Guinjata Takes the Trophy

By Wessel Grimbeek

MANY would agree that there is nothing that beats the smell of a 2-stroke in the morning ...especially when you have a role to play as an angler. However, there’s something that’s even better — the smell of a 2-stroke in the morning mixed with the fresh salty air coming off the ocean at the break of day.

The Rosebowl Deep Sea Angling Tournament has entered its 41st year, and the anglers from the Southern Gauteng Division eagerly took the long and winding road to Sodwana Bay on the KZN North Coast where this five-day event would be held from 12 to the 16 April 2021.This year it was hosted by the East Rand Boat Fishing Club.

It had been a long time since intrepid anglers could do battle with the denizens of the deep, so it was with tangible expectation that the teams started arriving ahead of the tournament for registration on the Sunday afternoon. The teams that took part were East Rand Boat Fishing Club, Albatross Ski Boat Club, Guinjata Sports Fishing Club, Makaira Game Fishing Club, Nomads Game Fishing Club and TSC. In total 191 anglers took part, fishing off 48 registered boats.

There has always been friendly competition and true camaraderie amongst the clubs and anglers at the Rosebowl events, and once again this tournament would bring out the best in gamefishing sportsmanship among the competitors.

With a host of sponsors lined up, there was no shortage of incredible prizes and even something for thirsty anglers after a very long and tiring day out at sea.

By 4am Monday morning the teams started lining up their craft and tow vehicles, waiting for the local parks authority to open the gates to the launch ramp. On this first day of the tournament there was some serious expectation of solid fish to be caught, because only a few days earlier some anglers had an absolute blast with the gamefish out of the same area.

Unfortunately, even the best planning couldn’t prepare competitors for what would be called a “slow start” to the Rosbowl. Some good fish were hooked and lost while other teams did relatively well with some good king mackerel and other species coming out.

Weigh-in was held at Viskoors where “Straf Meister” Johan aka Langes handed out punishment to deserving competitors in the form of chilly infused tequila and other poisons.

Day two wasn’t much better than the first day, and for some teams there were choices to be made in terms of which areas to fish — heading north, trying Diepgat, heading south or even pulling their lines off the Point.

Once more radio calls came in of billfish strikes and losses and again, for many, those that dwell in the deep proved to be ever elusive. The second day wrapped up with a few fish less to the weigh station, and after two days of punishing fishing and more punishing by Langes, it was back to the drawing board for the teams.

Already it was predicted that the final day of the tournament, Friday, would be a blow out, so at best, teams that were still lagging in points had only two remaining days to make up those points. The next two days would prove crucial in the final point standing.

By day three all of the niggling launching and beaching issues had been put to bed and, after a smooth launch, calls soon started coming in of fish strikes. As some anglers had predicted, the catches were much better as the weather patterns were slowly lining up for the blistering southwester that was expected on the Friday.

Once again after a long day, competitors settled down to a lovely meal prepared by Carol Pascoe and her team of helpers and, after Langes dispensed more “punishment” to those who deserved it, the weigh in started in earnest.

On this evening teams competed against each other in team spirit-driven games directed by radio host and MC John Badenhorst from Vibez.live and Fish Talk with the team from Nomads clearly taking things to a different level.

Day four, which would sadly be the final day of the tournament, dawned and in the blink of an eye the boats were all out at sea and working hard to raise those all-important bites.

In an event like this, different line classes are fished and those would prove pivotal in the point scoring system. Anglers used 6kg,10kg and 37kg line classes, and on this final day sadly a very big sailfish was lost on 6kg line.

That would have been a massive point load for the team. As with any type of angling, pre-frontal conditions do play a role, and there was a marked increase in fish being caught on this final day.

As predicted, the wind arrived in the early hours of Friday morning, and just after 4.30 am, the safety committee headed down to the beach and the call was made that the day was indeed “blown out”. This gave anglers time to start packing away their gear, cleaning boats, catching up with old friends and sleep while the organisers worked on the points and the final results for the prize giving which would take place that evening.

Some good fish were landed over the four days, with 20 ’cuda, two dorado,13 yellowfin tuna, some cobia, skipjack and even a rare dogtooth tuna being caught. A total of 74 gamefish were caught. When it came to billfish, were four marlin hookups with three being safely released while the other one unfortunately didn’t stay on. There were also eight sailfish hooked with four of these being brought to the boat and safely released.

After a fun-filled evening at the prize giving, the winners were announced and Guinjata Sports Fishing Club took top honours. Albatross Ski-Boat Club will be the hosts for the 2022 Rosebowl.

A load of fun was had by all, but sadly it was time to head back home and back to normality for some.

A massive thanks must go to the sponsors, partners, organisers and of course the competitors. As we all know, without these key people none of this would be remotely possible. That’s 2021 done and dusted. We’ll see you at the next Rosebowl, Beach Control signing off.

RESULTS

Top boats for the 2021 Rosebowl were as follows:

Day 1 Black Pearl

Day 2 Climax

Day 3 Man Size

Day 4 Ship Faced

Top anglers:

1. Warren Muller, Ship Faced

2. Ockie Theunissen, Climax

3. Alain Khan, Bite Me

Top women anglers:

1. Alta Mathews, Bite Me

2. Annalene Grimbeek, Maestro

3. Natalie Lenferna, Voicemail

Top boats for the tournament:

1. Bucket List

2. Ship Faced

3. Bite Me

4. Climax

5. Zane Marie