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President's Report
"Well, the game fishing season has now gone for another year and some probably wonder if it ever started or when it started as the fish were rather spasmodic from December to July.
Only a few years ago St Helens was known as the game fishing capital of Tasmania with good sized Albacore, Yellowfin and Stripped Marlin consistently turning up in early February, hotting up in March and thinning out at May, where a Bluefin Tuna was rarely caught in the area and other parts of Tassie having nowhere near this level of fish. This year, of the various competitions held out of St Helens during these months, there was hardly a fish caught and now the most common prize winning fish was now due to Bluefin captures, showing that the ocean currents are changing.
Our fishing season appears to be spread out around Tasmania and over a longer fishing season, from catching sharks off Burnie in November to catching Bluefin at Pedra Branca in July this makes it hard to maintain club membership numbers as quite a few trips turn out to be “stabs in the dark”. The current fuel prices, state wide job losses, economic uncertainty and employment commitments also appear to be playing a part in when considering fishing trips or whether to join a club, but I feel it is the lack of consistency in fish is the root of the problem.
However, on the brighter side of things, the ever changing ocean currents’ have brought good numbers of sharks to the North West coast over recent years so the Club focused more on promoting the ‘Mountain Designs Devonport Shark Fishing Competition’, which ended up being the biggest entered game fishing competition in Tasmania this year.
This year our Club committee decided to widen our scope allowing for any Game fish caught anywhere in Tasmania to be eligible for club prizes. The Club subsequently created a new competition “The Most Diverse Angler”, which involves targeting and catching all the other unconventional game fish species that swim in Tassie waters - which there are many.
History shows that the quality and quantity of fish does fluctuate over the years and in slow times we need to remind ourselves that the big one may well be swimming past today or tomorrow and to think of the excitement every time you wind in something from the sea not knowing what is really is.
So keep on fishing nonetheless, what we need to do is keep game fishing and enjoy the company and sportsmanship of fellow members and appreciate the social aspect as well as the fishing. The club needs this bond to ensure we can keep it flourishing for those better seasons to come, as in these quieter times some may not realise but basically our membership base has halved in just a few years so now it seems twice as hard to find people to stand up to do the role of the Committee. So one thing we must all remember is without a committee we don’t have a club, so therefore there is no time like the present to help the club by becoming involved with the committee.
Our first event for the year was the Mountain Designs Devonport Shark Fishing Competition, where this year we promoted the winning heaviest shark and the Tag & Release winner to the same monetary value of $1000 as well many other fantastic prizes up for grabs. Although there were not a lot of sharks caught, the day was very successful with 58 boat entries and over 300 spectators viewing the weigh-in and presentation, with the winning shark being caught by Katelyn Ivory and Tag & Release won by Daniel Paull, so well done to all that won prizes. I would like to thank the Mersey Yacht Club for their assistance and I would also like to thank Bob and Heather Duncombe for their ongoing support and sponsorship of this fantastic event.
Our members performed well at this year’s ‘Tamar Marine St Helens Classic’ taking out various categories and prizes with Josh Hammersley, Katelyn Ivory and Lara O’Boyle taking out Day 1 tag & Release. Day 2 saw a clean sweep of prizes with Jason Probert, Natalie Clark and Zoe Clark taking Tag & Release categories and Shannon Wing catching the heaviest game fish for the day. Many overall prizes fell our way too with Paul hicks, Melanie Plapp, Ryan Ivory and Mitchell Hill taking out overall Tag & Release categories, Joshua Bellchambers with the Heaviest Shark and David Carter catching the 2nd heaviest game fish overall.
The next competition 20 boats from various clubs adventured to the ‘Coles Bay Classic’ with over a quarter of the fleet being from our club. The weather played havoc and only one day could be fished so once again the fishing captures were somewhat average with only 12 fish caught - with Albies from 3kg to 13 kg and BlueFin 15kg to 24kg. The podium pinnacle for our club was winning overall Tag & Release, where Paul Hicks won charter out of Port Stevens 3 people and so Josh Hammersley, Gary Andjelkovic and Paul headed off and turned this prize into catching 3 Marlin (one each) from this trip, so well done one all efforts.
