Congrats to Ace High

[Smithy]

Dan skippered his 4.75m CC boat for Conor to win Champion Angler on count back by 2minutes with 4 black marlin tagged during the Little Ship Gamefish Tournament on the weekend. They had a good spot all to themselves and had about 8 on during tournament time. This time of year 8kg line sometimes isn't enough and they lost one after about 4 hours which lost them valuable time where they could have been on other fish. Another boat was on one from 9:00 in the morning to 12:45 in the arvo out there as well.

I was fishing on George Rehua who owns Reelax the outrigger manufacturers personal boat called Pacemaker with Brooksy and DWW from here. She is a custom 32' David Pleysier designed and built boat.

We went heavy tackle the first day. Only one fish was seen heavy the first day on the Goldy. In the Black dropped a heavy fish off Moreton. That was it. Light tackle was going ok. Fish were widespread from the Sunshine Coast, Hutchies and the Gold Coast. Luna on the Sunshine Coast got a good lead with 5 or so. Hard to listen on 21 off the Goldy. Suzi from it took out the female prizes and they got first marlin of the tournament.

We went light tackle the 2nd day. We entually started fishing for marlin 50 minutes past the start fishing time of 7:00. Not long later Brooksy was on and we had our first for the tournament with Dan driving. I had a drive and we had one on not much later for Daniel then another for George. I came downstairs and got the next one. Brooksy took over driving and we got another for Dan and then George dropped one. 5 from 7 but another boat not in the tournament and not fishing the 8kg line like we were 10 from 13 but Five Star ended up tagging 8 beside us and Amigo 6. Five Star won with 10 total. It was good to get a few under the belt and that was George's best day fishing on that boat under his ownership. In the Black got one for Michelle heavy on the Sat. Kanyana got one heavy too. Matt has got 4 heavy tackle fish in recent weeks.

[-spiro-]

Smithy i tried to call you on Friday around 10.30am. I thought you might have been in that comp. I saw 4 free jumpers just on the 18 mile. Never seen that many in a drive out to the Banks....

[ooglie74]

Great going smithy good to see a few about.

Cheers Troy

[ooglie74]

Great going mate good to see a few still about.

Cheers Troy

[Smithy]

Thanks Chris. I was on the Gold Coast and VHF21 was pretty sketchy where I was. We were on the shelf. Mid morning the reception improved but was hopeless on Saturday down there.

[ffejsmada]

Pacemaker's still running around??????

She'd be pushing 25 to 30 year old!

Great boat, won a lot of comps, caught a lot of fish that tub!

Congrats Dan!

[Smithy]

Still around but pimped up by George. Has all new anodised aluminium rocket launcher and ladders for the bridge, a new Furuno 295 sounder and Navnet II plotter/radar plus tidied up a bit.

[skipalong]

nice results smithy plenty more around weekend gone than a few weeks back, where it was extreamly slow,

justin..

[MyWay]

thanks for report smithy and congratulation to Dan and Conor boys are true champions

Smithy did you cop any storm on friday

myway

[Smithy]

No Fadil we missed it. We could see it in there. We hung in on the shelf till cease fishing time. It looked like it slipped south and blew itself out by the time we came in. Radar can sometimes help you dodge storm cells if you have one. Our track in seemed to be north of it the whole way in.

[kokomo]

smithy what was the final catch count?

sunday was blown out I assume..

most fish caught on lures or livies??

cheers...

Ill be entering some comps next season... excited!

[finding_time]

Well done Dan!!!! Shame about the spoils of war! It use to be they went to the victor:-[

Ian

[kitty_cat]

good to catch up smithy

i think the final result was 40 blacks and 2 blues

good stuff dan and conner (these guys are really keen and deserve the results they got )

couple off pics from the haines boat boat
wayne

[kitty_cat]

pics from little ships

[captain rednut]

hi kitty cat and ace high it was good to meet you guys and have a couple of beers,well done dan and connor, you guys kicked ass! good to see the little boats on the podium. cheers jim and ryan 'AQUASITION'

[acehigh]

Thanks Boys. We had a great weekend! It felt like we caught more than 4 fish.... with the first day mostly spent fighting fish (I think we were fishing for 3.25 hours of the 8 hour fishing day on Friday). That last fish on the friday we hooked had us beaten well and truely. Hooked it at 12:45 pm and after 2 hours of fighting it had been hanging deep for about 1.5 hours of that time. I was surprised that after that time it came to the surface and jumped charging the boat (The 8kg was just not doing much justice). Then it went deep again and we tryed for another 2.5 hours to get it but in the end we broke the line with close to 5 kilos of drag.

Day 2 started off great with a run on the livie 5 mins into start fishing. It turned out to be a great little tourny fish and we had it pinned before 7:15am. Things then went a bit quite for a few hours and it was not until just after 11 we got our next bite (actually got a chance to relax for a bit..). we got the second fish up to the boat and as I tried to tag it the tip bent. As i bent it back it snapped. I had to improvise - using a metal tag pole with the plastic tag jammed on the end. It actually worked quite alright as first shot it went in. Not long after this fish we had another take as we were slow trollimg the livies on the surface - only to feel the ratchet and come up jumping early and throw the hooks. we then hooked another that we got beside the boat and put two holes in with the tag pole but no tag went in... I think we hooked one more fish just before stop fishing that must have come back over the line and chopped itself off. all in all a great fun weekend.

Anyone interested. New Zealand is having a cracking season on striped marlin and the odd blue marlin. Mainly on the east coast around tutukaka. with most boats catching up to 4 a day on the troll with lures. They have not had a season this good for years...