Over the Easter weekend, the RBSBC held its annual Fishing Festival. It was fished over 3 days (Friday to Sunday) and had about 125 boats participating. I had entered my Dad’s boat into the competition with my Dad, myself and two good friends from Middleburg as competitors. I was the convenor of the competition and was very nervous to fish as there were so many things to sort out during the day.
On Friday the 22nd, I was at the club at just before 4am. The weather had turned and a strong SW was whipping up the sea. The weather committee called the comp off for the day and the festivities began!
On Saturday morning, the wind had died and the sea had flattened. All boats put to sea before we launched our boat. The idea was to look for marlin with live bait so we headed to small high point and pulled some small lures around. The water was very cold and the colour was relatively green with a strong reverse current. The first pass over the pinnacle however resulted in 2 running reels. Wessel and Marinda both took up the rods and pulled in a 4kg kwaw-kawa and a 4kg yellowfin respectively. The yellowfin went into the tube and we continued trolling. Soon we had a few small bonnies in the icebox and headed out deeper. I rigged the yellowfin on a 50Lbs outfit and let it out 20m behind the boat before clipping the line into the rigger clip.
We trolled out to 600m but the conditions just got worse. The water colour changed to pea soup and the temperature dropped. At 11am we turned shallower to return to the slightly better water and in 400m, the bait revved but the rigger did not pop. I pulled the bait closer and saw the brown shape of a hammerhead shark behind it. I pulled the bait in but it was too late. The shark had bitten off the tail. We were now in the desert in terrible water without bait. The wind was now also blowing at about 15 knots NE and churning up the sea. We opted to abandon the day and head home before the rush. That marked the end of our day. There were 3 marlin released and a few nice tuna weighed. Other than that, results were poor.
On Sunday morning, the NE was still blowing at 10-15knots and only a few boats went to sea. Many returned before long complaining that the chop was quite bad. We had decided to give it a skip as well and spent the day enjoying the activities at the Club.
Overall the competition was a success and a good time was had by all. We will try again next year.
