This years Weipa Billfish Tournament has been and gone and what a successful tournament it was. Fifteen boats with 45 anglers (36 Seniors & 9 Juniors) fished over three days in great weather conditions to tag 29 Sailfish and 2 Black Marlin. It was also great to see 12 Anglers from outside of Weipa make the effort to come and fish this years tournament.

Day 1 kicked off at 7am with a shotgun start from Evans landing Wharf with start fishing at 8am. The first fish for the tournament was a Sailfish caught by visiting angler Dean Butler on Line Burner. Second sked had Tag Team going 3,2,1 to be on the board. It wasn’t until the third sked that a few more bites were reported and by the end of the first day Last Cast was leading with 2 Tags. That night 13 boats rafted up in Boyd’s Bay for the day one after party which was enjoyed by all especially Queen Linda Jay and all her minions.

Day 2 saw junior angler Isaac Griffin fishing on Fit Cat catch his first ever Sailfish and the first fish of the day. The fishing started out slow but Last Cast got a double header and tagged one Sail and got the other one eaten after a drawn out battle. This area attracted a few more boats and this resulted with the 2nd sked revealing 13 bites with five fish caught including a nice Black Marlin for Great Northern. By the last sked the area really started to fire resulting in 29 bites for seven tags. By the end of day two Last Cast was still out in front on 3 tags on countback from Wine Down also on 3 tags.

Day three started like the first with Dean Butler on Line Burner again tagging the first fish of the day. It was another slow start and by the middle of the day most boats had had bites. The second sked saw 6 fish tagged 3 of which were caught by Tag Team which propelled it into first place which they maintained to the end. Just Teasin reported that they had just landed a massive Dolphinfish which ended up tipping the scales at 20.7 kg clean weight. The last sked revealed a hot bite where Gayle Force was fishing when they posted stats of 15,8,2. Wine Down, on its way over to Gayle Force to get drone footage hooked a double header with ten minutes to cease fishing and ended up tagging 1 from 2 to move into second place. Gayle Force in the meantime had a triple header which unfortunately resulted in all fish being lost.

So the results at the end of the Tournament were the following.

Champion Team: Tag Team
Runner up Team: Wine Down
Third Team: Last Cast
Champion Male: Dean Butler
Runner up Male: Dave Cordukes
Third place Male: Brendan Rolt
Champion Female: Talina O’Brien
Runner Up Female: Andrea Kennedy
Third place Female Tracey Small
Champion Junior: Ben French
Runner up Junior: Louis Argent
Third place junior: Baylee Morana
Heaviest other Gamefish: Quinton Small 20.7 kg Dolphinfish
The Club would like to thank all anglers for their participation and great spirit and comradery during the tournament.
It would also like to thank all our great sponsors without who’s support the tournament would not be what it was.

Daryl French