefish at the Cape.” Continue reading “Brian Grobbler catches giant Bluefin Tuna from a ski boat, lands it at Kalk Bay Harbour”

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Big game fishing off Cape Point – the ones that got away

Credit: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Credit: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

My first fishing experience goes so far back into my early childhood that most of it is like a blurry dream. Flashes of memory place me at a fishing spot behind Clovelly station off the rocks. My father had handed me the rod but I can’t remember pulling in the fish. My next image is seeing a large white Steenbras on a rock next to the water’s edge with white surf rushing in. I did not see the Steenbras escape but I know I lost it and I have always remembered the bad feeling I experienced afterwards.

Charles Horne recounts how on Wednesday, January 9, 1957 fisherman at Rooikrantz, near Cape Point, landed about 200 tunny weighing from 9 kg (20 lb) to about 20 kg (60 lb). He says in “Big Game Fishing in South Africa” that “no estimate will ever be made of the number of big fish that threw the hooks or broke away” and how many were lost on light or weak tackle. Continue reading “Big game fishing off Cape Point – the ones that got away”