Some more great fishing over in the west and Peak Sport Fishing’s Eddy Lawler and team’s great start to 2018 with Australia’s first official grander blue marlin, continues. [ Reminder: Bluewater Magazine Issue 129 goes on sale today and you can read the full story there in detail. I got mine yesterday – great read!) In the leadup to tournament month in Exmouth which kicks off with the AIBT 12-16 March and then the 50th Anniversary Gamex 16-24 March, the fishing will no doubt have teams excited to start fishing!
In the last 7 days (6 days fishing), Peak have recorded a 34-27-23 (17 blues, 4 blacks, 1 stripe and 1 sail with a couple of the blues 450-500lbs!)
Highlights included a 10-8-6 blue marlin on the last of three days with Sam Gullotto. And a Grand Slam (2 blues, 1 black and 1 sail) with Zoltan Hrabovszky and Thu Ha Nguyen
who were completely new to gamefishing!
The 25th Anniversary Broken Bay Invitational 2018
The 2018 Broken Bay Invitational was held on the 3rd & 4th of February with a fleet of 42 boats and 188 anglers competing for a cash and prize pool of $90,000.
Day one met teams with tough sea conditions, but that did not stop the scores starting early with the team on Workhorse tagging the first marlin of the tournament with in the first hour of start fishing.
Newcastle Port Stephens’ Vengeance was also hooked up early on day one capturing a 353kg tiger shark on 15kg line to Chad Kadvanagh which was enough to secure them Champion Boat Capture and Champion Male Angler Capture for the tournament.
On Day 2 the team did battle with an even larger shark which after a long battle turned out to be a large Great White and was quickly tagged and released.
The team on Broken Bay GFC’s Carnage also had a Great White shark encounter battling another large shark for 5 hours on the day one with female angler Janet West bringing it boat side to be tagged and released. Day 2 saw the Carnage crew hooked up again this time Janet West managed to capture a new pending club NSW and Australian Record whaler shark weighing 71.6kg on 6kg line to secure the team Runner Up Boat Capture and Champion Female Angler Capture.
Crompton from Sydney GFC and previous tournament winners in the 2016 event had a great weekend tagging one blue marlin and two striped marlin to take the Champion Boat Tag and Release title with 34000 points. The remaining tag and release point scores ended up very close with a nail biting finish on day 2 with the lead and positions changing quite a number of times and ultimately Kurly taking second place with two striped marlin and a short bill spearfish to take 2nd place on 25000 points.
The team on Little Audrey made the near 50mile run home in record time just making the cut off to secure third place with 24000 points (to note: the LA team this time on Little Audrey II had another great day at Port Stephens yesterday recording a 7-7-6). Fourth and Fifth place was settle via the count back system with Offshore just finishing ahead of Anyfin on 23029points.
The Champion Junior angler this year was taken by Ralph Chapman who not only took the trophy but also landed his first striped marlin on the weekend. The Champion Junior Smallfry Angler went to James Fordham on Rowdy. In such ugly conditions on day one it’s great to see some keen kids in the sport.
Only one marlin was weighed at this year’s event and sadly it did not make the cash prize minimum but at 145kg the team on Lock Out were all smiles as the fish managed to secure 3rd place in the capture section.
The Broken Bay Game Fishing Club would sincerely like to thank all the sponsors who supported and all the anglers that competed in this year’s 25th Anniversary tournament and we look forward to hosting you again next year.
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Thank you so much to Rod Findlay for the great report!
