Michelle Temminck

 May saw our team head off to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico to fish the Rolex IGFA World Championships. This year 63 teams were entered. Our team was Grant, Chris, Michelle, Fred and John. We were all excited as Fred and I had fished this tournament before and with all of our tackle well prepared, we only needed the fish to co-operate. Fishing the four days in this tournament is a great experience as we saw 50-60 Striped Marlin a day and they proved hard to catch. With plenty of baits pitched to tailor’s, they just weren’t interested, which makes for very frustrating fishing. We managed to release 3 Striped Marlin for points and lost a couple at the back of the boat. Chris and John ended up with their first Striped Marlin release which was a great effort. With the Vanuatu Marlin Classic just around the corner, all of our teams are fighting for the title once again to head over to Cabo San Lucas next year! 

REEL CAPTURE TAKES OUT EASTER TOURNAMENT 2008

Five boats fished the Tusker Easter Tournament which was held from Havanna Harbour and was fished on Saturday and Sunday. This tournament is 6Kg and under and anglers are put to the test to fish light tackle. The other aim of the tournament is to fish grounds that we don’t often get to. Nevagivup and Reel Capture headed up on Friday afternoon to make our run shorter on the Saturday morning.

The plan for Saturday morning was to head to Nguna with reports of plenty of bait and action up there in the lead up to the tournament. After cease fishing on Saturday, Reel Capture who had Fred and Michelle, Gary and Ingrid on board, had landed a couple of nice Dog Tooth Tuna on 4kg, a Wahoo on 6kg to Michelle which was a new Vanuatu record and some Skip Jack Tuna. The fishing was quite hot on the Saturday with tailing Sailfish in the area as well. Reel Capture raised three Sails to no avail. Results after Saturday had Reel Capture in the lead, followed by Half Cut, V-Factor and Nevagivup. Paul fishing aboard Nevagivup landed a nice 2.4Kg Skip Jack on 2Kg line class which was also a new Vanuatu record.

Sunday sore the weather a little calmer as well and also the fishing was allot slower as it was the day after the full moon. Sunday was also a shorter fishing day with cease fishing at 12pm. Reel Capture landed another nice 17.6Kg Wahoo on 6kg line to Michelle (who broke her record from the day before) and a nice Yellowfin Tuna on 4kg to Gary. After hearing the scheds during the day, we knew that we had the comp in the bag. With 1 1/2hours left until cease fishing, Fred decided to head out wide to try and catch a Marlin on 6kg line. We stumbled across quite a few birds working and as soon as we started working the area we hooked a nice Blue Marlin on 6kg, only to have him fall off! The gear went back into the water and 5 minutes later we hooked another small Blue only to have him also fall off. Cease fishing was called and we didn’t want to leave the fish but had to head back to Havanna Harbour to weigh our fish in.

The final results of the tournament were;

Best Angler                              Michelle Temminck

Best Boat                                  Reel Capture

Most Meritorious Capture           Fred Temminck

Best Capture                            Fred Temminck

Second Place                             Half Cut

Third Place                                Nevagivup

All in all it was a fantastic weekend away with plenty of laughs and of course too many beers! This is the second year running that Reel Capture has won this tournament and we are looking forward to next Easter already!

Here Michelle shows the boys how it is done on light tackle.

Reel Capture was skippered by Charles Wheeler and the deck hands were Richard and Charlie. The anglers, Michelle Temminck, Grant Hall and Chris are seen here happily displaying their awards.