Thank you to Nathan for the report!

The 3^rd Central Coast GFC Nautilus Marine Blue Water Classic was hosted over the  weekend from the Gosford Sailing Club with a total of 31 boats and 106 anglers entered – a good mix of both trailer boats and larger vessels.  Unfortunately the fishing was slower than previous years, despite the weeks leading up to the tourney having some of the best early seasons results in some time, and the lack of bait made finding the fish difficult.

Day 1, Saturday was a beautiful day on the water with only a late change in the arvo. There were 2 marlin captured, both on 10kg line by Blue Blooded and a third was tagged and released by the smallest boat in the field, a 17ft Haines V17L, Hard & Fast. On the shark front, Carnage tagged a small blue shark on 6kg and lost a mako after a short fight while Overtime tagged a small tiger shark. The only other shark for the weekend was a tagged tiger on Blood & Guts. There were also several striped tuna and kingfish tagged by juniors on the Saturday, as well as a couple small mahi mahi.

Day 2 Sunday proved to be a challenging day, as boats were greeted by 20knots+ north-easterly wind that came through at 9am and brought with it consistent 2-3m swells. Overtime managed to raise another 150kg+ mako without hookup and no other sharks were seen on the Sunday. Late in the afternoon Outlaw tagged a healthy blue marlin off Sydney. And that was it for the day with many boats returning early due to the weather.

The final results were:

CHAMPION MALE ADULT T&R – Andrew Griffin 10,000 pts “HARD AND FAST” – CCGFC

CHAMPION MALE ADULT CAPTURE – Josh Hodder 12,180.13 pts “BLUE BLOODED” – LMGFC

CHAMPION FEMALE ADULT T&R – Karen Perivolaris 2,300pts “OVERTIME” – CCGFC

HEAVIEST MARLIN ANGLER – Josh Hodder 75.70kg Stiped Marlin “BLUE BLOODED” – LMGFC

CHAMPION JUNIOR T&R – Carl Ayoub 1,266 pts “LOCKOUT” – BOTANY BAY GFC

CHAMPION JUNIOR OTHER GAME FISH T&R – 1,266 pts Carl Ayoub “LOCKOUT” – BOTANY BAY GFC

CHAMPION SMALL FRY T&R OVERALL – 310pts Spenser Hoye “HAULIN” – CCGFC

CHAMPION ANGLER OTHER GAME FISH T&R – 1,266pts – Carl Ayoub “LOCKOUT” – BOTANY BAY GFC

CHAMPION BOAT OVER 8METERS T&R – 10,000pts – “THE OUTLAW” PHGFC

CHAMPION BOAT OVER 8METERS CAPTURE – 24938.31pts – “BLUE BLOODED” – LMGFC

CHAMPION BOAT UNDER 8 METERS T&R – 10,000pts – “HARD AND FAST” – CCGFC

The term has been thrown about a bit but Capt. Jared Weir used it again this week and it certainly is an accurate way to describe the Bank sometimes – where you go to watch other boats catch fish. On Sunday all the action was behind Amokura while the rest of the fleet watched. Spartacus was Monday’s Amokura.  And, as far as I could tell, Hot Shot, with Capt. Ian “Wobbles” Ford, was Tuesday’s Spartacus.  At least they were the only ones that we saw catch fish including this one (below riding down the wave with Dave Cassar on the leader).

Ian tells me they ended up with three at 300, 500 and 900lbs.  Another good day! I took another shot of them on their bigger fish (bottom) but unfortunately we were just a bit too far away for it to be a better shot. Also fishing the Bank after spending some time in the Ribbons, Askari with Capt. Corey Hard released two yesterday as well.  Kim tells me they caught a double header with the first, a 200lb-er caught by Jeff, the second, a 450lb-er caught by PC.  Video on its way.

On the Ribbons but heading south, Capt. Dean Beech on Castille III released a real nice fish yesterday that he called very close to the mark almost immediately after putting the baits in at Number 3. What a way to start your day!

On KEKOA we saw but did not conquer.  We have 50lb stand up enthusiast Shigeshi Tanaka (AKA “Dougie”) fishing with us this week with Capt. Barry “Cranky” Cross and Queensland’s leading fishing writer John Mondura – who is often Dougie’s personal photographer on these trips.  Dougie’s been fishing the reef for 21 years chasing his dream of the illusive grander on 50lb line.  He’s hasn’t got it yet but in the many years he’s been fishing with Barry, he’s gone pretty close!

Another well known angler, light tackle specialist Mike Levitt is also fishing the reef again right now with his party on board Sea Baby IV and Calypso and the mothership Atlantic Princess.

This is the time to be fishing the reef – if you are thinking of making a last minute trip to the north this year, there is still some availability–>check here (new dates added).

Mission Beach Tournament Report

Thank you to Babara Leptig, Secretary of Mission Beach GFC, who sent this along.  Barbara reports they had many late withdrawals due to the weather (yes it was blowing again!) and only 8 boats fished the tournament.The billfish continued to be absent (only two sailfish were hooked and lost) but the game fish were biting. There were some big spanish mackerel, barracuda, yellowfin tuna and GTs caught over the two-day event. In total 52 game fish were weighed and 35 were tagged – a great result and everyone had a fantastic time.

The winning boat was the local 6.5m Tomahawk owned by the owners of ‘The Tinnie Shack’ at Mission Beach, Carla and Dean Grieve. Carla is a regular on the ABC radio Fish Talk program on Friday afternoons and was a popular winner of champion female angler. Their third angler Adam Peach took out champion overall angler.  Congratulations to all who competed!

The Port Douglas Marlin Challenge starts tomorrow and Joe Joe will be acting as radio boat (and competing of course) so I’ll be sure to update on the fishing as much as I can on twitter.

Report courtesy of Steve Tatham – thanks Steve!

Competitors fishing the Dampier Classic over the weekend encountered very unfavourable conditions with the winds mostly 30-35 knots, peaking at 42 knots on the Monday.  Billfish numbers were down on the huge result from last year (291 sailfish and 53 black marlin in 2009), sailfish significantly, and this year there were more marlin caught than sailfish. But it was still a good showing considering the conditions with 46 black marlin and 12 sailfish tagged.

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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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