Team Aye Ya Yai

By Erwin Bursik

WHAT has the OET done wrong in the eyes of King Neptune, the ruler of the sea and all within her? Why, for the second year in a row, has this prestigious 42-year-old competition experienced horrific weather and a dearth of billfish in the waters off Sodwana?

The “manne” of the Mpumalanga Deep Sea Angling Association put in a great deal of time, planning and work to prepare for this year’s OET, as did every team competing in the event. Every angler wanted to ensure their team would be in the running to win this top-notch competition and walk away with the two Mercury 80hp 4- stroke outboard motors which were proudly displayed in the marquee.

Sadly the weather beat us all. We had two complete blow out days and one marginally fishable day when only about 50% of the fleet went to sea before being called back at 11am. That left just two full days of fishing in fairly uncomfortable seas. Not ideal at all.

The even bigger disappointment, though, was the lack of billfish in the Sodwana area, or at least their reluctance to feed. On day two five billfish were released, on day three two were released and another two were released on day four, giving a pathetic total of just nine billfish released at the 2019 OET.

Two other billfish releases had to be disqualified because of apparent camera trouble. In order to have their billfish release count, anglers have to provide photographic evidence of the fish being held alongside the boat with the leaderman’s wrist boasting the colour band nominated by radio control.

So King Neptune technically allowed only 11 billfish to be captured and released at the November 2019 event.

Fortunately within the offshore angling community of South Africa there’s an unwritten creed underlying the incredible amount of “gees” and good old-fashioned camaraderie which has been evident at every one of the 42 OET events and 2019 was no exception. It’s this enjoyable social interaction that all of us take as our reward for having fished the OET, and that side of the event was once again very special and could only have been better had there been more fish and better weather.

This camaraderie mentioned above was very evident at each day’s happy hour which was held in the large marquee erected in the grounds of the Sodwana Bay Lodge. Long faces and unhappy temperaments because of the bad weather and few fish just did not manifest in the marquee, because no one wanted to ruin the party.

Getting back to the actual fishing, there were a lot of small tuna around to provide those boats that were targeting them with a fair amount of fun. At least it broke the monotony of watching konas being dragged around the ocean. In saying that, a huge amount of effort was expended by the marlin manne who went from Diep Gat in the south to Mabibi in the north, using their entire arsenal of fishing knowledge and equipment to try to coax a billfish to feed.

As I mentioned earlier, a fair number of small tuna in the 6- to 12kg class were presented to the scales along with a limited number of other bycatch species such as dorado, skipjack, tuna and wahoo.

In this section the most successful team was the crew on Aye Ya Yai who amassed 167.9 points all on gamefish. That was sufficient for them to attain second position overall and be awarded the silver medal (happily received from Garth McGee and proudly worn) as well as the McGee Motors cash prize and the autopilot and GHC20 helm control display sponsored by Garmin.

Marly Quinn took third spot and received their bronze medals from Dawie Roux from Garmin. mNumzane caught two impressive yellowfin tuna, one of 25.6kg and one of 23kg, and the bigger fish won them the very substantial Calcutta prize.

With almost no reward, many of us persisted in our search over the ocean’s surface as far out as the 1 000m contour where the water was very blue and often in excess of 26°C.And still we couldn’t figure out why there were so few marlin. Was it a lack of baitfish out deep due to the fast north-south current? Or was it simply that the blue- and striped marlin that normally dominate catch results had just not arrived in Sodwana’s water in time for the OET?

Another surprise adding to our confusion was that the majority of billfish released were black marlin. Looking at the results from all the billfish competitions over the last two decades, blue- and striped marlin normally dominate.

It is going to be interesting to view the composition of the marlin species released at the Billfish 15 000 and the SADSAA Nationals — held at Sodwana in the two weeks following the OET — in order to put into perspective the poor fishing we experienced.

It was a tense day on Thursday 10 November as there were a number of boats that each had one marlin and thus 100 points on the leaderboard. Right up to the last 20 minutes no team had released two billfish. Then the ether was suddenly broken by a call: “OET beach control, OET beach control, Cayrima reporting a hookup.” Then came another call from Cayrima calling for extra time in accordance with the competition rules, to enable them to bring the fish alongside for verification and a photograph. At 2.10pm the blue marlin was alongside and soon afterwards it was successfully released.

TOP TEN TEAMS

1. Cayrima . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .207.30pts

2. Aye Ya Yai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167.90pts

3. Marly Quinn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154.80pts

4. Seevarkie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147.70pts

5. Esperanza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131.10pts

6. Dee Jay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123.50pts

7. Mrs See Varkie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116.30pts

8. Pinnacle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100.00pts

9. Zambezi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84.40pts

10. C Cruiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70.20pts

This fish put Cayrima on top of the leaderboard and positioned them as possible winners if the predicted south-westerly buster put paid to the scheduled last day of fishing on Friday 8 November.

The weather man was right, and everyone but team Cayrima was disappointed when there was a 5am ruling that Friday was a blowout — fishing was cancelled.

The final function and prizegiving was a joyous event during which prizes were awarded to those teams which had achieved sufficient results to do justice to the awards that were on offer thanks to the vast array of sponsors.

Cayrima, skippered by Norman Creydt, was the only boat to release two marlin during this year’s OET, and they duly mounted the impressive stage where they were hailed as the champions of the 2019 OET.

Mercury have supported the OET for 20 years, and rightly received rapturous applause from all of us the prizegiving when Mercury’s Francois Human handed over the two 80hp Mercury 4-stroke motors to the skipper and crew from Cayrima.

Nico Zaaiman, President of the Mpumalanga Deep Sea Angling Association, thanked and praised the many sponsors whose generosity made the running of the 42nd OET possible. He also thanked the association’s organising committee who had expended time, energy and extremely hard work to achieve the flawless running of this event.

As a personal observation, those of us who took part in the 2019 Mercury OET Bill- & Gamefish tournament and were at the sharp end of dismal weather and a dearth of billfish were uplifted by the OET team’s hosting of each evening’s happy

hour as well as the extremely professional prizegiving function. At this final function when the results had been announced and all those who had achieved had received their rewards, it was very evident that everyone attending had put the disappointments behind them and happily engaged in the afterglow and camaraderie engendered by the OET family.

The 43rd OET Bill- & Gamefish Tournament is already in the planning stage, and one can be assured that the Mpumalanga Deep Sea Angling Association will ensure that event is as exciting and happy an event as it was in 2019 — hopefully with better weather conditions and a lot more fish! See you there!.