Hastings Deering Weipa Billfish 10th Anniversary Tournament
The tournament was in doubt a few days prior to Saturday’s start with weather warnings being issued for the weekend. Luckily the warnings were dropped Friday afternoon and a delayed 11 am start saw 14 boats start fishing in very average conditions.
Only 1 fish was tagged the first day, being a sailfish tagged for Renee Nae Mather on Outta Beer.
Sundays weather was a lot better and boats traveled far and wide. The crew on Happy Days were first on the board with a double of sails to Darryl French and Brittany Louise. Tony Katsaros on Screamer tagged a fish not long after. The afternoon bite saw Screamer tag another fish, “Happy Days another 2 and Outta Beer another 3 to put them in front on countback for the day.
Monday saw a lot of the fleet converge on the bite areas of the previous day. Junior, Emmi Roberts on Happy Ours got the day started with a micro Black Marlin. They then went on to tag 3 more sails. Two more for Emmi and a birthday fish for Andrea Kennedy. Screamer, Outta Beer and Mark Bowlen on Who’s your Daddy added a fish each to their tally’s while Happy Days added 3 to theirs. Quite a few boats also hooked and lost fish during the final day also.
The final stats for the Tournament were 44 bites, 28 hookups and 20 tags spread (1 black marlin and 19 sailfish). Congratulations to all those who participated in the tournament in some very trying conditions at times.
Fraser Island
Last week, Michael Scott (Reel Crazy) reported some great fishing off Fraser Island. On Thursday they fished light tackle for 5 from 7 for Toni. Mick said Bluewater and Virture each reported seeing 10 fish a piece heavy Wednesday but the bite seemed to have gone cold Thursday with only a couple seen. Dan Barker’s new Haines Raising Havoc caught a couple of little blacks early and decided to go heavy to try for a slam for the boat on her maiden voyage but despite raising both of what they needed, couldn’t get them to stick. Raising Havoc fished light again for half a day Friday tagging another 6 little blacks.
And report from Peter Kendall who took Hit n Run up to Hervey Bay over the long weekend for the blue season but couldn’t resist having a light tackle fish on the way. Peter reports they went 2 from 2 on micro blacks on Saturday. Sandy Crooke caught one at Arch Cliffs and Lachlan Kendall caught a slightly bigger model at Rooney’s a couple of hours later. Peter also said it was good wiring practice for the juniors!