This year the Hillcrest and Friends Fishing Competition was basically organized by the Hillcrest Tourist Park proprietor - Garry Pannan and was run as an inter-competition between the St Helens Game Fishing Club and ours. There was half as many boats entered in this competition as the Coles Bay Classic which was great given only 2 clubs were involved where our club was well represented, with the majority of entrants being from our Club and hence our club came out on top. There were a lot of fish tagged but no boat could get a fish over the 4kg minimum weight, so all prizes ended up being Tag and Release prizes which were presented on the day at Garry’s free BBQ and beers that followed weigh-in (or Tag in). It was a fun and enjoyable day so big thankyou to Garry and Kate for their fantastic efforts and enthusiasm.
The Tamar Marine Easter Tournament which is our clubs only Sanctioned Tournament soon followed but disappointingly the weather was too wild to fish Day 1 but luckily things settled on Sunday. We were all hoping that the fish may have swum back our way - but no such luck except to one. One of our Members managed to hook an 11.2kg Blue Fin on 8kg line and this ended up being the only weighable fish as a result line class restrictions stopping other fish being weighed. It was good to see that 39 fish were tagged, including Albacore, Mako Shark and Bluefin and overall Tag & Release also went to a Northern member.
As anticipated The Tom Jenkins Bluefin Competition was well entered with just over 50 boat entries, with many heading down south expecting great thing but again the fish appeared to be scared of our northern boats and fishing was not to be as expected. The weather was fine and there were a lot of small Albacore and Bluefin caught and quite a few were weighed in as many anglers were using light line. There was one big Bluefin around 90kg+ caught from the boat ‘Polfish’ which had every one excited but this turned out to be the only big boy for the whole competition. Clinton Howe took the bickies in regard to the Tag and Release prizes taking out day 1 Tag and Release and Overall Tag and Release.
All in all we had good success in these competitions so congratulations to all prize winners.
No doubt there were many other times members went fishing and some were successful and some not, but hey that’s fishing, so let’s keep on doing what we love and let’s hope the big comes your way soon.
So thankyou and my your rods be bent.
I would like to thank all committee members that stood up to the job to make this season successful and thanks to all the new members who have committed to roles on the committee for next season."
Stuart Smith (President 2011)
Only a few years ago St Helens was known as the game fishing capital of Tasmania with good sized Albacore, Yellowfin and Stripped Marlin consistently turning up in early February, hotting up in March and thinning out at May, where a Bluefin Tuna was rarely caught in the area and other parts of Tassie having nowhere near this level of fish. This year, of the various competitions held out of St Helens during these months, there was hardly a fish caught and now the most common prize winning fish was now due to Bluefin captures, showing that the ocean currents are changing.
Our fishing season appears to be spread out around Tasmania and over a longer fishing season, from catching sharks off Burnie in November to catching Bluefin at Pedra Branca in July this makes it hard to maintain club membership numbers as quite a few trips turn out to be “stabs in the dark”. The current fuel prices, state wide job losses, economic uncertainty and employment commitments also appear to be playing a part in when considering fishing trips or whether to join a club, but I feel it is the lack of consistency in fish is the root of the problem.
However, on the brighter side of things, the ever changing ocean currents’ have brought good numbers of sharks to the North West coast over recent years so the Club focused more on promoting the ‘Mountain Designs Devonport Shark Fishing Competition’, which ended up being the biggest entered game fishing competition in Tasmania this year.
This year our Club committee decided to widen our scope allowing for any Game fish caught anywhere in Tasmania to be eligible for club prizes. The Club subsequently created a new competition “The Most Diverse Angler”, which involves targeting and catching all the other unconventional game fish species that swim in Tassie waters - which there are many.
History shows that the quality and quantity of fish does fluctuate over the years and in slow times we need to remind ourselves that the big one may well be swimming past today or tomorrow and to think of the excitement every time you wind in something from the sea not knowing what is really is.
So keep on fishing nonetheless, what we need to do is keep game fishing and enjoy the company and sportsmanship of fellow members and appreciate the social aspect as well as the fishing. The club needs this bond to ensure we can keep it flourishing for those better seasons to come, as in these quieter times some may not realise but basically our membership base has halved in just a few years so now it seems twice as hard to find people to stand up to do the role of the Committee. So one thing we must all remember is without a committee we don’t have a club, so therefore there is no time like the present to help the club by becoming involved with the committee.
