Last Sunday I headed off to Cape Vidal to fish on my mates boat - Four Winds for the annual Vidal marlin comp. This year we were camping so had some work to do setting up camp and getting the boat ready. There was a bugger up with our campsite booking but we ended up getting a better site than expected. Sunday night went off to the tent for the welcome and skippers briefing and a few dops. I think only 13 boats fished this year, almost half than normal. Quite a few regular blokes had some other commitments that clashed but they'll be back.
Monday we were launching on a dead low tide but having the tractors there to push in was a huge help, that bay is so sanded up at the moment. Other than getting the boat into the water the rest of the launch was really easy with no real swell to speak of. Monday was a quite day with My Son landing the only marlin and we had 3 strikes. We thought we were on the money for the week with that start but Tuesday and Wednesday we didn't get a touch and the other boats started producing.
Thursday was a really lumpy day out there and the day was nearly called short but some guys persevered and it paid off for us, landing a nice blue of around 250kgs in some pretty difficult conditions. Friday was another blob day for us but we were in the right places seeing guys going tight around us or hearing guys reporting a hookup after seeing them minutes earlier - sometimes the luck doesn't go your way.
Saturday was a day I'll never forget, we only had one strike in the shallow water but a bit later we came across Eye Tie who had landed a beaut of a fish, we pulled our lines in and went and had a look an took some photos for them. Unfortunately the fish had died and due to an agreement with iSimangaliso for the comp the fish had to be left out there regardless of whether it was alive or not, the whole story of a dead fish being left out there has made a bit of a Sh** storm but it was done for the right reasons and its not my place to say much more about it.
I really don't know what a grander should look like so I cant judge it but they took the measurements as best they could and that's good enough for me, Its sad to see a fish like that die but I don't know if our gear and boats are capable of bullying those big fish to the boat quick enough so that they have a good chance at surviving a release. To be a part of that was really special though.
Kellys Eye won the comp with 5 fish, next best I think where My Son, Eye Tie and Garfield with 3 each. A total of 25 released fish and 27 strikes. The quality of the fish is what really got the guys excited, marlin numbers weren't as good as 2011 but this is going to be a comp that everyone remembers for a long time.
Something that stood out was the complete lack of pelagics during the comp. Every day there is normally some dorries, tuna or wahoo in the mix but this year there was only one 15kg tuna and a small wahoo caught on the first day and that was it for the week!! the tuna came out on the 1000m mark I think. Most of the marlin action was between 200-400m so not sure if that had anything to do with the scarce pelagics? Smaller konas also seemed to produce the majority of the strikes
