Tales of billfish bad luck abound

The three-day NT Billfish Classic finished on Monday and, by most accounts, it was a great competition for those who fished it.

Tales of billfish bad luck abound

The three-day NT Billfish Classic finished on Monday and, by most accounts, it was a great competition for those who fished it.

The host Darwin Game Fishing Club couldn’t have asked for better weather conditions, and although the fishing was tough for some, others reported plenty of action.

I’ve written before that the worldwide average for the number of sailfish sightings converted to actual fish landed is 7 to 1, and I suppose marlin would be about that too.

That sure seems to be what happened in the Classic: there were seven sailfish landed among the 22 teams, but every boat at least sighted one or more fish, with a couple of teams experiencing multiple hook-ups for nil or just one fish landed.

The unlucky anglers in this competition were Daniel James, Jarrod James and Bradley Fitton in Team Let Loose.

They fished in just a 5m boat, launching at Dundee and fishing their way all the way to the Bathurst Trench.

Daniel and Jarrod James with their sailfish from the Classic.

They caught a sailfish, but the hard-luck story was the capture of a black marlin on the last day that was ineligible for points-score, as there was no photo of it.

According to tournament co-ordinator Peter Dienhoff, lines-in was 7am and they hooked up to an estimated 50-60kg black marlin at 7.10am.

“They called in that they’d hooked and were fighting a marlin, but I didn’t hear any more as they must have gone out of range working their way back to Dundee from the Trench,” Peter told me.

“I understand they believed they had some video footage of the fish being caught, but there was nothing on the camera.

Steve Abraham and Steve Taylor were on the money with this Bathurst Trench sailfish.

“It’s a real shame because they did it tough in such a small boat with no canopy, and they stayed out in their boat every night.

“Some boats had plenty of action, finding billfish every day,” Pete said.

“One day, we were trolling past a boat working tuna and watched them hook up to a 100kg marlin ... only 200 metres away.

“Josh Kerr hooked a 100kg marlin that charged towards the boat when it struck, causing slack line and the hook just fell out.

Tim Fallot and Bjorn Farley saw plenty of action and converted twice.

“We only saw one fish in the three days: a 140kg black that came up to the bait, hung around long enough for us all to eyeball it, then just swam away out of sight ... gone!”

Peter said bait was hard to find and the tuna were the smallest he’d ever seen.

In the end, Champion Team was Classic Sails (Trevor Robb, Greg Meyer and Cameron Briscoe).

From barra to billfish, I must say that Trevor is always at the top end of any competition he competes in, and often winning.

“It was a crying shame for the guys; I feel sorry for them,” Trev said about the bad luck had by Team Let Loose.

Nevertheless, the sailfish tagged by Team Let Loose (Daniel James, Jarrod James, Bradley Fitton) was enough to give it Champion Runner-up Team in the under-8m division.

Champion Runner-up Team in the 8m and over category was Billistic (David McCubben, Tim Pallot and Bjorn Farley).

Trevor Robb was Champion Angler.