Newcastle East Coast Classic
It seems like the first Newcastle GFC East Coast Classic was a tight race indeed with the top several boats all in the mix right up to the end with less than 100 point separating them. The full pointscore is available here.
Capt. Scotty Thorrington’s Freedom (Central Coast) has kicked off their 2015 season on a winning note taking out the Champion Boat T&R and the Highest Pointscoring Team (Marlin) in a nailbiter from Port Mac’s Rush Hour, the Curtis family’s Ningaloo (Newcastle GFC), Little Audrey (Sydney GFC) and Billistic (NPSGFC).
In an almost repeat of what happened to them in last years Lake Mac Big Fish Bonanza (where they were also (un)lucky boat #13), they almost didn’t make it. Ben “Notso” Bright tells me that they had 3 from 4 black marlin by 10:30 plus a mahi all on 10 kg on Day 1, and then blew a gearbox line. After limping back to port (and luckily not being too far out) they ran back out two hours later with a new hose. No more bites but leading into Day 2, with Ningaloo also with 3 on 10 kg.
Day 2 they struggled and lost the lead early with Ningaloo and Little Audrey each catching early fish. But finally persistence paid off and they added two fish late (as well as a few more field goats) all on 10 kg to take the win with 5 from 6 blacks and 6 mahi mahi.
Great action shot at top of Freedom taken by Dean Ford on Calypso who are also getting into the fish outside the comp.
On the Capture side the trophy was won by NPSGFC’s Black Jack.
Overall there were 53 marlin tags in the two days (43 black marlin, 2 blue marlin, 8 striped marlin) and 6 marlin captures.
Outside of the comp again and Capt. Casey Dent’s new charge the Assegai Zulu has made it to Port and kicked off their first season and first day yesterday with 3 from 3 striped marlin in the 80-100kg range. (One each on lure, one switch baited and the other on a livey.)
Perth Bluewater Tackle Marlin Cup
Perth GFC also held their annual Marlin Cup over the weekend with a fleet of 23 boats registered and 5 marlin tagged and dozen raised. Bluewater Tackle reports that the team on Naturaliste skippered by Johnno Wroth and crewed by Nathan Sibley, Chris Fonti and Luke Gilbert put Bluewater Tackle World’s Morley’s Hon-su Chin onto a big blue marlin on the first morning. They also managed to tag a striped marlin the second day to put them at the top of the leaderboard!
