COMPETITION
Guinjata Species Bonanza 2022 Story by Erwin Bursik Main photo by Justin Klusener
C
OVID changed the world we knew in many ways, and just one of the effects for fishermen specifically was losing out on attending some of our favourite annual competitions.The Guinjata Bonanza had to be cancelled two years in a row thanks to the pandemic, and it seemed an incredibly long time for the South African skiboaters who look forward to this event. Early June 2022 saw the resurgence of the adventure of towing one’s craft the 1 000-odd kilometres to what is arguably one of Moçambique’s most scenic and special fishing destinations. The return of this experience and the sight of the wide white sand beach, welcoming bay and southern headland stirred deep emotion in the soul of many of us who have attended this event since its inception in 1998. This year also saw the return of an impressive number of ’cuda (king mackerel) in the waters both north and south of Guinjata Bay. Most teams participating had the opportunity to catch these fast and tenacious “silver fish” to form a base count in the species-driven point scoring rules of this event. This run also produced the winning fish of the competition. It was however the “great conservator” who had a major
6 • SKI-BOAT September/October 2022
say by foisting some unseasonably bad weather conditions on us. The strong winds delayed the start of the competition by two days, and gave us very rough conditions on both the Wednesday and Friday, leaving only the Thursday as a very pleasant day to fish the waters off Guinjata Bay. Having said that, even during the rough weather the fish count was high, but many of us found it difficult to obtain other species to use as a multiplying factor over and above the ’cuda, to build up a respectable points tally. Getting a good points tally — derived from recording the numbers of species caught and/or released after measurement on the issued chart strips — was imperative. In this competition, final points are calculated by multiplying the accumulative weight of the fish caught by the number of species caught. To put it bluntly, if you didn’t catch a number of different species, you were not in the running. As an example, on the first day of fishing 111 fish were weighed or released — 12 different species. Fifty ’cuda were recorded, 16 yellowfin, 13 amberjack (all released), 10 bonito, 11 kingfish species, one dorado, three greater barracuda, four green jobfish, one prodigal son, one wahoo and one GT.
