Suidpunt Deep Sea Angling Club

Two Oceans Marlin Challenge

written by Andrew Perrins (Marlin Control)

The weather didn't play ball, at least not this year, 2007, and 2008 were perla's, you have to take a knock sometime! Well Thursday looked good, Friday even betta, maybe we try a Sunday fishing, who knows, let the anglers decide.

The weather commitee meeting on Sunday evening at Marlin Control, resulted in emails been sent out to all 32 boat skippers plus exras, advising of a 'weather precaution'

Tuesday was as expected, and the opening function was to go ahead as planned. The big boats had'nt arrived yet, by sea, as the conditions were to rough.The function went off well, with some of the fellas, driving up from Cape Town for thwe event. Some of the guys had never fished for marlin before, so some of the 'sea proffesors', enlightened them of the skills and actions that they could expect, needless to say that some of those 'sea profesors' had also never caught a marlin! Well as the crowd dwindeled, the few first timers were entertained by a grafic demonstration on how it could be done, by one of the organisers, who has caught, released not one but a few marlin, here at Struisbaai, not else where, Cause our marlin are different.

I'm not going into discussion about why, cause you gonna have to come to next years tournament and find out yourself. but enough of that lets get back to the action.

Then in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, all hell broke loose in Struisbaai, with lightning, continious for three hours. Thunder,and then rain, rain, rain, wind was the next order of the day, with winds exceeding ,..I would imagine of 40 knots, hail, etc, etc, etc. Nothing like Struis has ever seen before., and it was predicted, the spike on the weather chart showed it and the SAWDIS, sent me a warning about extreme conditions, but we did not expect this!!.The storm duration was about three hours.

The morning dawned a beaut., and the whirl, whirl of the white Allouette search and rescue helicopter was very loud in the early morning sun rise. We watched it hovering around quite close to where Merroin Williams lives, the home of Huckfin, a 26ft Rob Craft, who has seen the likes of many a great Black Marlin.We jumped into ski-boat mobile, and headed for where the chopper was, to find a newly constructed house half collapsed, the concrete floor slab snapped in half like a twig.The rest of Struis and Agulhas was a mess of mud, landslides, and general devastation. Our route to our vantage point where Marlin control operates from, was washed away, impassable even with a Landcruiser!

On our surveying rounds we bumped into Andre 'Mossie' Mostert, whom just happens to be fishing in the tournament and just our luck happens to be a partner in the nature reserve behind the light house at Agulhas., and he said that we could use the highest hill in the reserve to operate from. It is a wee bit lower, and a bit more inland, but what the hell, it will work, so thanks to him, we were able to set up the repeater, and man the Realty One caravan, high on a hill, with puff adders and some beautifull Rooikat around.

Marlin Control was up and running by Thursday lunch time, and 88 deltafm, came on the air, with a range of some 150 miles, running 25watt back to back Motorolla transceivers, and one 9db Pacific base antenna mounted at 6m, and one Shakespear 18ft 9db, verticle antenna up at 8m. Both these antenna were mounted on the caravan, so we were about 400m above sea level. Power was from two deep cycle 120amp hour 12volt batteries, and these were charged with a 5 kva diceil genset, also supplied by Andre.

Thursday afternoon saw a few boats venture out to do some bottom fishing and a few checked out the 12 mile bank.The weather had moderated nicely, and conditions were gettin betta.The wind was still out of the SE, at about 15knots. At the weather meeting earlier that day we had decided not to fish in the tournament, but if the fellas wanted to, they could go to sea and have some fun. Marlin Control was on the air, for safety purposes., and also the bigger boats were still on there way up from Cape Town by sea.at 50.5 and 11, Blade running behind Ludecrious reported two reels stripped of line, the excitment grew more tence.

08h30b, HyssuCat reports an on/off 3 miles south of the bank, and the talk on the wireless get busy, then Allan on Tyler at 09h13b shouts hookup, and the fight is on.

At 09h30b, we give Allan a colour, which is Blue, and at 09h45b a Stripey

Thursday evening saw the magestical Midnight Blue, a 60ft, New Zealand built beauty, drop anchor inside Struisbaai almost 50 years to the date, that his father dropped anchor with the Nimbuss, those many years ago. Nimbus was the pathfinder of the 'tunny boats' from Cape town, that would tour up to Struis over easter to tackle the big Steenbras, and 74's, of those days.Later that evening the Rodman, Country Lady also dropped her anchor, a few times till it stuck, also a veteran of the modern day Tunny boat trek..,

Friday dawned a beauty., and the 24 compertition boats headed for the 12 mile bank, one of the boats Ludicrous, headed for the Alphard Banks.The normal first morning excitement filled the airwaves, and then Ludicrous reported large pots of Mackerel of 120kg, swims free, a successfull release. Lots of congrates then follow on 88 d fm, and while every body is saying his bit, Gawie on Indigo reports that they are on, after a fight of one minute the fish throws the hook, and the chatter on the wireless get active.

The wind begins its change and the light nw'ster becomes a lite sw'ster, and shortly after 11.30, Stev, on Beluga, reports a strike, and fighting, but allas, tis only a Mako, which gets released to swim another day

Midday passes and Marlin Control is just about to do the midday call in, where the boats will radio their lat/long in, when Cool Blue breaks in to report a hook up, and fighting, this was to be a fight lasting about 34 minutes, and with a yellow id rist band, they succsessfully release a black marlin of plus minus 150kg, once again it is pleasing to hear the other skippers congratulating Cool Blue on their achievement.It made me think back a few years ago to when Merrion Williams, phoned me while I was up on the small holding in Hobhouse, se Freestate, and asked me "What I thought' about a marlin comp., with a difference operating out of Struisbaai? I didn't take long to answer, as a youngster I used to fish Sruisbaai with my mentor in Fishing, Allen THOMPSON, AND EVEN THEN, WE WOULD SEE THINGS, that we didn't know could have been marlin. Of course my answer was, 'i'm in', what can i do?

