Photos and report courtesy of Jeff Cooper, President of the Broome Fishing Club:

The recent Kingswood Marine Broome Billfish Classic was held in what was has been described by all competitors as the most atrocious weather possible for the event. Howling wind, torrential rain, and freezing cold conditions ‘blessed’ the competitors–extremely unseasonal weather for Broome during this time of year. Despite the conditions, the 19 teams stuck it out for the six days of endurance event to finish with a total of 128 billfish tagged.

Interestingly the sailfish numbers were down about a third on last year, but marlin tagged numbers were about double. There were some big marlin in amongst them too with an estimated 180kg model giving 13 year old Bryce Marinis a run for his money on 10kg.

The final stats were:
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The Kingswood Marlin Broome Billfish Classic starts on July 2 and recent reports indicate its going to be another ripper. During last year’s comp, over 300 sails were tagged and the Champion Boat Game On released an amazing 38 sailfish and 2 malin for the week!

Broome GFC President Jeff Cooper reports that in the leadup, the fishing has been firing off Broom with the blue water going right into Barred Creek and the pelagics following it all the way in. On the first day of the sat tagging project (more info below) they saw more than 100 sails. Big longtail tuna are also being caught at Barred Creek amongst them and recently a kayak fishermen found out about the follies of having two rods on board, suffering from a double hookup that saw both reels cleaned of all their line.

Jeff has also shared some very interesting information from regarding their recent visit from internationally renowned researcher Dr. Julian Pepperell and the launch of his world-first satellite tagging project with help from the Broome Fishing Club, the Kimberley Marine Tourism Association (KMTA), and Woodside in Broome waters.

“The study seeks to answer a range of questions about the habits and movements of Broome’s most famous fish. There will be three tagging programs that will see two types of satellite tags, known as PSATs, and one type of ‘transmitter tag’, known as a SPOT tag deployed on the fish.”

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This post was imported into WordPress from my old Black Marlin Fishing Blog website without any accompanying photos. If you’d like to see the original post, with the accompanying photographs, go to the original Black Marlin Fishing Blog site and navigate to the post using the archive navigation links on the right-hand-side.

2009 Yamaha Broome Billfish Classic

Courtesy of Jeff Cooper

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

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.