St Helens Game Fishing Classic 2007
Posted By: Michael Hay - President GFCNT
on March 15th, 2007
106 boats of all sizes and shapes readied themselves for the start of the Seaport Marine Mercury Game Fishing Classic at St Helens over the March long weekend. The event run by the GFCNT and the SHGFC started off the round of sanctioned tournaments for the 2007 season. The event attracted a new major sponsor this year with everybody dreaming of winning the boat package that was first prize.
The weather was spot on for day one of the competition and the boats spread out far and wide in search of the big one that would see the new Savage sitting in the drive way. The fish had been small up to this stage at St Helens this season, with only one large yellow fin caught and a few marlin seen and a couple of marlin dropped. The day dragged on and the radio was unusually quite and I know a couple of my crew enjoyed some shuteye up the front.
At weigh in time the crowd were treated to the sight of 2 large mako’s being weighed in and some small albacore that were about the 9kg cleaned mark. The new line class rules saw the number of small fish that were weighed in, decrease on previous years and the anglers were not put off by these new rules.
A small trailer boat backed slowly into the weigh station with a crowd of people sneaking a quick glimpse over the side to see a striped marlin on board. This fish was slowly raised on the scales and came to rest at 112.4kg. This was a top start to the competition and every crew hoped they could top this fish on Sunday.
Sunday’s forecast was ordinary but we started out on flat calm seas and most of the boats headed off to sea to try their luck. The St Helens bar way again proved its self as a major obstacle, with a number of large boats being damaged trying to exit and enter the bay.
Day 2 finished with the weigh in at 3.00pm. A number of average size yellow fin were weighed in and a small number of albacore. An albacore was caught on a fly rod with a number of anglers also catching them on line classes down to 3kg.
With approxamitaly 150 - 200 boats fishing from St Helens each day over the weekend you would think up grades to the boat ramps and dredging of the bar way would be a top priority. We as game fishermen seem to be missing out at the moment with our major ramps (Burns Bay and Pirates Bay ) in need of major alterations and repairs to keep up with the ever growing size and number of boats.
The classic was won by Barry Hay on Grassy with the 112.4 kg striped marlin. Second prize was won by Tony Elmer on Kade & Co with a 61Kg Yellow Fin.
The classic committee would like to thank Seaport Marine, Mercury and all the other sponsors who made this event such a success this year. A special thanks goes out to all the people who gave up their time to help set up and clean up over the weekend. With out these people this event is not possible and the committee appreciated all your help.
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