Fishing aboard Vamizi through the 2018 marlin fishing season, Captain Duarte Rato of FishBazaruto.com has won the distinction of tagging the most marlin for the African Billfish Foundation. Alongside Tarka from Kenya, and, then also got the biggest tagged black marlin for the second straight year!
Duarte has just recently compiled his latest fishing report on http://fishbazaruto.com, and it is jam-packed with news and photographs.
The table of contents reads something like this:
42 kg GT off the shore
1040 lb Blue Marlin
ABF tagging results
Big Blue Sailfish Competition
Guinjata Species Comp
And a selection of photographs from the report…
You can follow the link below to read the full report…
Another great report from Captain Duarte Rato of FishBazaruto.com
The season up at Bazaruto is about to fire up. The Sardine crew will be operating there after the Sardine Run in the Transkei. In August we will be heading northeast and will be operating in Tofo, Pomene and Vilanculos and all else in between. We are booked for September (Botswana) but back up to the marlin waters there the first week of October and will stay right through the season. And into 2020!
So get in touch if you would like us to arrange your perfect fishing, surfing or diving trip. You can browse some of our packages at the following link, but we can make up your itinerary as and how you want it.
We can fetch you at the closest airport and leave the rest to us. We have places to stay or camp. We have boats up and down the coast. And a network of great guides and skippers. Each are experts in their waters and target species/activities.
Marine Reserves: Dr. Callum Roberts even features in this classic Attenborough style documentary, by National Geographic (written and presented by Joanna Sarsby), called…
“Deep Trouble“.
The script follows Dr. Roberts’ comprehensive summation of the state of our oceans, in well…”The Unnatural History of the Sea”. A thoroughly disturbing, but very well presented book, that Roberts’ takes us through history with. Back to when there was 100% of the ocean life still living. And traces the demise of our marine fauna and flora, through the ages, and into our current technological and destructive fishing practices.
You can watch the whole documentary below, or click this link – https://youtu.be/gmt_eRXBZrw?t=2549 – to get straight to the point, in the movie, of what we can do to save our ocean and it’s residents.
Facebook itself has shown to be a great platform where you can air your views and concerns, and assemble people into more unified collections. This impetus can be channeled into momentum and public voice.
As our new president and team ( and hopefully whole new government soon one day), have to pick up the pieces of wanton destruction caused by Zuma and his cronies and their fiscal shenanigans, perhaps it’s time to start putting real pressure on the decision and policymakers. For Marine Reserves. And to bring back the highly qualified Ezimvelo. The decision to hand over the thankless and huge task that Ezimvelo was doing so well (the policing and maintaining order on our shores), to the totally inexperienced and non-cohesive DAFF officials, was a government level budget decision, as the coffers were being emptied so very effectively by the government.
AT the moment, it is literally a free-for-all as the DAFF crew just don’t seem to be able to find purchase with their new task at all. Many places have not even seen an official since Ezimvelo were fired. Without reason. All those years experience now totally wasted.
So even though we have the semblance of a Marine Reserve ideology and policy and have a few dotted up and down our vast coastline – without effective policing, what good are they?
Bring back Ezimvelo! Give us more Marine Reserves!
Bodysurfin’ The Movie: It’s not often you find something that blows you completely away. But this is will. Blow you the hell away. Flung by a masterful piece of artwork in the form of a quasi-ephemeral timepiece movie about the purest wave riding form we know about.
Bodysurfing.
It feels like a hundred years ago when my brother Marc and I were fortunate enough to hang out with a certain Frenchie Fredericks, as kids. The same Frenchie that toured the north shore as a Springbok surfer in a sponsored VW beetle late 60’s. This was way before any doors needed breaking down. Frenchie’s erstwhile and notable companion was Christine Petrucci. The first Springbok lady surfer. Who used hang out with The Rell. And is the mother of *Maya.
Frenchie was heavily into board design and fin technology. And as early teens, Marc and I fell in with his mystical dreamings and fanciful wave riding philosophies. He surfed with aplomb, and a nice twitch which he converted into speed whenever he needed it. An intense surfer, full of concentration. Flare.
Back then, a day on the beach was just that. An entire day on the beach. Starting way before the sun. And ending with it.
Umtentweni, our local beach, was infamous for it’s shorebreak. On a decent spring with some east swell lying around, this dumper could really deliver. With Frenchie’s encouragement, we were all up for it. So much tube time. So many laughs. So many grazes.
And it was here that Marc and I were able to live life through Frenchie’s decades of experience and travels a while. In between waves he would chat north shore and south shore. Names that were God-like to us. Haleiwa. Laniakea. The Pipe. And whilst surfing these mystical meccas, Frenchie was rubbing shoulders and sharing waves with the likes of Nat Young and Rell Sun. He even knew Gerry Lopez!
Those days charging the huge shorebreak with Frenchie Fredericks were right in our formative years. He taught us how to wipe-out properly. How to porpoise a wave. How to survive the sand!
So when I found this. Bodysurfin’ The Movie. I was flung back to those pure and simple days. When having a surfboard didn’t even matter. Because you could just go for a ‘body’…any high tide you liked.
BUT what a movie features just below! If you would like to get real familiar with the inside workings of a tubing wave, watch away! The camera work is straight from George Greenough and the completely custom made sound track and movie score is oh so ephemeral. This movie dollops buckets of kudos onto such a noteworthy and noble pastime as is bodysurfing.
Enjoy and share a magnificent surfing production – these guys really turned it on! You ought to watch every scene. Listen to every note. I did.
Footnotes:
Coincidences?
There are two wild coincidences in this story. Firstly. Christine Petrucci. Mother of Maya. *Maya is Geoffrey Petrucci from JBay. His first name is Maya. He bust his neck bodysurfing the infamous ‘Tweni shorebreak when he worked with us at The Spot. Nineties. He survived just fine, but Christine still blamed us!
Second coincidence. Frenchie’s spearing buddy in the late eighties was none other than The Sardine News’ spearfishing editor at the time, our very own Darrell Hattingh!
“Eating an oyster is like french kissing a mermaid” – Tom Robbins
Or. “Oysters on the menu at ZanziBeach Restaurant in Tofo”.
Mermaids in Praia do Tofo are really ocean breeze beautiful. And then I found out that there were oysters right on the menu at ZanziBeach!
Taking the latter approach, with my lovely mermaid close at hand, a grand serving of oyster was requested. Fresh from the sea. Just the way I love my mermaid too. At this great new little seafood spot right on Tofo Beach.
The dish of regal looking oysters soon glided onto our table. Along with twin pinacoladas. A couple of lemons. Hot chilli and pepper sauce.
The floodgates of flavour opened right up. Like an involuntary spasm, the oysters rained their magic on over and into us. Each one its own fantastical adventure. None two remotely the same. Lime and chilli lubricating and spicing the dreamy and intoxicating sensation.
When they were all lovingly spent, the empty table provided that pure moment of bliss that comes flooding in.
Len Mathews is on on the scene at the 40th OET Bill and Gamefish Tournament, and reports 26 billfish released on the first day!
The Mpumalanga Deep Sea Angling Association is hosting the 40th Mercury OET Bill & Gamefish Tournament – at Sodwana Bay from 6 to 10 November 2017.
Once again this prestigious tournament is proudly sponsored by Mercury Outboards. This tournament has grown from strength to strength since its inception in the late seventies. The field is always limited with slots coveted by any billfish enthusiast.
