Following up from the Broome Billfish Classic which also finished over the week, the 2011 Dampier Classic wound up on Monday.  Steve tells me that the weather was glorious for them this year as well with great conditions for both the billfishing and capture sections. 

The bait balls have been present out wide of the ships for a while so the fishing was expected to be good – and it was!

126 black marlin and 12 sailfish were tagged over the four days.  Interestingly sailfish numbers were down considerably (see my table below – since Moose liked the one yesterday so much, I thought I’d do another ;-)

Five smallfry anglers (10 years and under), as well as four junior anglers successfully tagged marlin during the competition, with all the fish being a first billfish for the smallfry anglers. The Wench won the with 13 black marlin tags.

There were also some exceptional shark captures including a 265kg tiger shark caught on 6Kg line class – which is a pending world record (and would break the existing record by more than a 100kg) and a 27kg tiger shark caught on 1kg line, another pending world record!

Thanks to hosting club King Bay Game Fishing Club’s President Steve Tatham for the report!

Below is the number of marlin/sailfish for the past few years.