Blindsided

Guinjata Species Bonanza 2022

Story by Erwin Bursik

Main photo by Justin Klusener

COVID 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 conservationist” who had a major 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.

This set the leaderboard as follows: 1st Wolfie 454 points 2nd Queen Pine 331 points 3rd Dr Sangoma 217 points 4th S’MaLekke 198 points 5th Wild Thing 168 points

Of interest, two boats recorded five species each that day, which shows how important the multiplication factor is when accumulating total points.

The predetermined total bag limit of ten fish per species per boat for the week’s fishing, effectively stops a prevalent resource such as the ’cuda this year, being over exploited. Taking ’cuda as an example, on day one the boat tally was, on average, less than two of these prolific fish.

Most teams planned to bag two or three ’cuda first thing and then proceed to target other species in order to bring into effect the multiplication clause. In reality, a 6kg shoal ’cuda could, if a team caught five species, escalate that six points to 30 points.

A further factor in point accumulation was the release of billfish — sailfish earned 40 points and marlin 80 points.That can, and did this year, make a substantial contribution when multiplying by a number of species on a particular day.

Two fish caught early on during the competition eventually played a huge role in the final winners list — one unlucky and one lucky. The first was Mike Rich who released a 21kg amberjack (based on measurements) and the second was James Kofn who weighed his ’cuda of 14.7kg. In the final summation, Mike’s decision to release his amberjack cost him the prize for overall biggest weighed fish which went to James’s ’cuda.

Things changed drammatically from the Wednesday to Friday, and Wolfie didn’t keep her lead for long. In the end, Blindside overtook the whole fleet to win the 2022 Guinjata Species Bonanza.

The three sailfish and one marlin released by Blindside made an enormous difference to their points tally, and they ended with close to double the number of points of the next boat, Queen Pine. Lucky Luke II took third place.

TOP FIVE FISH

1. 14.7kg ’Cuda, James Kofn on Blesbok

2. 14.6kg Dorado, Arlindo on Pablo

3. 14.1kg ’Cuda, Shaun Erasmus on Footloose

4. 14.0kg ’Cuda, Douglas Stokes on Shamwari

5. 13.8kg Wahoo, Coen Vermaak Jnr on Coena 2

TOP FIVE ANGLERS

1. Cameron Sim, Blindside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199.2 points

2. Mike Harrison, Primezulu II . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115.8 points

3. Hannes, Simbiri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.8 points

4. Rhys Griffiths, Bubezi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94.5 points

5. Kelvin Stokes, Shamwari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93.1 points

TOP TEN BOATS

1. Blindside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 426.2 points 2. Queen Pine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814.7 points 3. Lucky Luke II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668.2 points

4. Wolfie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630.8 points 5. Dr Sangoma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478.6 points

6. Primezulu II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428.5 points 7. Uli Buli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404.1 points 8. Bubezi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284.0 points 9. Cruizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276.1 points 10. Pablo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274.4 points

TOP LADY ANGLERS

1. Chandra van Vuurent, Po 10 Sea . . . . . . . . . . . 80.0 points

2. Judith Louw, Swernoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.0 points

3. Trynie Vorster, Po 10 Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 points

WINNERS OF JET-SKI SECTION

1. Richard Griffiths, Jetski Red. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.4 points

2. Mark Reeves, Seabiscuit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87.2 points

3. Andre Hugget, Huggy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66.6 points

So much can be read into the tabled results shown, but they don’t fully reflect the true level of the trials and tribulations the anglers endured. Game plans could be right or wrong, even after taking into account both prevailing weather and sea conditions and the feeding habits of the various gamefish species that inhabit the magnificent stretch of coastline both north and south of Guinjata Bay.

In my opinion, the current format of the Guinjata Species Bonanza extracts the very best of angling expertise from all the teams taking part.

It rewards the hard work, knowledge and expertise of the top ten teams as well as enabling the lesser experienced anglers and teams to end up on the stadium during the spectacular prize giving to collect one or more of the amazing number of prizes.

Quentin Clark, the Guinjata Sport Fishing Club Chairman, and his small but dedicated committee who organise and run this event put in a tremendous effort in the months leading up to the event, and it showed.With the effects of Covid now behind us, it must be said that the spectacular prizes were a tribute to these men who had achieved such heights working tirelessly well over 1 000 kilometres from their home bases in Gauteng.

All the sponsors, big or small, not only made this event possible, but their contributions also gave the Guinjata Bay resort a massive economic injection that will hopefully enable it to once again shine as the gem of the Moçambique coast.

The Guinjata Sport Fishing Club’s annual species bonanza is traditionally held during the first week in June, and I look forward to the 2023 event.