THE Golden Lure has been hailed an extreme success by organisers, with the biggest tournament to date netting one angler a cool $10,000.
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The champion tag and release team were the crew from Omen, skippered by Darrin Brown.
His crew included son Nathan Brown, Joel Abercrombie and Will Flannagan.
"It was a good competition. It was out first time in Port fishing in the area," Brown said.
"The other competitors were great, the set up at the mariner was nice and we really enjoyed it.
"We just wanted to fish tag and release for the black marlin in shore. Our biggest would have been about 50 kilogram."
With the small fish in shore biting, the Omen stuck to their game plan of tagging and releasing instead of going for a bigger catch further out.
That $10,000 jackpot went to angler Rob Webber from the boat Ellmad.
His monster blue marlin weighed in at 164 kilograms, just one kilogram heavier than the unlucky Tim McQuade from Pheel the Bite.
It was our first time for the Golden Lure and it was certainly a great feeling to get to where we did.
- Rob Webber
“It was our first time for the Golden Lure and it was certainly a great feeling to get to where we did," he said.
"We got the marlin on the last day and it was a tremendous feeling. Bec Webber caught two black marlin, which was a big effort for her."
Having those catches behind them, they were still hopeful of something bigger.
"We decided on the last day we would go wide and try and get a blue marlin," he said.
"We figured we may as well go for it. We pulled a mako shark, and it got off out the boat. So we're glad it got off in the end.
"I noticed a big splash out wide and came across the big blue. It smashed the biggest lure we had in the pack."
Their lightest rig had a 24kg line on it. But the pressure stayed on, the marlin latched on and it was all excitement from there.
"It took 48 minutes to reel him in and it was pretty nerve wracking," Webber said.
"We were all very pumped, very excited. We were trying to do everything right to bring it in. It kept turning deep and going, but we had to hang on.
"In the end when we pulled it into the boat it was just awesome. We measured it in the water and decided we needed to pull it in, and when we did we knew we had a good fish."
Port Macquarie Game Fishing Club president Janeck Kaczorowski applauded the very successful event and hopes to see it grow in 2019.
"It was extremely successful again. With a record number of boats and anglers the fishing was excellent," he said.
"We would have tagged in excess of 150 marlin and some nice captures that came in for weighing.
"There were a lot of first timers tagging and releasing their fish which is great to see. We look forward to 2019's tournament and seeing it grow bigger and again."
Full results:
Winners Tag And Release
- Junior: Rhys Jolly
- Lady: Kate Shelton
- Male: Dennis Minuti
Tag And Release Boat
- The Omen
Tag And Release Boat Blue Marlin
- Seaka
Capture Winners
- Small Fry: Madison Fairlie
- Junior: Zac Danby
- Lady: Hannah Wykes
- Male: Robert Webber