Tsi or not Tsi, That's the Question ?

[Jeri]

Hi Bunnlevel Sharker,

As Capefish suggested our seas are at times a little rough, and while we are on the same part of the African continent, the conditions that prevail in Namibia are somewhat different to down in the 'Cape.

Here in Namibia we have a roughly north to south coastline and a very strong current that pushes up from Antarctica – continually. So, the few hardy souls that have managed to get a kayak out through our surf into the back line area, are having a problem with the current – stop paddling for 10 minutes, and the current has moved you half a mile or more to the north!!!

Added to that we generally fish within the standard 'competition rules' prevailing between the two countries, and to that end, we are only allowed to cast baits out to all our waiting fish. There was a system that has recently been pulled out of the rules, that allowed folks to cast out sinkers, and then with a neat piece of twisted wire, slide huge baits out to where your sinker was anchored; but the old f**ts that write the rules felt that it wasn't like the old days – when 'men were men', so they scrapped that system, and we are all back to casting huge baits.

However, on the 'plus side', our sharks are generally not too far out, and it is only in shallow areas that we have to wade out, so a lot of our shark fishing is done with 'dry feet'. For the most part, we are casting baits in the 100-150 metre range, which can at times be fairly limiting, but it does mean that we are all competing on a level playing field; especially as the competition side of angling down here is very strong.

The difference between Namibia and South Africa, is that we are still allowed to drive on our beaches, so we have the ultimate freedom to travel around looking for good deep water areas that are likely to hold sharks, while the poor chaps in RSA have to walk down the beach – hoping. The usual aspect of competitions, is that a particular area will be designated the site for the day's fishing, and the area will usually be a 5-15km stretch of beach, so it will all be open to everybody – and here in Namibia, it can be a little like the old Le Mans start at the end of the captain's meeting, with everybody dashing off in their 4x4 vehicles to get to the hopefully 'best spots' first.

Our competition rules are very much designed to follow the concept of 'man vs. fish', with as few 'aids' as possible. Which leaves the option of wading out through 100's metres of shallow water an option for the foolish or the hardy, as generally the waters are quite cool with the prevailing current; the drawback of that is that usually just down the coast is another hot spot, where you can cast into deeper water, and get just as good results as the guy wading.

Just last weekend, I fished a local league competition, and waded out for 1 ½ hours of the competition for sharks, then it got too rough to stand on the sand bank, so I moved 10km up the coast, and found a spot where some Kob (like Drum) were feeding, and caught 7, without wading. The one shark I caught wading weighed less than all the Kob, so if I had gone to the Kob spot earlier, I might have caught more, and been placed higher in the overall results – like all competitions we have to make these choices.

So, at the end of the day we are left with our fishing being a fairly 'pure' form of surf casting, even with our local variations, which when viewed from a European perpective are downright dangerous – they don't allow anglers to get further into the water than their knees!!!!

Cheers from sunny Africa,


Jeri

[Keta]

Jerri, is it possable to launch a dorry through the surf at times?
http://www.pcdorymen.com/PhotoGallery.html
http://outdoors.webshots.com/video/3085525790084711168nkqXpo
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/571146155MmIeuL

[alantani]

i'll pass........ 

[Keta]

That was a fairly good day.

[Bunnlevel Sharker]

The sea is often to rough for canoes, often too far to walk with them and they are not allowed in league angling. Besides we like casting   and your angling is far more versatile without a canoe. You can't cast with a Penn 9/0, old school Penn reels here are about as rare as model T Fords in our neck of the woods. We don't have access to all the upgrades you guys have for these reels and it seems to cost more than the actual reel and its debatable if it is then a better reel than an out of the box or slightly tweaked "modern" reel. The slow speeds of the old school smaller Penns are a problem in rocky areas as you can't bring the sinker in quick enough.

I meant a penn peerles number 9, and was refering to cleaning it. And i can lob the mess out of my 9/0, i want to mag it one day Butas for kayaks, if you didnt have rules against it once you get experienced you can take em out in some rough stuff. And driving on the beach is where its at. I will leave yall to fish like yall fish, i get wet enough kayakin and swimming baits out

[Jeri]

Hi All,

The case is whether we can get a boat of any type out, but the rules we fish by in competition. On the social side of fishing, folks either follow the competition ethic as practice or just do their own thing.

The competition side is very active as folks look to develop their skills and rise in the eyes of their peers – all this is driven by a desire to gain National colours – to be picked for a National team to fish against a neighbouring country. This is a very competitive and tribal arena of fishing, as the way through is from club level to ultimately fish at National level, to then be seen by selectors and picked to represent your country.

On the social side, the rule do at time take a back seat, and as mentioned there are techniques that are used to get baits further out into the sea. Sliding baited hooks down the main line, with the aid of a non-return clip is one, and the use of radio controlled 'bait boats' is another, very much like as used by Carp anglers in Europe, just a sea going version. The use of kites is mostly limited to South Africa, as on the Namibian coast we nearly always have an onshore wind, so a kite presented bait would only catch Silverback jackals from the desert at the back of the beach???

The use of boats, skiffs or kayaks is a severe chore, and not really developed, as the biggest aspect is the temperature of our water as well as the strong current. All this and the added fact that this is not called the Skeleton Coast for nothing, there are a lot of uncharted rocks and reefs very close to the surface.

