MFF ORIS Comp: Discussion

[baghira]

Hahaha
I never Gave up spearfishing for all those years, after going several times emty handed........ and especially now with my ear problems.......
I am Like the tribali song 'Never give up'

So See you next year for sure, since that it was a wonderful day for me.... apart from the swearing back at Gnejna slipway, with all the bathers that gathered in the midle of the slip....

[Moonwalker]

@baghira
I was cruising behind you baghira in the "High seas" and I had a hard time keeping up with you. So all I can say is that your rib is well capable to handle rough seas.
We had an argument with the bathers too as you know. If its public land its their land they say!

@organisers
For next year I suggest to have 2 VHF cannels. Channel 6 for the normal "Bla Bla Bla" and another channel for talking to the ORIS1/2 vessels. I heared a couple to ppl trying to contact ORIS1/2  with others cutting them. Also reception seemed not very good near the land so next time it would be better to be anchored a little further out or maybe near filfla.

[The_Gaffer]

Thanks moonwalker for your suggestions.  The organising team is meeting later on to discuss this year's event, take the lessons learnt from this year, and apply them (where possible) for next year.  So guys, like moonwalker, keep those suggestions coming. 

[The_Gaffer]

Baghira, don;t worry about the catch.  I too have been fishing for Alongi for over 13 yrs.  Mostly I've had some very good times.  Others, I come in empty handed. So what, you win some, you loose some.  I know people in the competition who have been out there several times each year, and caught an amazing quantity of alongi on each trip, only to end up empty yesterday.  In Maltese we call them mustaccuni tas-sajd, and believe me, I know what I'm saying.  Just didn't work out for us yesterday, we were at the wrong place, wrong time.  You might go out tomorrow, troll the same route, and get hit several times.  Like Colin said, these fish never stop swimming, because if they do, they sink, so its just a matter of being at the right place, right time, and knowing where to find them. I think we're in for a late season for alongi, given that they're still out there on the 3rd ridge and beyond, and the sea temp is still below the norm for this time of the year.

[joe]

totaly agree with Moonwalker for the two vhf because it is very hard to contact with oris but it is very well organized the only thing that i dont like is the way some people left  from starting very fast.

[alfadelta]

Moonwalker is right, next year competition will be an improvement on this years.

This morning had a 30mins conversation with the Vice president of Oris. Good News is that they would like the ORIS Alongi Competiton to become a National Yearly event. Hopefully he will manage to join us in next years edition

[skip]

As mentioned, the two channels are definately a good idea, my only concern is that with the lack of radio discipline are we likely to have people chatting on the wrong channel or calling the support boats on the chit chat channel? Nonetheless we'll be sitting down with all those involved and having a discussion concerning the day, what went well and where we can further improve for next year.

Thanks to all of this year's participants for helping to make the event such a success. Stay tuned to see it on air on TVM in October

[michael]

hi guys, already looking forward to next years event, we had a great time although returning fishless but enjoyed the day tremendously. It was fantastic lining up with all those boats waiting for the off at the freeport it gave me a great buzz with high expectations of filling the boat up with alongi

We started trolling at the first ridge and at day break had a visit from a school of dolphins, all around the boat, it was a lovely site. I had my one and only hook up at 6.30, but as we slowed the boat up and was shifting the drag, the line parted and it was lost. couldnt believe our luck. I was spooled with 80lb crystal braid and cant quite understand why it happened, maybe some of you guys might have some suggetions. That was all the exitement we had but still we had a great time, we called in and retired at 12.00 as we were all flagging and made our way back to birzebbuga.

Thanks to all the organisers and sponsors of a great competition, which went smoothly and was run very professionally, and well done to all the winners who had some amazing catches.

[baghira]

@ moonwalker.
Sorry mate for not being able to help you out as you did to me, but you know how crowded it was at genjna, and I could not stay there in the middle. I still managed to send my buddy to help a bit fortuna whom was swearing as well with the trailor in the middle of the road.
Once again thanks |Moonwalker...

