Jump to results from outside the tournament here.

Tournament report for day 4

So far in this tournament (and even before the tournament), one trend has been pretty consistent. If you’re catching big fish, chances are you can chuck the baits back in, turn around and catch another one. Yesterday, Capt. Laurie Wright, who is at the wheel on private boat Think Big again for the tournament, did just that giving his lady angler Sharon Poulter a real workout.  The first one she did in really good time releasing a 900lb fish inside of 30 minutes.  But I’m sure that put the hurt in her for the next one fighting another 900lb fish for two hours, hooking up just 20 minutes after the first was tagged.  And then Capt. Laurie did it again. Hooking up another 20 minutes later, this time Paul getting a run in a chair for a third big fish that Laurie put at 850lbs.  That put them on top for the day and making their way up the leaderboard!

Capt. Steve Ahlers’ lady angler Sarah Jackson on Hellraiser stays in front with the first fish (500lbs) on the day putting her onto four tags to Sharon’s three.  But otherwise there were good numbers of fish spread between a few boats mostly healthy mid-rangers.  Tournament leader Little Audrey did not add a tag on Day 4 and have been run down a little by Top Shot who added two to be just one fish behind.

The leaderboard is: Little Audrey with 10 tags, from Top Shot with 9, from the Bertarelli Foundation Team on Kalira on 7, Amokura and Hellraiser on 6, Althaldo on 5, Castille III, Duyfken, Iona II, Moana III and Think Big on 4, Viking, Bite Me and Iceman on 3. Reel Easy, Kaizen and Joker on 2. And KEKOA, Onsite, Illusion,Game Over and Defiant on 1 a piece.

Outside the tournament

The reports continue to come in for boats not fishing the LBMC as well. Capt. Tim Richardson on Tradition tagged a 600lb-er for David. We also saw Capt. Haydon Bell on Kanahoee backing round and round chasing a fish on light tackle for his lady angler (record fishing).  Down at the bank, Peter Jenyns and 35 Caribbean Tsukiji owner Jim Stening fished two up for a 400lb-er for Jim.

And I received a report from Andrew Tivey who fished his 5.4mtr trailer boat Hook-In on Sunday with son Ryan and his friend Locky Wood. While trolling south down Linden Bank after overnighting behind Opal, a 200lb fish ate the shotgun dolphin fish lure on a light spin stick with 40lb braid, nearly spooling Locky on the hookup and was successfully released after 1.5 hrs of hard slog.

And then, ten minutes after getting the baits back in the water a large fish charged in from way out and creamed the short skip bait. Andrew says he put it at 6 to 700lbs (photo) and that it did not disappoint on the leader giving a great display!  Great effort on the 24kg stand-up!

And lastly from Townsville with the news that their HT Billfish Bonanza scheduled for this weekend has been postponed to November.  John McConkey fished Monday and says there are some good fish out there and they were unlucky not to get a tag into two good bites. One of the fish was around 250lb and the other too big for John (who still considers himself a novice!) to call other than that the big skip bait looked like a matchstick flapping outside her mouth. John says it was not quite as big as the fish he saw on OB1 last year, but certainly getting up there!

And last but certainly not least, some catch up pics from Lochie on Mauna Kea at the top of the post including their big fish (on the left) from the other day on the leader.