Having said all that we are very fortunate that at times and in some locations, we can catch Copper sharks (Bronzies) within 10' of the shore line, they are the local apex predator on our coast, and there are plenty of incidences that the sharks coming in very close. One trip with some scientist friends we were at a place called Sandwich Harbour (old German colonial, natural harbour that sanded up and was abandoned), looking to put telemetric tags on Bronzies, and we had earlier caught an abundant shark, and staked it out as chum. During the course of the day a good number of shark were caught and tagged. By evening time, we were just clearing up, and we noticed a Bronzie was coming in for the staked out shark, it was so close in, that it was suggested to the scientist that they use the long gaff to get the shark without the anglers having to strain to get the shark on the beach – it was that close. The belly of the shark was on the sea bed, and the dorsal fin of the 12' shark was fully out of the water!!!! The shark was not upset by nearly being beached by the small waves that were pushing onto the shore, but would just flap about until back in the water then swim away to deeper water, only to return again in 5-10 minutes to the same position. Eventually one of the anglers pitched a bait in its path, hooked up and held on – the Bronzie did a Bonefish impersonation – streamed of at huge speed to get out to the deep water, nearly pulling the angler into the sea. It was eventually landed, and tagged. In this situation, the shark would actually have been shoreside of any boat floating, it was that close to the shore. And this is just one of many examples of our big sharks coming very close to the shoreline.

As said, we have full access to drive n the beach, so dragging trailers and other contraptions up the beach is usually a pain, especially in areas of softer sand, so generally folks use either specially fitted out pick-ups with all the rod holders, etc so that they can fish straight from their cars. With the coastal towns being so few, and some judicious planning, we have very few overhead cables, so we all travel with our 14' rods on the front of the cars, and never snag into anything. Even petrol stations have high canopies, to clear all the fishing rods.

Fishing being such a wide interest, even the poorer folks (native Namibians) use fishing as a very valid use of gathering food – we see loads of bicycles fitted with rod carriers – pedalling their way out of town in the late afternoon, as the guys go down to the beaches north and south of town, to try and catch fish for either their families, or for re-sale. The fact that we have a very healthy stock of fish in our waters does help, and for this we are all very grateful to the fishery regulations and the very active policing of the same; it is not like this in South Africa.

However, this situation is not universal, and fairly restricted to Namibia, and a very good reason why our little town on the edge of the desert will transform next month, from its static population of 3,000 souls to possibly over 30,000 people. There will be a huge influx of folks coming in for their main summer holiday period, as well as Xmas; a large proportion of those coming to town will be from South Africa, and they will make a 1500 mile journey to get here. The day after Xmas, the big competition will probably attract upwards of 50,000 anglers to the beach, all trying for the biggest edible fish of 4 species – all competing for a $100,000 prize table (that's Namibian dollars – 8.8:1 when compared with the US$) – so don't all start phoning your travel agents – first prize is only about US$5,000! – and they will all be using just normal surf casting gear. It is probably our worst fishing time, and once they all go home, our normal exceptional fishing returns, and we get back to just lower numbers of visitors coming in – which are primarily dedicated anglers on 'boys trips', which usually involve groups from 4 to 20 of serious angler looking for good fishing. The population explosion takes place in all three of the coastal towns, as well as at all the various camp sites along the coast – basically folks getting away from the heat of inland Africa, to the cool coastal areas. This Xmas migration at some of the camp sites can be for as long as 6 weeks, when entire families will move to the coast for that time, the camp area for each family looks like a canvas version of a small town, and they have everything from portable showers and freezers to satellite TVs.

So, neatly being this back to the original topic – bearing lubrication: All the above explains why 99% of my work as a custom rod builder is on surf rods, and developing new rods to cast huge distances – as when we do get large numbers on the beach, either holiday makers or just a competition – most of the fish just move further out to deeper water to get away from the noise on the beach, and only then will the big distance casters get the rewards for their efforts. That is why we are looking seriously at the reels to get maximum spool speeds from them, as we are getting the rods right with very fast tip speeds on the release, we now need reels that will almost instantaneously go from 0 rpm up to crazy rpm. At the moment, we are content with the fact that we have reels like the Avet LX and MXL to cover the abilities of the very competent casters, though need to look at options like TSi 301 for lubricating other slower designs to get them going towards the speeds we get with the Avets. Currently, the gap between the 'others' and the Avet reels is too large, and why we looked at the Avet Mc series, but found those to be too slow even with minimum magnetic control, so we have looked at reducing the magnetic influence of the little magnet by shaving the magnet – which was a matter of trial and error, but we are now happy that by shaving 0.10-0.15mm off the magnet face we get some of the fierce speed of the 'full blood' Avet back, but still have the option of control.

Hope the above explains some of why we don't use skiffs and the like to go fishing, and how things are in Namibia.


Cheers from sunny Africa,


Jeri

[Keta]

Thanks again Jeri, competition rules eliminate boats.  We have cold water off of Oregon too.  Getting a boat through the surf could open up a lot of unfished areas.


Would removing the bearings and replacing them with bushings help?  Bearings do not like contamination.