Hot fishing over the Easter long weekend at Port Stephens for Scott Lee’s Gunrunner.  Scott said they fished from the north down to the Carp Park on Saturday not seeing a fish until 2pm when it all changed finishing the day an impressive 9 from 10 and catching the last one as the sun went down (photo above).

Tash caught 8 of the 9 (well done Tash!!) with Andrew Homann catching the other out of a double header. Scotty said they tried to find number 10 but the chance disappeared in the twilight with the bait!

6 stripes and 3 blacks!

PNG National Titles

Outstanding fishing with many saying the best PNG has produced in years!

Saturday saw another 41 strikes, 23 tags as well as two 2 captures. While I don’t have the stats for the final day (yet) over the week a total of 344 billfish hookups were reported, with 167 tagged and 27 weighed! Overall 43 boats with 325 anglers fished the 9 day tournament.

Saltaire’s Capt. Damian Collette told me number of tags late week dwindled due to most boats switching to target the 6 & 8kg categories with medium and heavy tackles almost sewn up!  Stats over the comp being:

Sat 24th – 33 hook ups, 16 tagged, 2 weighed.
Sun 25th – 29 hook ups, 16 tagged, 1 weighed.
Mon 26th – 46 hook ups, 22 tagged, 3 weighed.
Tue 27th – 54 hook ups, 25 tagged, 2 weighed.
Wed 28th – 37 hook ups, 16 tagged, 8 weighed.
Thur 29th – 35 hook ups, 11 tagged, 1 weighed (Pending Women’s National Record on 10kg) Tags included 1 striped marlin tagged.
Fri 3oth – 33 hook ups, 12 tagged, 3 weighed.