The Exmouth Game Fishing Club held its annual Billfish Bonanza last week-end. The event was a great success with 20 boats, 65 anglers, over 150 billfish raised and 49 billfish tagged. The mornings were a little breezy, but the gulf glassed off each afternoon with some magical visions of silhouetted whales breeching as the sun set for boats returning to the marina and Bundegi.

Most of the fish tagged were sailfish in the gulf averaging 30kg. There were several black marlin on the west side of the cape tagged including a 180kg black onboard James Roscic’s new boat Apocathery. There was also a 90kg black tagged on 10kg line, which was a fantastic effort by female angler Debbie Snook. This took out the Champion Angler Marlin Section.

Hayden Michaels with his Dad Steve and the trophy for Champion Junior.

The youngest angler in the event, 7yr old Hayden Michaels caught five sailfish and successfully tagged three of them. He won the junior section and was runner up in the champion angler sailfish section too: another wonderful effort!

Simon Prins, a chef from the Novotel, had never caught a sailfish before the event. He ventured out onboard Saxon Raider and tagged eight sails to take out the Champion Angler Sailfish award. Simon, along with Kurt and Jo Decker aboard Saxon Raider took out the Champion Boat for Tag and Release Billfish.

The crew on Fully Sic came runner-up followed by On-Strike. During the event many people tagged their first ever billfish, including the three anglers from Jurien Bay aboard the boat Yogi. There were only two boats that did not catch a fish, and both those teams won a prize too! The event was very challenging and exciting with baitballs in the gulf that had sailfish, trevally, long tail tuna and queenfish feeding on them. The birds were a good sign for the anglers to find where the action was happening.

There were three sailfish tagged that had already been tagged previously. One of them had been caught in two consecutive days. The EGFC promotes good fishing ethics and fish handling to ensure the sustainability of recreational fishing through catch and release. It’s great to see these fish feeding one day, being caught and released, and back feeding again to be caught the next day. Congratulations goes to all the participants, while a big thanks goes to all the sponsors, volunteers and committee who helped make it such a great success.

Team In Deep getting ready to release a fish.