November 2003 Newsletter

The wet has gone and the weather is improving so its time to get out there and be involved in the largest participation sport in the world, Fishing!

Our October Orica competition was a great success, it was run with a slightly different format, we have received great feedback on this. Thankyou to sponsors, Orica for again supporting the event. Well done Tony and Anthony!

It was good to see new anglers participate and win prizes in their first competition especially those with their first fish!

Senior - Robyn Clarke with a 7.1kg Dolphin Fish on 8kg line.

Junior - Michael Irvine with a 5.6kg mackerel on 8kg line.

Well done and congratulations!!

During the comp weekend Witchdoctor travelled to Tami to talk to the villagers and deliver hardware needed for TLC on the guesthouse. The Tami people are whittling and carving like crazy for the Tami Classic weekend, the guesthouse should be fully functional should anglers wish to sleep ashore.

Please see the November competition notice (click here) for the NGI Steel Tami Island Classic - Sat/Sun 29-30th November - There will be a club briefing night Tuesday 25th at 1800hrs on the viewing deck at the LYC. Will all anglers/members please come along and participate, the club will donate a keg for refreshments..   All boats with angler numbers must be nominated and fees paid at the briefing night!

Tight lines – Screaming Reels!

Like most people in remote locations the Tami people are doing it tough! They have requested visitors wishing to purchase carvings should bring a mix of assorted rice/sugar/tea/noodles - staple type food and some Kina as part of the bartering process.      Donations of used clothing would be useful!

Highest Point Scoring Fish in the following categories :-

1. Ultra Light (1, 2, 3,4kg) Daphne Pelgen (Mackerel 4.9/3)

2. Runner up Ultra Light Theo Pelgen (Tripletail 1.75/3)

3. Light (6, 8kg) Martin Powis (Mackerel 12.3/6)

4. Runner up Light Robyn Clarke (Dolphin Fish 7.1/8)

5. Medium (10, 15kg) (Muddy Edwards Mackerel 19/15)

6. Runner up Medium (Bob Moll Shark Tagged/15)

7. HPS Billfish (Tagged Only) (None Caught)

JUNIORS:

8.Heaviest fish weighed …(Micheal Irvine Mackerel 5.6)

9.R/U heaviest fish weighed… (Dolphin Fish 4.62)

BOAT CATEGORIES:

10.Gross KG’s weighed. (Witchdoctor 54 kg)

11.Runner up Gross KG’s weighed (Bassmaster 43 kg)

Coming Events:

-  29/30^th November, NGI Steel Tami Island Classic.

-  6th December, LGFC – Piwi Fishing

-  14^th  December, LGFC Ladies Competition

The P.C. Marlin Challenge - Where to from here?

Here is the history of how it all came about. Now what do we do?

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 a marlin, since it was always someone's first fish it had to be sighted) and weighed in at the Lae Game Fishing Club 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 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 up 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 following one where there were 85 challengers - won by Paul Povey together with the Anderson's prize money.

I think that the P.C. Marlin Challenge has served it's purpose to the extent that fishermen have become quite blasé about marlin fishing. Tagging has certainly taken over (and quite rightly so). Maybe the weight should come down or something completely different needs to be done. Whatever - I would like to hand over the reins (lines) to the Lae Game Fishing Club to maybe come up with something new and exciting.

P.C.