2009 Yamaha Broome Billfish Classic
Courtesy of Jeff Cooper
Champion Team: Game On, Simon, Mick, Derryn, Jim and Rob.

Fishing with 38 sailfish and 2 marlin tags. Congratulations!

Photo courtesy of Rob Cream.

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The 2009 Yamaha Broome Billfish Classic has ended after an extraordinary 6 days of competition. The bite ran red hot right from the beginning with almost all of the 21 boats getting stuck into the action on the very first day. Overall 1136 sails were raised with 335 fish tagged. Additionally 41 black marlin were raised with 14 of them being tagged. Amongst the marlin were some monsters for Broome with a few fish estimated at over 400lbs terrorising the teasers.

The weather was amazing for the whole competition with the wind only just scratching 8 knots on the windiest day. It was awesome to be cruising to the ‘peanut’, a local hot spot 35nm north of Broome, in a trailer boat doing over 30 knots for the whole journey and being able to rest your cup of coffee on the bait board whilst rigging the days baits and teasers!

Points are awarded for billfish only with sails amassing 500 points and marlin scoring 1000 points per capture. The overall winner for the competition was Team Game On who scored an impressive 21000 points to just pass team Billistic 3D in the last hours of competition by one sailfish.

In the 6 to 7.5m class Team Richter amassed 11500 points to just beat Cranky IV by one fish. Cranky hooked up to a triple of sails 10 seconds before cease fishing but unfortunately blew them all in a hard day for the Cranky team that also saw them hook up to a big black on 10kg and fight it for 3 hours only to see it part company just out of tag reach.

In the under 6m class Team Black Widow smashed it from day one and never looked back. These guys fishing out of a 5.5m side consol trailcraft and raised more fish than anyone in the fleet and managed to amass a solid 13500 points (equivalent to 27 sails) for the competition.

Champion angler overall went to Rob Robinson from Billistic 3D who managed a personal tally of 10000 points to streak ahead of the pack. Rob's finger was on the freespool trigger for the entire comp as he stood perched on the gunnels of Billistic looking for the slightest colour change in the spread of teasers.

Champion senior angler went to Steve Trigwell, Champion female went to Deb Foster, Champion junior female went to Kelly Locke, and champion junior male went to Dylan Wockner. The juniors fished exceptionally well managing to acquire 4500 points each.

The Reddell trophy, for the biggest number of stuff ups, went to Mixed Tackle who managed to get bogged launching their boat on just about every day only making an exception when they missed the water completely and dropped their custom built boat on the sand for the outgoing tide. A big thanks goes to all of the sponsors that made it possible for us and a big thanks also goes to all of the competitors and Broome Fishing Club committee that make this such a fun and social event. Next years dates are from Friday the 2nd of July to Presentation on Saturday the 10th of July - so starting putting the team together now! If it goes of like the fishing did this July then it’s going to be an awesome comp and I am already looking forward to it.

Cairns Bluewater 6kg Light Tackle Tournament
Courtesy of Carolynn Martin
Photo from the Champion Team the Ahlers on board Wild Turkey.

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The 6kg Light Tackle Tournament went off great. The weather earlier in the week had blown 20-30k but came down to 10-12k on Friday for the start. 18 boats fished the tournament including 48 senior anglers and 8 junior anglers.

Overall there were 35 billfish raised, 14 hook ups and 10 tags (9 black marlin and 1 sailfish). Winning was in the family with Steve Ahlers taking out champion male angler and Sue Ahlers champion female. The champion boat 7.5m and over went to Team Wild Turkey while Team Don't Know took out champion boat 7.5m and under.

The Heavy Tackle tournament is now only 6 weeks away (16-18 October). Thanks to all the sponsors for their support!

In other tournament news we'll be fishing the Mike Carney Toyota 2009 Billfish Challenge in Townsville next week (starts 5 Sept) so look out for first hand reports then.

And what a teaser it is. Following up from a relatively slow tournament in 2008 (with 404 sailfish raised and 88 tags over the week) the 2009 tournament was a cracker! Over 1000 sailfish raised and 360 tagged. I hear that marlin numbers were down but the sailfish more than made up for it. Jeff promises a full report tomorrow (and now I've outed you Jeff, you'll have to!) but in the meantime, he has sent in some photos, thanks Jeff! As an additional bonus, picture perfect calm conditions prevailed.

