There are a few blue marlin keeping anglers interested off Sydney. David sent me a note to let me know that several fish over 200kg have been destroying anglers on 15 and 24. He also reported that Goliath went 2-1-1 striped marlin (110kg) in 700 fathoms on the weekend. David says while there is still lots of green flood water, and not as much bait, there seems to be a few fish in it for the dedicated!

This is good news for the upcoming Port Hacking 100 tournament in two weeks. Check the tournament calendar for more details or follow them on Facebook here.

More tournaments ongoing at the moment: In Costa Rica, there are several teams representing Australasia competing in the Offshore World Championships. We are approaching the end of the second day’s fishing and its looks like one of the teams from GFA of PNG (National Titles Team) are holding onto a narrow lead with 4 fish on day 1, and 10 on day 2 – all sailfish.

In the west, the Geraldton Offshore Fishing Club’s Halco Tackle Abrolhos Islands Game Fishing Tournament is also mid-way through.  While Halco Tackle are reporting that the mackerel are running at the comp, there have also been several marlin (four tagged yesterday).  Rottnest Fishing’s Capt. Johno Wroth tagged this blue for angler Hamish Beck on Day 1. It was Hamish’s first marlin and also the first fish on his brand new boat and so was carefully brought on board for a quick pic before release. Congratulations Hamish – great way to christen the boat!

This weekend the postponed Cabo Hatteras Billfish Shootout goes ahead. I heard several boats were out yesterday for a looky and while the conditions look good, no luck for any on the beaky nosed creatures.  Hopefully they show up this weekend as well.

Sydney Game Fishing Club, Little Audrey, 2013 Peter Goadby Memorial tournament was held over the weekend in light winds and overcast conditions. Many boats reported slow fishing over both days and dodging water spouts and storm clouds seemed to keep most captions busy, with plenty of interesting pictures taken.  A total of 5 marlin were tagged during the tournament, and a host of other game fishing also included in the mix. The ‘Champion Boat Tag and Release’, was Team Tanacious, who landed themselves among other prizes, a 3 day live aboard trip to cairns, for 4 people, during the heavy tackle season. In runner up position was Seadeuce who also tagged a marlin and couldn’t find the winning mahi mahi! The lady anglers on Team Smart Bill continued their good run this season, with Elena Smart tagging one short billed spear fish to take out ‘Champion Lady Angler’ and ‘Tag and Release Other Game Fish’.

On the capture side of things, there were no marlins weighed during the tournament however, Team Blood N Guts successfully boated a nice 97.4Kg Mako on 8Kg line to strategically win champion boat capture with 8,597 points and crewman Nathan Sowter finished with ‘Champion Angler Capture’. Runner up was Sniper who captured a 124.2Kg tiger shark on 15kg line to finish with 3,856 points. Of particular note was the capture of a 61.7kg yellow fin tuna by SGFC boat Na Langa, who took out the most meritorious other game fish prize.

On Saturday night SGFC concluded their major Raffle selling all but 2 tickets of the 200 tickets. The $10 000 was won to a very lucky John Hartley, who was reportedly sold a ticket at Port Stephens by an excited Pitchy during this year’s interpub.

Well done to all of the competitors in this year’s tournament, with 39 boats entered the usual giant raft-up was good fun and a great way to meet other likeminded fishing fanatics. We hope to see everyone again next year, or at our Mako Tournament in August.

The full list of winners from weekend is listed below:

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PORT LINCOLN TUNA CLASSIC RESULTS:

The tournament benefited from both excellent fishing and great weather. Nina tells me the tuna were everywhere and the ocean, flat calm~! This year the event also created history with 897 fish caught and released in the two days fishing from Saturday 9.00am – 6.00pm and Sunday 8.00am – 3.00pm! They believe it is definitely an Australian record, and pending World record!!

The final results were:

CHAMPION BOAT:
1st: C’world 125 fish (Bryan stokes)
2nd: Majessnik 107 fish (Russell Bianco)

CHAMPION TRAILER BOAT:
1st   Mistress with 38 fish (Andrew Sammut)
2nd  Shockwave 18 fish (Richard Webb)

MALE CHAMPION ANGLER
Elio Auciello on Majessnik with 43 fish
Runner Up: Rick Tidswell on Jazz 2 with 37 fish

FEMALE CHAMPION ANGLER
1st  Meghan Tapley 29 fish
Runner Up: Susan Tarbotton 22 fish

Champion junior:
1st Pamela platt on Noble One with 19 fish
2nd Bailey Godwin with 9

The event finished off at the Port Lincoln Hotel where everybody had a great time and 3 beautiful rods and reels was given to the three juniors by Bob Hutchinson, owner at Spot On Fishing and Camping Port Lincoln. 32 Trophies were handed out in total.

A big thank you to Nina Mattingley for the report!

Photo is Peter Teakle’s The Battler skippered by Bobby Jones with from left: Mike Sinclair, State manager of Club Marine is SA and northern Territory,Adrian Bothur Male Champion angler in 2011, Matt Calder from Hamilton Island.

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I also had a quick email from Nicole who owns Game Over with husband Darren. They’ve been teaching their youngster the love of gamefishing with son Mathew Sandy (aged 9) tagging his first black marlin whilst fishing the Tag and Alliance Tournament held at Bermagui this year in early March.  He won Champion Junior Angler and Highest Point Scoring Angler on Day 2.

Nicole tells me he then followed up this weekend and tagged his first striped marlin whilst fishing the Eden Game Fishing Tournament!

Congrats Mathew!!