34th Wahoo Winter Gamefish Spearfishing Competition at Cape Vidal

This past weekend was the 34th Wahoo Winter Gamefish Spearfishing Competition at Cape Vidal. Here is an account of the weekend by Chris West:

"Greetings to those who made it there and to those that did not...I have been going to Cape Vidal Wahoo Comps since 1983 and know the history. All I can say is that it was a very smoothly run affair under Andy Norton and companies guidance. We battled for the date and basically almost became a summer competition when the weather could have ended us up in a drinking competition (we did that too)....Of course the idea of the Wahoo comp was to bring everybody down to earth and allow the hotties to mix with the gremmies.

the challenge from Wahoo to the Zululand guys was who could drink the night before and still shoot fish the next day.....sounds silly but that was the original plan.

Triple Dave, Roelof and Rob Allen digging away at the steep ramp.

The other problem was the launch had been washed away by the sea and you can check the photos I will add to this and maybe other mails . Rob Allen attacked the bank with his Colt and conquered it with the first attempt (with the boat attached) he also then made a homemade plough and moved the sand so that others could get up and down. Andy helped compact it with his cruiser.I supervised from the bank taking photos. In my wisdom I fell off a roof 5 weeks ago and am still recovering (that's my excuse)

We launched on the Thursday with Andy and XXXDave joining Rob,Roeloff,Andrew and self on Robs Boat. Everybody got fish (except me and XXX)  Traditionally we dined at Andys Chalet and ate Sashimi from Couta and Snoek followed by Beer battered Couta was awesome. Roeloff du Plooy shot a Blue Kingfish which turned out to be a new SA Record and we certified its weight on our Wahoo Scale that has just been officially certified thanks to Terry Deane. Congrats to Roeloff who also shot 3 snoek in the comp and 2 on the
Thursday.

We rested on Friday and prepared for everybody to arrive with DUC Chef Franklin and Mike with one other chap from DUC. We had a braai and finalised the entries to 38 competitors. Not a lot but enough make it happen. Weigh in was down at the launch entrance and some awesome fish were weighed in...

Overall Winner JP Jordaan

Top diver was JP Jordaan with a magnificent Couta 0f 29.9Kg in beautiful condition. Bill McCarthy with a Saily  there was also a Wahoo but only 7,5Kg with milk still pouring out its mouth and the rest was made up of Snoek and Couta my snoek which made me 5th placed was 8.7Kg the biggest I have ever shot and the biggest snoek of the comp.

JP Jordaan 29.9kg Couta 

Old time Zululander Billy showing the guys who's boss!

There were awesome prizes donated by the local dive shops and their suppliers. Rob Allen certainly did his thing here and it was great to see Freedivers also putting in some prizes here again. We were visited by Chantal Dixon who is the Curator for Sea Fisheries there and she joined us for our lamb on the spit with all the goodies that go with.

Plans have already been put in place for next year and our competition will reach its 35th year of existence. Thanks you to all of you who did their bit there especially to Andy,XXXDave,Ryan Berry ,Rob and Andrew and to all the sponsors.....forgot to mention that the Zululanders kicked Wahoos butts and they also won the Team Prize.

Apologies in advance if I forgot to mention something I should of.....

Chris West"