Photos Jeff Cooper

In other fleet news, Castille has arrived in Townsville and enjoyed some good reddie fishing on the way in. Captain Tim reports they got as far as Old Reef yesterday, seeing two free jumpers on the way but no bites. Tradition will be fishing Cape Bowling Green today. The Cairns BlueWater competition was held over the weekend as well and I heard from Capt. Dan from Moana III that a few were caught (and I believe the tournament was taken out by Wild Turkey) and hopefully a report from them soon too.

Report from Reel Chase who trolled through Bowling Green on thier way into Townsville yesterday afternoon. Less than 10 minutes after the baits were in they hooked up and released their first little black of the season. James did a good job on the rod and tag pole to tag his own fish. Although they didn't spend too much time on the grounds Capt. Jim found a bait school and marked a marlin straight away. They also lost two live bait jigs to suspected marlin bites and had another bite from a sailfish on a smaller bait school nearby.

Capt. Jim reports that the water is already a degree warmer than when we went through with Capt. Luke on KEKOA last week. This is important because it indicates the change in the season that we have been waiting for so we can only expect more fish to move in now. And, there's a week of good weather coming up so it can only warm up more!

This morning the boys are all over at the O'Brien's checking out the new boat's progress. Hopefully some picture updates from Pete soon.

Capt. Luke has also passed on reports of boats taking advantage of the good weather on the Gold Coast to enjoy some good fishing as well. Boats are catching a few striped and blue marlin on the canyons as well as yellowfin to 40kg. Dingo also reporting some good fishing in Kona again going four from seven blues yesterday. Not too long now until he leaves the islands to join Capt Luke in Townsville after the tournament to head up to Cairns. pswyfnbtj3

Like the whales, the fleet are migrating north.

KEKOA has now safely arrived in Townsville where she will remain through the Townsville Billfish Challenge. Reel Chase is fishing Bugatti Reef and surrounds with mothership Orphelia until the end of the week. Tradition continues to mosey on up towards Cairns and Castille III and Iona II are leaving the Gold Coast today. Its a great time of year with fishing and more fishing to look forward to!

On the fishing front, Bat reports a few more little blacks are showing up in Cairns as well as the sails including this nice one from a trip on Tuesday on board Billfish. Townsville club boats have also reported a few last weekend at Bowling Green although all was quiet when we went through on Friday. As more boats head through the grounds we'll be looking forward to the news that they have arrived!

Update: Tradition has arrived in Mackay for a few days before beginning a 7 day trip to Cairns. Capt. Jim on Reel Chase has ended the trip to Bugatti Reef with mothership Orphelia with a celebration at Whitehaven. He'll troll through Bowling Green tomorrow (Thursday). They had a good few days fishing with several more big GT's released as well as some quality mackerel and reef fish.

Update 2: As an aside: Although we caught just the one sailfish in the surrounds of Bugatti Reef on our first trip when I was aboard last week, Capt. Jim thought there were certainly more around. Fast forward to the most recent trip when crewman Owen went for a spin in the helicopter from mothership Orphelia. Owen reported seeing pods of sailfish including a few free jumpers. Sounds like some good potential there! Also, Capt. Jim told me a funny story of a nice sized spanish mackerel turning into a 60lb GT. Apparently the mackerel was darting around on the surface like it was being chased by a shark. Suddenly it went deep and started pulling line hard. Eventually, it was brought to the boat and it was now the GT. Somehow the lure being transferred from one to the other!

And, I put the Youtube link to the Pelagic in Action DVD preview clip on the Video page. Gets you in the mood for the season ahead!

A quick post upon our return from our first trip out to Bugatti Reef and surrounds. The boys on Reel Chase have a couple of days in the Mackay Marina before they head out for Bugatti Reef (home to the monster GT's and killer mackerel schools as well as the odd sailfish or two) part 2. I'm jumping ship to continue the trip straight onto Townsville on board KEKOA. Capt. Tim on Tradition tells me they have also begun the trip north, trolling wide of Fraser yesterday.

Although Reel Chase does trips ex-Yeppoon ever year on the journey north, this has been the first time I've joined the team here - and its been a nice change of pace. As usual the weather bureau lied and there was a lot of 15+ in their 10-15 forecast, but we hacked our way out to a wreck in the shipping lane east of Yeppoon where we managed a bunch of nice red emperors, sweetlip, snapper and a couple of cod, including one monster that we released after this snap.

Local angler Ian, peaked too early with his 10kg emperor - 12 hours before the local fishing competition (that he is entered in) was due to start ;-) The weather did ease throughout the day and this morning has dawned perfect with heaps of boats heading out for the tourn and just in time for our journey out towards Bugatti tomorrow. I'm doubting that we will have internet out that far, so I'll have to report at the end of the trip.