Updated March 28: Haven Charters Terrigal (Freedom)’s Capt. Scotty Thorrington fished mad keen 13 year old Bella Thwaites releasing her first 3 black marlin yesterday. While Scotty says its been very quite fishing on the shelf with lots of down hill current inshore they have been averaging 3 fish a day for the last week which has put them on a very impressive 123 marlin for the season so far!
For the great Monday fishing reports from the Sunshine Coast (9 black marlin) and PNG (9 blue marlin), read on in the following post.
The 2018 Shimano Port Hacking 100 Results
The Shimano Port Hacking 100 continues to grow from strength to from strength with the incredible support of our loyal sponsors and crews from up and down the east coast. This year’s event dew 70 vessels and 350 of their finest crew to compete in an absolute bonanza offering of $66,000 in cash and a further $60,000 in prizes across 21 categories.
With the $50,000 cash jackpot for heaviest blue marlin up for grabs again for the 4th year in a row, this saw the majority of the fleet going wide with heavy tackle in search of a big blue on day one. There were some early reports of a few nice blues, however unfortunately no one tipped the scales over the required mark of 250kg to get the jackpot with Reel Affair (PHGFC) getting the closest at 196.70 KG.
However whilst in the search, PHGFC club boat Onsite found some bait and continued to work this for a few early tag and releases getting them off onto a great lead. Their Day eventually finishing up with a fantastic result of 6 blue marlin for the crew. The Team from Tantrum (SGFC) landed a beautiful yellowfin tuna of 68KG continuing Karen Wrights lead for this category.
Day two saw slightly heavier conditions that really made the crews work harder for their fish with the bite slowing down a bit from the Saturday, everyone was looking for any advantage they could find.
Sunday seemed to be more productive for the shark fisherman who provided the weigh station audience with some big bites for their viewing. PHGFC vessel Thirsty Work radioed in a capture of a mako of 3.3m short length (257KG), this saw the crew take the lead for the capture division, however unfortunately this was short lived with the team on Scirocco(PHGFC) landing a 214kg whaler and then having a large tiger shark also pop up.
After taking a bait the clock was on as they needed to return to the weigh station by the 6pm deadline. Pushing their boat to its limits they made the cut off period with 3 minutes to spare and eventually weighted a 446.5KG tiger shark giving them Champion boat Capture.
The Onsite boys continued their day one lead with skipper Will Ellems putting the boys onto 2 more fish but only being able to successfully tag one of them, however this gave them a finishing stat of 7 blue marlin for the weekend thus taking out the top honours for tag and release.
Other notable catches were for PHGFC Small Fry Nash McNally who caught his first marlin and took out the Small Fry T&R category – Well Done Nash, I’m sure many more to come.
The Weekend ended with a new record of 240 people attending the presentation dinner, thank you to all our great sponsors and competitors for your continued loyal support we look forward to seeing you in 2019.
- Champion Team T&R – Onsite, PHGFC – 53,500 pts
- Champion Team Capture – Scirocco, PHGFC – 31895.50 pts
- Runner Up Team T&R – Smartbill, SGFC – 34,500 pts
- Runner Up Team Capture – Thirsty Work, PHGFC – 16,512.50 pts
- 3rd Place T&R – The Office, PHGFC – 33,000 pts
- 3rd Place Team Capture, Tantrum, SGFC – 9541.93 pts
- 4th Place Team T&R – Bad Yakkaz, PHGFC – 20,000 pts
- 4th Place Team Capture – Blackjack, Botany Bay GFC
- Champion Senior Lady T&R – Alex Durham, Dog House, PHGFC – 7,500 pts
- Champion Senior Lady Capture – Karen Wright, Tantrum, SGFC – 2,658.80 pts
- Champion Junior Angler T&R – Aaron Ayad, Smartbill, SGFC – 34,500 pts
- Champion Junior Angler Capture – Not Won
- Champion Small Fry Angler T&R – Nash McNally, Cause We Can, PHGFC – 10,000 pts
- Champion Small Fry Capture – Not Won
- Highest Point Scoring Team – T&R Sharks – The Undertaker, PHGFC – 3,450 pts
- Heaviest Shark over 200KG – Maximum 24KG Tackle – Brett Tisdell, Scirocco, PHGFC – 446.5KG Tiger Shark
- Highest Point Scoring Team T&R Yellowfin/ Bluefin Tuna – Not Won
- Heaviest Marlin – Dave Gorano, Reel Affair, PHGFC – 196.70 Blue Marlin
- Heaviest Other Game Fish – Karen Wright, Tantrum, SGFC – 68KG Yellowfin Tuna
- Heaviest Pacific Blue Marlin over 250KG – Not Won ($50,000 Jackpot Prize)
- Heaviest Broadbill Swordfish – Not Won
A huge thank you to David Joyce for the report on the back of such a big weekend and congratulations on another great tournament!
