Tight lines at billfish tournament

The weather gods were kind this year to the anglers who took on the 12th annual Nickol Bay Sports Fishing Club Billfish Shootout at the long weekend.

With 65.4mm of rain last week in Karratha things weren't looking good for the Dampier Coast-based competition.

In the past two years entrants copped Poseidon's wrath in blustery conditions full of rain and whitecaps, with a mere 20 scoring fish caught last year.

The rain eased off completely for the weekend's event and while wind speeds reached up to 25 knots in the mornings, it tended to ease coming into the afternoons.

The favourable conditions created close competition among the 139 anglers across the 39 boats, which first set out at dawn on Saturday morning looking like a fleet of aquatic porcupines covered in rods and outriggers.

Fortunes didn't favour the boat Far Canal when its motor died a few hours into the event.

Lucky for the crew, the lads from Too Easy were happy to sacrifice fishing time to tow the stranded participants.

Other boats went out past the iron ore and gas ships, where they picked up some live bait, towards the gas pipeline.

There wasn't much biting around the large freighters in terms of billfish so those who did their homework pushed out further into the big blue.

Saturday proved to be an absolute cracker; the radio was constantly abuzz from the first rods going into the water as details flooded down the line about triple hook-ups and the successful tagging of 86 billfish, mostly black marlin.

Fishing was good day one but some competitors cut their trip back too fine and failed to get their fishing tags in by 6.30pm meaning the points from their catches for the day would not be counted.

Jaxon Marriott, who caught five marlin, was named the champion junior for day one of competition and Kate McLeod took the champion adult honours.

The champion team was Mangrove Jack.

On the second day 68 fish were tagged.

Kate McLeod took the champion adult honours again and Toby Mason took the junior honours.

Team Simrad was the champion team of the day but trailed Mangrove Jack in the overall points by one fish.

At the end of day two Party of Five was also still in contention for champion team in third place overall.

NBSFC chairman Ken MacFarlane said it had been a rugged few days but he was very happy with how the weekend had shaped up.

He also thanked the event's sponsors as well as the City of Karratha which gave the club a grant of $20,000 out of its major events scheme.

Competitors were still fishing the final day of competition at time of print.

For full results pick up next week's edition of the Pilbara News.