I think that at last you saw baghira in a different mood than than the usuall smiling face....

[Moonwalker]

No problem m8. Our winch broke on the last part but we managed to put boat in place with some hard pushing
About the crowded slipway - you should see that on friday or Saturday evening with all the BBQs around.
About the mood I tought you were still smiling

[Pauline Tuna]

Good day to all.  Can-not comment re the nice expedition we had.  Firstly i must say that to date we had not a better competition like it was organised. A very great thanks to all the comitte. Altough i dont like competitions at all THE GAFFER had decided me to concern to compete. 
Re-last competitions of other organisations with very miserable prices (1st price included Lm 15.00 only for fuel) i have to say a very well done.  I know how people feel when not catching anything including me were at same places i always fished, i have ended up with hundreds of fish in the past including a season of nearly 600 bites and catches in just a month and a half.  Gaffer and others knows it well as many off albacore lovers knows the subject and surely enough many trolling anglers came out dissapointed at same place.
True enough to include some comments that the fish is there always feeding on small crustacious.  Fish always travel and especially with a full moon like the one we had in the previous week during the night calamari floats to the mid sea surface and albacore enjoys eating trough the whole night since it keeps feeding onto the species, therefore for sure not much strikes. 
Whilst again thanking the MFF, i have to point out some aspects/points for trying to better the next year comp. (my comments only in opinion)
1) weighing fish with 2 boats standing at ras il hamrija for north side & at benighsa Buoy (zubrun tas sikka) for south side including marsamxett.  From were I've been (if i caught anything) i had to travel 18 miles to weigh fish and another 10 miles to B'Bugia port. Total of 28 extra miles.
2) no plane or cameras was seen at the area we were - amounting to 30 boats at the area.
3) Oris could not be reached with VHF due anchorage under cliffs.  A VHF is never reachable under cliffs especially near Hamrija.
4) Ending time will be till 14:00 since people fishing near filfa have shorter distance than people fishing on other places.

I am eager waiting for next year competition again and surely enough that this event is to become Malta's wanted expectation in future.  Joining Gaffer i can tell that many anglers were not satisfied by the catch they had been to as surely enough many off had better results in the past, therefore don't point out that you are the best as if results may vary from time to time )
Information:  On an island somewere in America, competition is based on 3 events, gathering an end average result.

[Granitu]

pay attention to some bugglers as the last time i went with my boat an a**hole- who i recognized stole my jigging reel.... beware of people who try to hurry you up..... luckily he didn't steal the most expensive reel and the rod he stole is the classic mr fish yellow one.

the guy puts down his dinghy every sat and he is tatooed all over his body. a 14 ft dinghy. he already set up some people before me they work in 2-.

all this happened at bbugia slipway, careful

[clutch_kick]

I am sorry to hear that these assholes exist in our society.  Always secure your equipment before you do anything else.

On another note, this should be a hint for you to get those custom rods, because they will have your name on them my friend.

pay attention to some bugglers as the last time i went with my boat an a**hole- who i recognized stole my jigging reel.... beware of people who try to hurry you up..... luckily he didn't steal the most expensive reel and the rod he stole is the classic mr fish yellow one.

the guy puts down his dinghy every sat and he is tatooed all over his body. a 14 ft dinghy. he already set up some people before me they work in 2-.

all this happened at bbugia slipway, careful

[Kaptan Jr]

so he stole your stuff and u didn't tell him?

[skip]

Hi Yanis,

Good to hear from you and I'm glad that you found the event well organised, we certainly did everything we could to make this a competition to be remembered.

As you know we tried to be as accomodating as possible with 5 inspection points and 3 dedicated start points, no one else has ever done this before and it takes a lot of resources to make it happen. Because we have members from all over Malta and Gozo we are always trying to find ways of including them in competitions that have in the past always started and finished out of B'Bugia meaning that those up North couldn't easily take part.

