False Bay Competition

The notoriously fickle Cape Town weather was again in full force on competition day with a cold front brushing our coast and the gale force South Easter wrecking havoc for all planning a day at or on the waters. The barometric pressure dropped and the water temperature went from 21 degrees along the false bay coast to about 18 degrees in a matter of hours. The barometre reading then reached 1025 and this to and fro must have had one hell of an impact on the fish. The water was big with extreme amounts of choppiness and copious amount of pull and undercurrents. It is commonly referred to as “lang been” water and wading had to be undertaken with more than a little bit of circumspection. The South easter was raging at about 55km per hour and touched on over 60km’s at certain places. 

The water colouration was a sea of green with big swells whilst the air temperature was around 25 degrees albeit with an ever present icy wind.

Saturday 15/03/2008

The teams for the captain’s meeting at the Engen One Stop at 4.45am and was decided to tackle the beaches from the fence at Macassar to Frans se paal at Sunrise circle.  The extreme weather must have put some anglers off as there appeared to be less anglers at the starting blocks.  Sanity does sometimes prevail and an extra turn in the warm bed seemed like a more pragmatic approach than face the conditions on the day. 

When driving the beaches however, you could see that many of the anglers who had not met at the starting point had actually been busy on the beaches setting up for a big day of fishing and had tried to secure the most popular spots for their respective clubs, so much for the lying in bed theory.  From pillar to post the seas were rough and tough but as eternal optimist, everybody got ready for the big start.  

It cannot be co-incidence that most of the masters category anglers headed to Macassar whilst other top anglers preferred Tweede and Eerste baai along the Monwabisi coast.  Others opted for the cliff areas such as Bird Sanctuary, Van Zyl’s and Allerman se draai.  Those who braved the beaches seemed to concentrate on the Mnandi, Beespens and Gunnery areas even though these options, in hindsight, were most probably going to be the toughest to contend with the sand, wind and wild water with a couple of die hards wading in the deep abyss. 

The legend Nols van Zyl of Tygerberg was early on with a cowshark at Macassar of about 27kg’s and landed in quite quickly and his fellow team-mate Micheal Hon landing a spotted gulley shark of around 18kg’s.  Nizaam Hamza of Four Oceans then managed to get a spooted gulley of about 22kg at Mnandi area and whilst the coastline was relatively quite, their was still some optimism that the big stuff in lay in waiting. 

This unfortunately never really materialised as the fish were few and far between and those that actually hooked into a fish all turned out to be absolute busses that even the experienced anglers found virtually impossible to land. L. Bellingham of Goodwood then hooked and landed a decent 31kg bronzie whaler at Beespens, however his team-mates were again luckless in this regard.  Ankie Smit and his fishing partner, both from the Goodwood Angling club lost big fish after fighting fish for at least two hours each.

Similar stories came from Charlie Tancred of Two Oceans and Franco Bornmann of the ESA Pro Stores who could not come to grips with the sheer size of the bronze whalers.  A few anglers were however lucky enough to walk away with something as Robbie Janse proved by catching a nice 61kg bronze whaler at Surprise beach on his second throw.  He was thanking his lucky stars as with his first cast he hooked into an absolute sizer that got the better of him in no uncertain terms beat the pants off him and that is generally a statement that cannot often be made.  

Two Oceans made the best of the conditions with Jerome Trubshaw and Stephen Marais landing  spotted gulleys at Allerman se draai and Charl Marais a smoothhound at Mnandi.  The day however belonged to Steve van der Berg who hooked a bronze whaler at Bird Sanctuary and landed it at Allerman se draai, a good two km walk along some treacherous patches whilst all the while watching for the ever threatening kelp that so easily ensnares your line.  He landed it after a good 2.30hr fight with the bronze whaler weighing in at a healthy 152kg’s. 

The other clubs all handed in a couple of cards and was the poorest March month competition for the Cape anglers in living memory.  The prevailing conditions of gale force icy winds, the barometric pressure turbulence or another 50 factors could be responsible for the poor fishing experienced on the day, but the lesson is one of humility that as anglers we are never all knowing and nature has just given us a solid lesson.

Mike Pieters of False Bay hooked into a fish at about 12.30pm at Beespens and ably assisted by his fishing partner Abrie Steenkamp got towed around the coast from one end to the other for over 4hrs.  As the fish were few and far between, an entourage developed to encourage Mike to land the prized fish of a lifetime.  Every single angler, irrespective of their club affiliation offered Mike words of encouragement and made every effort to ensure that he did not get burnt off or snared in their lines.  This showed the true spirit of competitive angling where anglers stayed out of the water for extended periods whilst Mike got towed around.  We do not want to speculate what happened next but suffice to say that every effort was made to revive Mike and after being rushed by Abrie, Chris Dell and others to the medic station at Mnandi was it declared that he passed away. 

The very gloomy day was now truly exacerbated with his untimely passing away as he was and will always remain, a legend of rock and surf angling in the Western Cape, a stalwart of 25 years of committed angling to the False Bay angling club and patron of sharing his knowledge to all who asked. 

The WCSAA offers our heartfelt condolensces to his wife Lorita, his family and friends and may he rest in peace.  His family and friends, his club, the league and the community is poorer as a result of this untimely loss, but he will be fondly remembered for the enormous contributions his made throughout his life.  May the almighty provide his family and friends strength in this time of bereavement.

As stated earlier, the conditions were the worst this entire season with big seas and gale force south easterly winds from the start to the finish.  The league seem to have the misfortune of following the notorius patterns of the Cape weather and here is hoping that the next competition has a more pleasant demeanour.  A poor days fishing beats a good day at the office, but with the poor results and Mike passing away, the sombre mood continued with the weigh-in reflecting that disposition.  

Our motto remains to “test the boundaries, as it’s not next to you”, as only the smart and calculated decisions of club anglers will result in the success we all crave.  Pat Riley said that excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better and even though this was a worst competition result this season, we can take heart from the fact that in any conditions we are all passionate about this sport irrespective of the circumstances that confront us. 

John McCloy said that "Humility leads to strength and not to weakness. It is the highest form of self-respect to admit mistakes and to make amends for them."  Let us always remember to be humble in victory as in defeat, make every moment count as you might not have opportunities later on and let the friendship and camaraderie of the brotherhood of angling in your league blossom at all times.

There was a paltry 16 anglers who weighed in fish out of around 200 anglers.   Fish were  caught during the day  with a total weight of 425kg's.  425kg’s of fish in a sad indictment on the anglers and their efforts or is it just mother nature telling all and sundry who is really the boss.

Statistics are compliments of Mr. Thys Kemp

Wishing Mr. Thys Kemp God’s speed and a speedy recovery after his recent operation

Species caught included:

1. Bronze Whaler
2. Spotted Gulley
3. Duckbill
4. Sandy shark
5. Cowshark
6. St. Joseph

Top Ten Anglers: 15 March 2008

 Top Twenty Anglers: Year to Date

Accumulated Interclub Points to Date

The next WCSAA league competition is scheduled to take place on Saturday 5 or Sunday 6 April 2008.  It takes the format of a postal competition, so no captain’s meeting with starting times any 8 hours from 12.00am the Saturdaymorning until 24.00pm on Sunday.  Please note that WCSAA advocates a catch and release policy. Please contact me should you require any additional information or have further queries.