Team Chepu takes top honours

FOR the first time on the South Coast, Port Edward Ski-boat Club hosted a catch and release species competition last weekend.

Anglers were tasked with catching and releasing 10 different species, five bottom fish and five game fish. A special ruler was designed to measure the fish and a down rigger was supplied to each boat. The down rigger is specially designed to be used in releasing fish that are suffering from barotrauma.

The competition was held over three days, due to the amount of species required. The species that had to be fished included, couta, yellowfin tuna, little eastern tuna (bonito), Cape yellowtail and dorado and bottom species yellowbelly rockcod, musselcracker (poenskop), Englishman, Scotsman and dagga salmon.

Competitors attended a briefing on Thursday night and the rules of the competition rules were explained. For a competition of this nature, the organisers had to spend a vast amount of time on the rules to make sure they covered all aspects of catching and releasing fish.

On the first day, anglers faced a rough sea. Nevertheless, 25 boats launched at Port Edward and eight at Shelly Beach. Catches were reported and photo cards were brought to the tent by 4.30pm, downloaded and entered onto a data sheet. Three boats had caught three species and the game was hotting up.

The weather was kind on Saturday, with a flat sea and magnificent conditions. All competitors launched by 7.30am and they were all going in search of the missing fish on the list.

Saturday afternoon saw five boats with five species each and two boats with six species. All the photos were up on screens in the tent and much fun was had by all reminiscing about the antics of the day and the difficulties some of them had in measuring some of the critters!

Into day three, six boats took to the sea at Port Edward and three at Shelly Beach. Two boats came in with six species. The weather was absolutely only for the brave-hearted and anglers fished extremely hard.

The photo cards had to be in the tent by 4.30pm. All but one boat, Chepu, were back by 4pm with seven species on the board. Loader, skippered by Mark Snyman, with Paul Loomes and William Robertson’ was in the lead.

At 4.16pm, David Defilippi ran into the tent with his data card saying that he got a great couta off the lighthouse placing him on eight species. Just to keep the pressure on, the organisers told him there were three boats on eight species.

Prize-giving commenced with a jam-packed tent and prizes were given out for the biggest of each species, followed by the prizes for the top three boats.

The boat in third place with a total number of six species was Tom and Gemmy with a gross weight of 52kg.

The boat in second place was Loader with a total of seven species with a gross weight of 59kg and the winning boat with eight species and a gross weight of 68kg was Chepu, skippered by Alan Frazer and crewed by David Defilippi and Greg Defilippi.

They won a Seacat 465 with two Yamaha 40hp engines.