A great shot to go with the report (above) taken by Stephen Pitchfork of PHGFC’s Outlaw in action (5-4-4 on blacks and striped on Day 3). Stephen was fishing on Sydney GFC’s Gale Force.
From on deck with the winners (also from PHGFC!):
Grommet’s Andrew Homann so kindly send me a recap of his crew’s tournament on board that ultimately saw them on the top of the leaderboard.
1st Weekend: Capt Steve Haygarth put the team onto 1 on the Saturday and 2 on the Sunday, caught by a mixture of skip baiting the Carpark and dropping live baits on the fish marked on the Furuno 1150. That put the team on 3 fish behind the leading boat, with some work to do to catch up
Due to illness Steve couldn’t skipper the 2nd weekend so the skippering was left to Andrew himself. With weather conditions were suitable to live baiting Saturday, and with the bait really starting to rise up, they pulled the skip baits out of the program and concentrated on just live baiting. (Andrew said they also found with the water temperature being in the 25+ degree sin the area, the stripe marlin were quite sluggish and weren’t responding well to the skip baits.) The most productive for team Grommet were the high baits schools 40fa and above, with the boat sitting slightly up current from the school and two livies on the riggers — occasionally dropping livies to the fish they marked on the sounder.
On the 2nd Saturday they added another 5 fish putting them in touch with the leaders. And while the NE’s on Sunday from the outset made the live baiting more challenging, they managed to tag a black straight up and then a double of stripes before word spread among the fleet that they had found the fish.
So after playing lucky dip (without success) for a while, Andrew made the decision to move further north to an area where the bait had started to stacked up the previous afternoon, in hope of finding it there again. The strategy paid off and within 10 minutes of arriving they were hooked up to a nice black from the deep bait. Over the next few hours they tagged another 3 blacks from the same bait school and to put them on a total of 7 for the day and 15 for the tournament.
And I should point out that it was 15 from 16! Awesome stats!
Andrew report that while they knew we they were up at the pointy end of the results, they weren’t sure if they had taken it out. Running the deck for the entire tournament was James Thackeray from Black Pete Marine along with other crew members Brendan, Adam, Wayne and young Conner. Andrew said that he and James have fished together and against each other for over 20 years and that combination with the other guys on the weekend just cemented the result. The team used 15kg outfits for the entire time, Moi Moi line, Eagle Claw 8/0 circle hooks and Moi Moi Neo 100lb Fluro carbon leader.
And to say boat owner Andrew Tonini (aka Grommet) was happy with the result is an understatement I’m told. Andrew has been game fishing since he was 7 years old and this is a great result for him and the rest of the crew.
Big congrats to all!
