The Broome Billfish Classic has wound up for another year, and yet again, the fishing has not disappointed. Neither did the weather with the 18 teams competing enjoying glassy conditions on the water all week. For the first time this year, the club reported the results live as they happened (foiled by phone range at times) and kept many of us on the other side of the country enthralled as it unfolded. A highlight for eventual winners Fish Broome was calling in 9 sailfish tags on a single sked on Day 5 to propel them to the lead! By the start of the final day, Fish Broome held a narrow lead over last year’s winners Billistic and 2009 winners Game On. Despite some tense moments (with an hour to go it was reported there was only one fish in it and four teams were hooked up with 2 minutes to go!) Fish Broome eventually prevailed to come home with a 4 sail buffer. Congratulations to all who competed!
Final Results
A total of 564 sails were raised for 224 tags as well as 71 marlin for 13 tags. (Points are allocated 1000pts for marlin and 500pts for sailfish.) Fish Broome came home champions with a massive 19,500 points – 39 sailfish tags (no martians) – four sailfish clear of Game On with 17,500 points. In the 6-7.5 metre category Cluster Ducks were champions with 11,500 points and in the under 6m class, Shags won with 4,000 points. Steve Ring on Fish Broome was Champion Angler (8,000 points / 16 sails) and Champion Female, Danielle Cox with 3,000 points. Champion Junior went to Eric Locke with 5,000 points which included his first ever marlin.
It’s interesting to note that the number of marlin raised each year is increasing (I put this table together from previous tournament reports on the blog). We saw something similar at Cape Bowling Green when it transitioned from a sailfish fishery, to a juvenile black marlin playground. (Although recent year trends indicate in might be swinging back the other way?)
| Sailfish Raised |
Sailfish Tagged |
Marlin Raised |
Marlin Tagged |
Total | ||||
| 2008 | 404 | 88 | not avail |
not avail |
88 | |||
| 2009 | 1136 | 335 | 41 | 14 | 349 | |||
| 2010 | 351 | 105 | 53 | 23 | 128 | |||
| 2011 | 564 | 224 | 71 | 13 | 237 |
No rich fish were recaptured unfortunately!
3 Comments
Hi Kelly, those figures would be skewed by numbers of vessels fishing. Has it been consistent over the years?
Heya Moose, No its been pretty consistent actually. To the best of my knowledge for the past three years it was 21 boats (2009), 19 boats (2010) and 18 boats (2011). Its actually a pretty small fleet comparitive to comps on the east coast. But not a surprise given the remote location! I’m sure there’s very many of us, me included, who have this comp on their bucket list! K
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