Forster Blue Marlin Classic/forster Fishing Carnival

[bcampbell]

Gday Raiders,

I thought i would give a rundown on the fishing competitions at Forster Last week, the inagural Blue Marlin Classic and the Forster Fishing Carnival.

The Blue Marlin Classic recieved 33 boat entries which was a little down on the expected number primarily due to the forecast weather which turned out to be shocking. Isn't that the norm, three weeks of great conditions then it blows 25 knots from the south a few hours into Competition day.

The conditions were great early but just after midday the seas were around 2m rising to about 3m in the arvo, forcing a couple of the smaller boats inside early. Despite this, the day was pretty successful with 9 Marlin tagged and 2 captured. All three species Black's, Striped and Blues were in the tally. In addition a number of boats raised fish but didn't hook up.

One of the captures was a small fish unfortunately just under the 60kg mark captured on 10kg line by a girl of 8 years of age. What an effort. The family had come all the way from Dubbo to compete and young girl cleaned up a number of prizes.

The prizes were sensational thanks tho the sponsors with a number of great game reels given away, and heaps of smaller prizes.

Due to the weather the comp was called off on the Sunday and almost half of Saturday was pretty poor for fishing so i am left wondering how many fish would have been caught if the conditions were good. Although I am moving to Townsville in two weeks (looking forward to the marlin and Sail action up there) I am looking forward to next years comp already.

The Forster Fishing Carnival was also a great event, again with heaps of prizes and a few really good fish caught, mostly by team Gumby (Ken, Heidi and I) (LOL). Hey, not a great name Heidi came up with it on the spur of the moment while registering. There where heaps of categories however we only concentrated on 2, the Blue water and the Light Game. I hope Roberta will post some of the results for other categories.

Some of the best fish captured in the Blue Water were (all weights cleaned) a 7.8kg Snapper (Ken /Team Gumby), 8.7kg King (Ken/Team Gumby). 2.8kg Teraglin (Ken/Team Gumby), 18kg Cobia, 14kg Cobia (somebody else).

We ended up taking out the light Game comp (unfortunately only with little Kings 2.5kg and 2.8kg) as the big king and Cobias were taken on days outside those specified for the light game comp.

Ken took down the top 2 Kings for the week i placed 3rd, Ken took down biggest snapper and Ken and Heidi took down the 3 largest Trag. Our three person team actually walked away with over $4000 of prizes including more Squidgeys, Stubbie holders and Hats than we know what to do with. Now that’s better than working!

Roberta did you want to tell them about the 'little' Flatties captured and released?

See you there next year,

Brett

[arpie]

Well done Brett & Team Gumby!! Does the Gumby actually mean anything??

Brett & his team with the lovely GPS Prize!

It really was 18kg!!

Nice snapper

nicer snapper

Then of course there was the 5.5kg flattie that went 1 metre (2 of them, actually) I tried to photograph them in the tank, but with the reflection, they were too big to get in the photo & all you saw was me taking the photo anyway! Here is the best I could manage ....

ALso the first time I have seen what appears to be a Blackie that is moulting! You can see the dark skin up behind it's head & around its nose, about to peel off. All the rear of him is nice & silver! Anyone else seen that??

Shame more folk didn't leave good quality photos with the organisers when they submitted their fish - cos there were some beauties there!

Cheerio

Roberta

It'll be bigger & better next year, with more boats & fishos!!!!

Edited May 28, 2008 by Roberta