Whaleshark sighting at popular billfish event

Flares and reeving engines signalled the start of the 2016 Tackleworld Billfish Classic competition on Sunday as boats raced from Cable Beach in pursuit of local billfish species.

The popular fishing event kicked off with a shotgun start at 6.30am and will finish this Friday with a calculation of points, winners’ presentation and a donated wood Barramundi bar top to be auctioned.

Event points can be received by competing teams which tag sailfish, awarding 500 points and Black Marlin which award 1000 points, in the running this year are 15 teams.

Early on Sunday morning Digby Vaughan of the Corteaser team tagged the first fish receiving 500 points, however the early result was only one of four fish tagged throughout the day with team Big Red scoring 500 and Reel Game II tagging twice for 1000 points.

Monday proved better as Geoff Ellens of team Makaira tagged the first Marlin, Big Red claimed another 500 points, team Relentless tagged twice to claim 1000 points and team Billistic tagged one fish in a tough day on the ocean battling strong winds.

On Tuesday morning Makaira had edged into the lead tagging another 500 points and Team Mercury Pro claimed their first sailfish to grab 500 points in rough conditions.

It was yet another bumpy day yesterday as teams battled 30 knot winds however Billistic came back with the goods tagging two 500 point fish to join the leading team’s score of 1500, White Hot also tagged one sailfish to raise their score from zero.

It was cold and windy this morning as Mercury Pro tagged the first sailfish of the day, a monster weighing 35 to 40 kg with a short length of 2.6m.

Other teams still on the hunt include Sea Fox, Team Eliminator, Orabanda III, Team Clear Water, Sail Raider, Runamuk and Team Mclean.

An exciting note to the competition so far included a Whale Shark sighting by Kelly Locke of team Mercury pro, who also sighted a whale shark in the same competition last year.

For more information visit the Broome Fishing Club Facebook page.