Every now and then the North Coast gives you one of those rare proper A-Grade days that reminds you why we put so much time into diving this coastline.
This trip was right in the middle of summer up on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast, and the conditions were honestly ridiculous. Flat sea, warm blue water, and visibility that looked more like somewhere tropical than the North Coast of South Africa. If you dive here often, you’ll know how uncommon that really is. Usually there’s a bit of colour in the water, current, swell, or something making life difficult. But on this day, everything lined up perfectly.
Being the weekend, my good mates Warren and Mark joined me on my C Ski-444, the DEVILFISH. And we launched out of Salmon Bay in Ballito just after first light. From there we made the run north towards Tinley Manor, probably around 20km or so up the coast, looking for couta.
The ocean looked fishy from the start. Clean water, bait around, and good current. it just felt right. We spent a good amount of time looking for Spanish Mackerel, but despite the conditions being absolutely perfect, the couta never really arrived. That’s fishing though. Sometimes you can do everything right and still not find the fish you originally went searching for.
Luckily mother nature had other plans for us.
Instead of couta, we found big shoals of Queen Mackerel — Natal Snoek — moving through the area in good numbers. Once we got onto them, the action became pretty non-stop. Fish coming through clean in the blue water, good shot opportunities, and proper fun diving with mates in epic conditions. All three of us managed to get some really good fish.
For me personally, this day was also about getting some good video of my new Unicolor Camo carbon barrels.I was diving a 110 CSR3 single roller from the Unicolor Camo carbon barrel range, and honestly, the gun could not have performed better. Shot after shot went exactly where I wanted it to. The 110CSR3 is one of my favorite setups and the gun just felt completely dialed in from the start.
There’s always something satisfying about testing new gear in genuinely good conditions because you really get to see what it’s capable of. This wasn’t one of those difficult scratchy days where you’re forcing opportunities. The visibility allowed us to relax, hunt properly, pick our shots carefully, and really enjoy the diving.
And those are usually the days where you realise whether a gun setup is truly balanced or not.
This video is basically a full look into that session onboard the DEVILFISH on the North Coast. Amazing conditions, good fish, proper diving with good mates, and a chance to show the 110CSR3 doing exactly what it was designed to do.
The new Unicolor Camo range is available from 90cm all the way through to 130cm in both the CSR3 and CDR4 rollerguns.