The discussion went around, sportsmanship, fellowship, sharing, and 'just havin a bloody good time', no landed marlin, and points to the person that handles the marlin in the correct way, no huge Bonanza comp., and no comp with big prizes.

Well, this is now the third year and I think by the statistics, the criteria has been met.

Well, the rest of the day is very uneventfull, with one other strike during the afternoon, and the happy, satisfied, but maybe slightly frustrated bunch of anglers, head home after the 16h00b lines up call. Ludicrous had a wonderfull day on the Alphard Banks, with them getting their quota of Steembras, some well over 20kg, huge yellowtail, and a variety of Silver fish, all very nicely sized.

That evening saw Suid Punt Club, intertain the masses with a fantastic yellowtail braai.

FRIDAY STATS; 10 HOOK UPS;2XRELEASES OF MARLIN;1XMAKO RELEASED, AND TWO STRIPPED REELS.

Saturday dawned with a bit of a south wester, 26 boats headed out to the 12 mile bank- you must remember that fishing the triangle; Alphard Banks, 45's and 12 mile bank is a huge area of ocean, just on a 12 mile bank day trip including the 8 odd hours trolling a boat could do well over 100 nautical miles in that day-so safety is huge issue during these marlin Challenges.The only help, really, would come from the other competing boats,in the event that there was a problem. That is why, the reporting in to marlin control is very important, and we record all the lat/longs and other activity's on the water Marlin control is postioned so we can also keep a visual eye on the water, so it has been nick named, 'THE EYE IN THE SKY', or more aptly named ' the px%l on the hill', by Jerremy Hare. From the Realty One caravan, the three wise men, or the four professors and a "honder" entertain the multitutes, with news views and interviews, during the day, even sometimes, a bit of music is playedAlways under the watchfull eye of the panel leader, Capt Verbals.

Well Saturday got off to a good start with Marco Polo reporting a hook up at 08h35b, and after a twenty minute fight, a red ID colour was called and a 110kg Stripey was successfully released, and once again the wireless was alive with praise and congrats.Shortly thereafter the radio crackeled into life with the news that Ludicrous had hooked into a 'big un' and that the fight was on.After twenty minutes, and a green id colour a 110kg strippie was released, and then the chatter on the radio began. After the initial flurry, all went quiet, till just after 11h00b when Derek on Met Eish reported a hook up, but minutes later it was off.The rest of the morning progressed with one or two more srikes and a huge mako was released.Gotcha reported three srikes, one after the other, but no hookups, fustratedly they trolled on for the rest of the afternoon, with no real action. A few sightings were observed,but that was that, and the boats returned to Struisbaai, after the lines up call at 16h00b

STATS DAY2 STRIKES X 20;RELEASES X 2; MAKO X X2; LOST FISH X 2

Music and a wors braai at Suidpunt club was the order of the evening, which went down with a few drinks between the competitors.

During the afternoon, Marlin control had asked the boats wheher they would like to fish the sunday till 14h00b, and have the prize giving at 16h00b, and the response was affirmative, so an extra day would be fished.

Sunday am saw 15 boats, out on the water in near perfect conditions, with the big 60 footer, giving his so longs at midday and he heading for Gansbaai, to refuel and rewater.Shortly thereafter Gotcha all said cheers, and steamed for Gordons Bay.The Rodman, of Hammie, Country Lady, would come into the harbour at Struis to refuel, at high tide, so fun was had by all.

Sunday morning at 08.07b, was the first action, with Huckfin shouting 'vas', only to find a while later, that it was a Mako. During the duration of the morning we heard of a few on/offs, but nothing really happened.

The now four proffs, and a "honder" really swung into action, and entertained the masses on 88fm, with a question and answer session, that fooled even the most educated of the masses.Fun was had by all

14h00b, came and the boats headed back to the harbour, Blue Magic and Gotcha well on their way to Cape Town and Gordons Bay. Marlin Control kept in contact with them till they got in range with Penguin. Marlin control had kept in contact with both Penguin and ZCS, during the comp. Also we liased with Shane, from NSRI, Agulhas, and we would assist them if required to do so, like we did in 2008, where we towed a few 'chukkies' in.

STATS; SUN; STRIKES X 3; MAKO X 2; SIGHTING X 3;

Prize giving was a bit later than we had advertised for, but so what, we had acurately worked out the points, looked at all the photo's, of the released fish, and worked out who is getting what.

As I mentioned earlier, this comp. is not to do about big prizes, but in the same way, it is nice to be able to give something back to the fella's that had made the effort, and that is why I can say thank you to the sponsors of the tournament they are mentioned elsewhere in this article.

The overall winners of the 2009 two oceans marlin tournament where Tony and his crew on COOL BLUE

The anglers, skippers and participants went home with a smile on their faces, proud to have been part of this years prestigious tournament, and once again thanks to Merrion William, Gawie Bruwer, and' Jo-Anne Van der Walt for what they all did to make these tournaments so successfull.

From me Andrew Perrins, the p&%l on the hill it was a privillage to be able to come out from London to Struisbaai and run the tournament, and with Gods will, I hope to be back next year. IF YOU WANT TO BE PART OF THE 2010 participants, you had betta get hold of Johan van der Walt, quickly, because there is a limit on the amount of boats for 2010, and that will be 30. The reason being, is that the Agulhas ocean is just too small for more.

Till next time, 73's from marlin control.

NEXT YEARS MARLIN TOURNAMENT WILL OPERATE ON MARINE VHF CHANNEL 82 DUPLEX FM.

Andrew Perrins

Marlin Control