Our first event for the year was the Mountain Designs Devonport Shark Fishing Competition, where this year we promoted the winning heaviest shark and the Tag & Release winner to the same monetary value of $1000 as well many other fantastic prizes up for grabs. Although there were not a lot of sharks caught, the day was very successful with 58 boat entries and over 300 spectators viewing the weigh-in and presentation, with the winning shark being caught by Katelyn Ivory and Tag & Release won by Daniel Paull, so well done to all that won prizes. I would like to thank the Mersey Yacht Club for their assistance and I would also like to thank Bob and Heather Duncombe for their ongoing support and sponsorship of this fantastic event.
Our members performed well at this year’s ‘Tamar Marine St Helens Classic’ taking out various categories and prizes with Josh Hammersley, Katelyn Ivory and Lara O’Boyle taking out Day 1 tag & Release. Day 2 saw a clean sweep of prizes with Jason Probert, Natalie Clark and Zoe Clark taking Tag & Release categories and Shannon Wing catching the heaviest game fish for the day. Many overall prizes fell our way too with Paul hicks, Melanie Plapp, Ryan Ivory and Mitchell Hill taking out overall Tag & Release categories, Joshua Bellchambers with the Heaviest Shark and David Carter catching the 2nd heaviest game fish overall.
The next competition 20 boats from various clubs adventured to the ‘Coles Bay Classic’ with over a quarter of the fleet being from our club. The weather played havoc and only one day could be fished so once again the fishing captures were somewhat average with only 12 fish caught - with Albies from 3kg to 13 kg and BlueFin 15kg to 24kg. The podium pinnacle for our club was winning overall Tag & Release, where Paul Hicks won charter out of Port Stevens 3 people and so Josh Hammersley, Gary Andjelkovic and Paul headed off and turned this prize into catching 3 Marlin (one each) from this trip, so well done one all efforts.
This year the Hillcrest and Friends Fishing Competition was basically organized by the Hillcrest Tourist Park proprietor - Garry Pannan and was run as an inter-competition between the St Helens Game Fishing Club and ours. There was half as many boats entered in this competition as the Coles Bay Classic which was great given only 2 clubs were involved where our club was well represented, with the majority of entrants being from our Club and hence our club came out on top. There were a lot of fish tagged but no boat could get a fish over the 4kg minimum weight, so all prizes ended up being Tag and Release prizes which were presented on the day at Garry’s free BBQ and beers that followed weigh-in (or Tag in). It was a fun and enjoyable day so big thankyou to Garry and Kate for their fantastic efforts and enthusiasm.
The Tamar Marine Easter Tournament which is our clubs only Sanctioned Tournament soon followed but disappointingly the weather was too wild to fish Day 1 but luckily things settled on Sunday. We were all hoping that the fish may have swum back our way - but no such luck except to one. One of our Members managed to hook an 11.2kg Blue Fin on 8kg line and this ended up being the only weighable fish as a result line class restrictions stopping other fish being weighed. It was good to see that 39 fish were tagged, including Albacore, Mako Shark and Bluefin and overall Tag & Release also went to a Northern member.
As anticipated The Tom Jenkins Bluefin Competition was well entered with just over 50 boat entries, with many heading down south expecting great thing but again the fish appeared to be scared of our northern boats and fishing was not to be as expected. The weather was fine and there were a lot of small Albacore and Bluefin caught and quite a few were weighed in as many anglers were using light line. There was one big Bluefin around 90kg+ caught from the boat ‘Polfish’ which had every one excited but this turned out to be the only big boy for the whole competition. Clinton Howe took the bickies in regard to the Tag and Release prizes taking out day 1 Tag and Release and Overall Tag and Release.
All in all we had good success in these competitions so congratulations to all prize winners.
No doubt there were many other times members went fishing and some were successful and some not, but hey that’s fishing, so let’s keep on doing what we love and let’s hope the big comes your way soon.
So thankyou and my your rods be bent.
I would like to thank all committee members that stood up to the job to make this season successful and thanks to all the new members who have committed to roles on the committee for next season."
Stuart Smith (President 2011)
