Shelly Beach Gamefish Interprovincial 21-23 Feb

[Bwana]

Ok guys it's time for the Gamefish Interprovincial hosted at Shelly Beach this weekend. I'll use this thread to update you guys on what's happening and what's coming out. So far there are 9 teams comprising Southern Gauteng (4), Northern Gauteng, Zululand and the hosts Natal (3). The fleet of 9 boats include some top local skippers and some new toys including the brand new Watt4 (PJ Botha's new Cobra 640) and the new Must Byt (Mike Schneider's new Tom Cat 747) so plenty of boat porn around!


The weather forecast shows a buster coming through tonight and most likely blowing through tomorrow so a possible first day blowout, but Saturday and Sunday are looking good. There have been a few nice tuna around, the odd couta on Protea and a lot of tropical yellowtail, skipjack, bonnies and jobfish so the species count could be key this year.


Let's see how things play out....

[Half-Pint]

Good luck Mark!

[Prego]

  Mark and enjoy

[isivuba]

Good luck Mark and congrats on making the provincial team, stoked for you bud.

[Debbie]

Tight lines Mark 

[Bwana]

Thanks guys, it's going to be a good comp, some very good anglers arriving here so will be good to learn some new tricks and maybe teach a few as well 

[Charles]

Good luck Mark! Looking forward to the updates!

[shagnrelease]

Hope the weather plays ball mate, Tight lines and Give Grant from zululand some chirps for me, but dont try drink    with him, its a trap,the guy can put them away!!

[Big Van]

Good luck Mark! I think the guys can come and learn from you.

[timn]

All the best, show them how it's done!    and keep us posted!

[Gerhard]

Tight Lines!!


Hope the weather plays ball as well as the fish...

[Kegan]

lekker mark!good luck to you guys!hope you bring a few donkeys from the deep...

[Toppie]

Good luck Mark, here's one where I support the resident local!

[John F]

Mark!

[CLS]

All the best Mark, go make us KZN boys proud.

[Bwana]

Day 1 Update:


Not good news i'm afraid, 6am weather call was made and Day 1 is a BLOW OUT. Gusting SW winds and driving rain were not suitable conditions despite a relatively simple launch the conditions in the deep would be terrible. Tomorrow and Sunday looking much better. Murphy's law - our boat draw for today was the super-comfortable TomCat 747 with hard top, clears and all the best electronics - would have not even felt the rain, wind or swell!

[Gregf]

Bad luck on today Mark, but good luck and tight lines for the remaining two days

[Shaun17]

So how did it go Mark? Looking forward to the report bud...

[Gregf]

So how did it go Mark? Looking forward to the report bud...

 

[Bwana]

Ok guys, sorry for the lack of updates but it's been a flat-out weekend with no spare time. The comp went very well and I must say Shelly Beach Ski Boat Club put on a great event with awesome facilities, good skippers and boats and a couple of fish around.


Day 2 - the sea had settled after the big SW of day 1 but the prediction was for the "poison" SE to start blowing mid morning which usually shuts the fish down properly. The launch was fair, a lot of swell around but a few flats available and everyone launched safely. The start was delayed by one boat who had a flat trailer tyre on the ramp and couldn't launch for 20min It was finally sorted and we could all start fishing. There was a lot of life out in the deep with 27deg purple water and lots of bird and surface action. Being a species comp the boats were after any gamefish with a minimum weight of 3 kg or 6kg for Yellowfin. A lot of Skipjack were caught in the deep as well as 2 wahoo (on halco's). The rest of the day was spent around Protea looking for tuna. The SE shut things down but it backed off around midday and then the tuna came onto the bite. We managed 2 nice YFT on the northern pinnacle, got a bonnie and lots of skipjack. At the weigh in on Day 2 there were some very nice fish weighed including a 19kg YFT, 3 wahoo, jobfish, bonnies and skipjack. At the close of Day 2 our fellow Natal Team were on top and we were placed 5th.


Day 3 - We were greeted by cooking surf conditions at the launch but thankfully everyone launched safely. The fishing was slow to start with but eventually at around 8.30am the tide change brought the fish onto the feed. We got a couple of skipjack on lures in the deep and managed a very nice 14.6kg YFT on Halco in amongst the Skipjack which was a bonus fish. Later we went on the drift around the southern pinnacle. A lot of YFT were hooked up and lost to the sharks. I lost a good YFT to a shark with 30m to go and that seemed to be the pattern for the day. We eventually decided to move deeper looking for species on jig and maybe find some YFT without sharks around. We got small ambers on jig and I missed a nice wahoo on jig in 50m of water - it missed the hooks and sliced deep gashes into the metal! We finished off in the deep with 2 nice YFT and a skipjack. At the weigh in the guys all had a tough day with taxes paid in full! The weigh in had several 18-20 kg size YFT missing tails or just the heads. We had a good bag for the day and despite missing out on the bonnie that would have been our 3rd species we had a good day.


At the prizegiving there were afew position changes from Day 2. We managed to push up to 3rd from 5th and our fellow Natal team held on to their first place to make it


Gold) Natal White
Silver) Southern Gauteng Blue
Bronze) Natal Black


All round it was a great competition and there was a high level of angling. The 10kg line class also separated the men from the boys with no room for error on rigging and tackle. It was a great honour to fish for Natal in this compe and I am thrilled we finished in the medals!


The pics haven't been released yet but so far i have these:


1) Day 1 launch
2) Day 2 launch
3) Bling!