PC Marlin Challenge

Entry Fee K100.00 - Current Kitty (August 25, 2006) - K2500

Entire pool goes to the first subscriber to weigh-in, according to LGFC Rules, a marlin weighing over 145Kg

It has been decided by PC and your committee, for a variety of reasons, that this will be the last & final PC Marlin Challenge - so this is your last chance to be in it! It has had an illustrious career as the History details.

The History - by PC himself

It was back in 1994. The Lae Game Fishing Club season had hardly commenced (September/October) - John Cross caught the first marlin of the year and everyone was deflated - not because it was John that caught the fish (although some might say otherwise) but because in those days we only averaged one and a half marlin a year and so that was it - who were we to argue with the gods? - no more marlin for the year!

The previous year the Carroll family had been to Kona and the East New Britain Billfish Tournament. Having experienced the adrenaline rush of billfish fishing for the first time, P.C. argued that we were not targeting the fish but were merely fishing for everything else and hooked billfish by sheer luck. John, of course, agreed that no-one else was targeting marlin.

John started schools on everything connected with marlin, which was fantastic. To get the enthusiasm going I issued a challenge of K100 to be matched by anyone willing to enter - capture the first fish over 100 kilos and the winner takes the pool.

The requirements were that the marlin must be caught in Lae Game Fishing waters, it must be captured (in those days nobody tagged marlin, since it was always someone's first fish it had to be sighted and admired) and weighed in at the LGFC gantry at the Lae Yacht Club and it had to weigh over 100 kilograms.

In the first challenge we started off with about five challengers but grew to thirteen. Nothing was caught right up to the National Titles which were in Madang. Star Wars caught not a fish throughout the titles and on the return trip stopped at Cape Gerhard to celebrate. They left their lines hanging - marlin lures attached - and several bottles of wine later (and a lot mellower!) slowly headed off back to Lae.

Well they weren't mellow for long as Daniel hooked up a marlin. You wouldn't believe it but not long after Terence Carroll on Suakil also hooked up. With Star Wars unaware of Suakil being hooked up our aim was to get our marlin to LYC and weighed-in first. It wasn't to be as ours snapped off at the swivel at the boat - so Daniel won the first Challenge.

There have been six or seven Challenges all up, the most significant being the second where there were 85 challengers - won by Paul Povey, also snaring the Anderson's prize money.

Past Winners - April 9, 1994 Daniel King, 126Kg Blue on 24 off Star Wars - Dec 31, 1995 Paul Povey, 124.5Kg Blue on 37 off Hitide - .............. lastly - Dec 12, 2000 Paul Povey, 141.94Kg Blue off Matador - if you know who the others were please email us.

Any queries or corrections - please email

Subscribers (Aug 25,2006)