Hervey Bay Game Fishing Club

2011 Tournament

The Hervey Bay Annual Game Fishing Classic for 2011 will be held over the period of 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th of November 2011. Please keep an eye on this website for tournament updates leading up to this event.

Click here for the Tournament Rules and Program information.

2010 Game Fishing Tournament Report

HERVEY BAY GAME FISHING CLUB's QMC - QUEENSLAND MARINE CENTRE Sponsored

GAME FISHING CLASIC 18 to 21 NOVEMBER, 2010.

64 Anglers including 7 lady Anglers and 3 Junior Anglers hit the starting time of 0800 on Friday 19th with a lot of enthusiasm and expectation when they left from Rooneys Point where the Mother Ship had moored for the night, to talke part in this Classic Event.

18 Boats of varying size; 9 in each classification of over and under the 7.5 M in length, used to separate big Boats from not so big Boats catagory, took the Anglers out to their most comfortable locations and beyond in search of their quarry.

Everyone; from the crew of the Mother Ship, 'Tasman Venture' to the very keen young Juniors Anglers, knew that it was important to do well and get a high score on this first day, because the weather was forecast to worsen drastically over the next 2 days.

There were only 4 Billfish recorded as Tagged and Released for the Tournament which normally boasts plenty of Black marlin, predominently at this time of the year.

The first to score with a Billfish was David Hinde, one of 16 Anglers from the Sunshine Coast GFC contingent, including one Lady Angler; with a healthy Blue Marlin, while fishing on the 'Keneka'. That was the first Billfish of the Tournament and was followed by 3 others, including a Striped Marlin by Mathew Wallace also of a Sunshine Coast GFC Team, fishing on 'Fish Whisperer' and a Black Marlin by Peter Stubbs fishing on his Boat 'Stubbie Holder' of the Hervey Bay Game Fishing Club and the Last Billfish of the Tournament was a Sailfish by Kevin Charteris on 'White Horse 2', another Hervey Bay GFC Team, on Saturday.

Although the weather had deteriorated some Strikes from Billfish were had, but none were recorded on Sunday as it was in the worst of the weather pattern.

Other Teams came from Mooloolaba GFC,Gold Coast GFC, Surfers Paradise GFC and the Lizard Island GFC. All gave a good account of their Fishin prowess and the Prizegiiving showed a fairly even distribution of Awards.

The 87 other Gamefish caught and Tagged and Released were; 30 Dolphin Fish, 21 Spanish Mackeral, 17 Mackeral Tuna, 10 Wahoo, 7 Cobia and 2 Long Tail Tuna.

Junior Angler Kade Kimlin fishing with his Dad on Hot Reels had an exciting short time on Saturday when he hooke a Billfish while going through arough patch and was almost spooled before the Boat came around and took a bit of a splash, before losing the Fish.

Kade tied with fellow Junior Angler Justin Newbound fishing on his Dad's Boat 'Carnelpya', however, Justin reached the score first, which is the method used to separate 'Tied-scores' and went away with the Junior Prize. Both of these Teams were Hervey Bay GFC Boats as well.

Major Winners Included:

The Prizegiving Dinner was a very enjoyable event at the Hervey Bay Boat Club and the Last Man Standing Prizes were very well received and the top of a long list of Sponsored prizes, a Mercury inflatable with Mercury Outboard sponsored by Queensland Marine Centre was won by Ron Huntof the WHITE HORSE 2 Fishing Team.

2010 Tournament

The Hervey Bay Clubs Annual Hervey Bay QMC Game Fishing Classic for 2010 will be held over the period of 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st of November 2010. Please keep an eye on this website for tournament updates leading up to this event.

Click here for the Tournament Rules and Program information.

2009 Game Fishing Tournament Report

"Oh what a feeling!" Three days of perfect weather in the middle of weeks of strong winds, This sums up the Hervey Bay Game Fishing Classic, A strong field of 32 boats and over 100 anglers fished the three day event. Entries were almost evenly divided between the two boat classes-up to 7.5 metres and over 7.5 metres. Almost half the field were visiting vessels with boats travelling from Gladstone, Brisbane and the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. Anglers came from as far as Victoria and Townsville.

Hervey bay is well known as an excellent light tackle fishery for juvenile black marlin and sailfish but this year failed to live up to expectations, Only four light tackle marlin were tagged and not a single sailfish.

In contrast the heavy tackle fishing was sensational! Boats venturing out past the shelf in the Breaksea Spit area were rewarded with numerous large Blue Marlin. Fish up to 450 kgs. were sighted regularly and they were hungry.

Nineteen Blue Marlin were tagged with many more of these elusive speedsters lost. This is phenomenal fishing. Anglers travel half way round the world for a couple of "shots" at a big blue.

Hervey Bay can now be considered right up with the top Blue Marlin hot-spots. Two large Black Marlin were also tagged.

In all the fleet experienced 224 strikes for 154 hook-ups with 105 fish tagged. Of the tagged fish 25 were billfish while the 80 other species were made up primarily of wahoo, dolphin fish and yellowfin tuna.

All fish were tagged and released with the exception of ten wahoo that were given to a fisheries scientist researching these fascinating predators.

The team on "Keneka", with seven Blue marlin tagged, took out Champion Boat over 7.5 metres and Champion Billfish Team Tag & Release, while angler Russell Pell took out Champion Angler Heavy Tackle. "White Horse 11" was champion small boat while Craig Burnie from "Taurus" was Champion Angler Light Tackle. Leeanne Blyth was Champion Female and Nathan McNiece won Champion junior. Rob Wood fishing from "Watch tower" was Champion Hervey bay Angler.

Overall a great three days, with results that will bring many visiting boats to our area chasing big Blues and inspire local game fishermen to greater heights. An article in Fraser Life depicts how much fun was had First Article and Second Article

Paul Rosman



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