1) Ras il hamrija was chosen for this year's event because it was mid way up on the West Coast almost directly opposite Filfla. Everyone has to appreciate that boats leaving from Xemxija or Mellieha would have a very long way to go in order to reach a finish point down south and most likely would not carry sufficient fuel. Many competitions abroad restrict the fishing grounds for the compeition to a specific area, however we chose not to do this leaving it up to the skippers to correctly plan their trip in order to be back in the finish area by latest 13:00. It means that those who went SE or SSE would have been a long way out but the finish location was known at least 1 week in advance so we feel there was plently of chance to plan your way points.

But we appreciate your feedback concerning the finishing points and this will certainly be a major topic that we will be discussing.

2) The aircraft was tasked with filming the finish point between 12:15 and 13:15 and those in the Filfla area or near Ghar Lapsi would have seen the aircraft airborne with the camera man. This year we were unable to have it venture out all over the vast West coast but perhaps next year........

Tonio was on board the vessel Seafox which was located around 20 miles out but I'm not sure of it's exact location. At 07:30 we picked up the camera man from Wied Iz-Zurrieq and proceeded straight out on a heading of around 190 degrees - the first boat we came across was Fortuna, followed by El Marinero, The Gaffer and another couple of vessels. We too were surprised that there weren't alot of vessels visible so the majority must have all be SE from B'Bugia and had it not been for the ORIS flags and everyone in white ORIS t-shirts it would have been even more difficult to spot the competition boats. I believe there was another smaller competition taking place and the usual boats out fishing for fun so sometimes we came alongside a non competing boat.

We did ask that if anyone was hitting into some good action to try and contact us on the VHF or send an SMS to the Seafox who would plot the position and do their best to come to your location. As mentioned above, in reality the only way to film lots of boats would be to create a restricted fishing area and this is something that can certainly be considered, though it does have it's own set of problems!

3) ORIS 2 was 18 miles out from Filfla from 08:00 - 10:00 but no one called or SMS'd and ORIS 1 was out from around 06:00 in a simialr location. ORIS 2 headed back in at 10:15 to drop off the camera man at Wied Iz-Zurrieq so he could proceed to the airport and then at 11AM we changed position to around 1nm offshore from the finish point. We did have a primary VHF antenna malfunction on the RIB which did restrict our range, but all contact mobile numbers were provided in the rules in fact I received around 30 phone calls or SMS's on the day announcing early retirements etc. I believe that ORIS 1 was clearly receiving transmissions but there seemed to be a hum when they transmitted back to the boats perhaps with a reduced range. ORIS 1 anchored up at around 11:30 so range for those far south was somewhat limited, but ORIS 2 was further offshore with a clear line of sight and we remained in this location up until 12:30 to try and co-ordinate the VHF calls.

One has to remember that VHF's are only good to the horizon so practical range is only ever around 12-15 miles at best when trying to reach another boat at sea level. Remember that when you call Valletta Port their large antenna's are located on a high point above sea level increasing the usable range.

4) Whilst I cannot confirm 100%, I can safely say that next year's departure time will be around 05:30, there will be NO departure in the dark regardless of the fact that 5am may be the best fishing time. We briefed everyone at the safety briefing to proceed slowly at the start given the large number of boats and again before announcing the start over the VHF, however sadly a large number of boats ignored these instructions and proceeded at a ridiculous and dangerous speed - if we had been able to identify you they would have been Instantly Disqualified! As a result of a later start time there will be a later finish time and we would also like to have the finish time spread over two hours next year.

One thing to add concerning any finish time is that skippers must plan to arrive in good time, I can appreciate that with the difficult fishing conditions each boat was trying to fish to the last minute but proper planning is essential. Sadly one boat missed arriving at the finish point by around 15 minutes and ended up heading home when he was a couple of miles away.

Your feedback is certainly appreciated and it was great to have you fishing in the competition with us, especially if you don't normally like to take part in competitive events. We did our best not to make this overly competitive with a points based system or something of the like and try and keep a relaxed, safe and friendly atmosphere