Legendary fishing feats and legends

[Surly Ghillie]

And then of course there was the feat of Ron Taylor, back in the 60's. He was the first guy to catch a great white using himself as bait!!! Australians...
world champions at gamesmanship!!!!

Some of my best fish over the years have been, from boat, from bank
50+lbs black musslecracker from the rocks at Robberg (late 60's)
40+ lbs red steenbras off Leaches Bay, East London (1963)
500 + lbs mako shark about 20k's off Cape point ( early 70's )
17lb galjoen off Partridge Point (False bay) 1966
38lb yellowtail, False Bay (Rooikranz) 1965

& I almost caught a 7 ton orca from Bonita in 1973. & If you wanna read THAT story, you got to get a copy of my book.

[Chris Shelton]

And then of course there was the feat of Ron Taylor, back in the 60's. He was the first guy to catch a great white using himself as bait!!! Australians...
world champions at gamesmanship!!!!

Some of my best fish over the years have been, from boat, from bank
50+lbs black musslecracker from the rocks at Robberg (late 60's)
40+ lbs red steenbras off Leaches Bay, East London (1963)
500 + lbs mako shark about 20k's off Cape point ( early 70's )
17lb galjoen off Partridge Point (False bay) 1966
38lb yellowtail, False Bay (Rooikranz) 1965

& I almost caught a 7 ton orca from Bonita in 1973. & If you wanna read THAT story, you got to get a copy of my book.

wow, some absolute beauties there. Well done! I would like to hear a bit more about that musselcracker sometime

[arnoc]

Former Border and Junior Springbok rugby player Dennis (Bull) Edwards is a legend of note. It was a sad day when he was murdered at his house in Mpame, Transkei a few years ago.

Among one of his long list of piscatorial moments is catching a 38kg black steenbrass (poenskop) from a place called Potuncala (spelling is most probably way off) in the '50s. What makes this even more impressive is that Potuncala is between 5 and 7 km's away from Mpame as the crow flies, with hardly any flat ground in between. The track goes up and down over 100 to 150 high very steep hills with the descent down an almost vertical cliff to get to the fishing spot at Potuncala (you need to be 40% mountain goat, 40% dassie & 20% mad to climb down or up that cliff). He carried the fish and his gear single handed up this cliff and all the way home! I have a copy of the picture of this fish somewhere.

He was one of the first chaps to catch a yellow tail from the rocks at Mbolompo.

They used to stay in Queenstown area back in the 60's. On one of their fishing trips to Mpame the car broke down close to home, but it was no problem for him. He hooked the farm's trailer behind the tractor and set off for Mpame with wife and kids in a make-shift tent on the trailer (A distance of about 350km). I think he said it took something like 2 or 3 days to get there. Cameron, his son, told me that him and his brothers used to run up the hills to wait for the tractor at the top.

Up till his death he refused to use a rod bucket. A tennis ball cut open and glued onto the bottom of the rod was good enough for him.

[Chris Shelton]

Former Border and Junior Springbok rugby player Dennis (Bull) Edwards is a legend of note. It was a sad day when he was murdered at his house in Mpame, Transkei a few years ago.

Among one of his long list of piscatorial moments is catching a 38kg black steenbrass (poenskop) from a place called Potuncala (spelling is most probably way off) in the '50s. What makes this even more impressive is that Potuncala is between 5 and 7 km's away from Mpame as the crow flies, with hardly any flat ground in between. The track goes up and down over 100 to 150 high very steep hills with the descent down an almost vertical cliff to get to the fishing spot at Potuncala (you need to be 40% mountain goat, 40% dassie & 20% mad to climb down or up that cliff). He carried the fish and his gear single handed up this cliff and all the way home! I have a copy of the picture of this fish somewhere.

He was one of the first chaps to catch a yellow tail from the rocks at Mbolompo.

They used to stay in Queenstown area back in the 60's. On one of their fishing trips to Mpame the car broke down close to home, but it was no problem for him. He hooked the farm's trailer behind the tractor and set off for Mpame with wife and kids in a make-shift tent on the trailer (A distance of about 350km). I think he said it took something like 2 or 3 days to get there. Cameron, his son, told me that him and his brothers used to run up the hills to wait for the tractor at the top.

Up till his death he refused to use a rod bucket. A tennis ball cut open and glued onto the bottom of the rod was good enough for him.

Wow, what a tough old bugger hey? Nice story Arnoc, thanks for sharing. I'll be drinking a toast to Dennis Edwards when I next fill a glass for sure.