FANTASY BECOMES REALITY

by Henry Gouws

AFTER 14 years of competing in the Billfish 15000,our team has finally taken top honours.What a privilege and honour!

Although preparation for a tournament like this takes many months,the assembled team,consisting of myself as skipper,Mario Els,Malcolm van der Merwe and Rian van Vuuren,really only got to prepare the final tackle,boat,lures and baits for the coming days on Saturday 11 November.On the Sunday afternoon,just before registration I looked over the tackle and,much to my surprise and dismay,saw less than five lures,two large teaser lures,a dredge and some pitch baits! This was going to be very different to previous years.So this was the game plan – swim three hooked lures,two teasers and a dredge,wait for Mr Marlin to show himself and pitch.Simple!

On the Monday morning we launched among the first wave of boats at daybreak.On a hunch,we headed north towards Rondekop,fishing all the way on the ledge,targeting marlin.

Our spread consisted of a Marlin Magnet on the left long rigger,a Swazi on the long right rigger and an Islander Black Hole with a strip bait in the shotgun position.We had a monster tube on the left teaser close in,and a Brasiliano on the right teaser swimming slightly behind the Pulsator dredge.This spread was deployed for the entire competion,with the only exception being that the the Black Hole was changed to a Pulsator Tube on Wednesday.

Late on Monday morning we arrived in an area off Rondekop in 600m of water where we have had some success in the past.It wasn’t long before a blue marlin jumped onto the Swazi,and Malcolm successfully released the fish. FantaSea was on the scoreboard in seventh place.

On Tuesday morning,buoyed by the previous day’s success,we again headed for the deep off Rondekop.Same spread,same place,no result and we drop to 11th place.

Undeterred,on Wednesday we again headed to Rondekop deep.Around midday,the Black Hole on long got some attention.A nice blue was hooked and peeled a couple hundred metres of line before getting off! Choice words were spoken,the mood turned black and the slack line was retrieved.We soon realised tackle failure was responsible for the lost marlin!

It turned out the crimp on the hook had pulled. Closer examination revealed the crimp was not crimped! Some really choice words were spoken and everyone was seriously depressed.

The spread was reset and the Black Hole replaced with a Pulsator Tube.We had just decided it was time to light the braai,and then off went the tube! Mario was in the chair and successfully releases a black marlin giving us species bonus points! Perhaps the tackle failure was a blessing in disguise because we jumped from 11th to first place!

Despite threats that the weather would deteriorate early in the morning, on Thursday the competition was a go. We again headed to Rondekop,but decided to run to our spot as we fully expected the fishing to be called off early in the day.We again deployed the same spread,and soon thereafter the Swazi got some attention and I successfully released a blue marlin.

Around 9am fishing was called off, but our points had jumped to 795 with the next nearest team on 495 points.At that stage,there were four or five teams that could still win the competition,but due to our bonus points each of those teams had to either get a very early fish, get one on circle hook or a different species to their previous catches.Some teams would require a combination of all three of those criteria to beat us.

On Friday morning we were one of the first boats on the beach.We prepared the boat to launch and then waited.The weather was threatening,the surf conditions were concerning and the tide was dropping.Shortly after daybreak a vote was called on whether we should launch and the 28 boats assembled on the beach proceed to vote with flags on the riggers.The vote was a tie. Safety considerations prevailed and the day was called off.We had done it Team FantaSea had won the Billfish 15000!!

In the final analysis,our spread worked,but ironically,we never got to take the pitch bait out of the cooler because we never saw a fish on the teasers.This scenario was,however, completely reversed the following week during the Billfish Nationals,when all the fish my team saw came on the teasers! Marlin angling is indeed a game of taking your opportunities,whichever way they come.

The Billfish 15000 is without doubt the premier angling competition in South Africa,and we are extremely proud to have won and honoured to have competed against arguably the best marlin anglers in Southern Africa.

We thank the organisers,competitors and,most importantly,the very generous sponsors,all of whom make the Billfish 15000 such an amazing competition.Rest assured,we will be back in 2024 to defend our title!