LADIES 2024

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Well, 2 years in a row we have had good weather for the ladies! and we had a great turnout this year, with a phenomenal 63 boats and 150 anglers. We also had a fantastic set of prizes from our sponsors who included: Air New Zealand, Bohemian Hair, Composite Developments, Daiwa, Darlin Imports, Hair by Chris, Hunting & Fishing, Icey-Tek, Kaeo Farm & Fuel, Keoghan’s Showcase Jewellers, Kerikeri Reflexology, Living Nature, Makana Confections, Manuka Doctor, Nautilus Charters, Pacific Motor Group, Pete & Raewyn, Redwoods Café, Snooks & Lola Fuller, Whangaroa Lodge Motel, and Whangaroa Sport Fish Café.

On the first day we had hook ups all day, with more from around midday onwards, which resulted in 12 striped marlin tagged and released, and one to weigh in, which was unfortunately underweight. Of the taggers, Vicki McKay on Santana caught her first marlin, and the team on Shot Thru got 2 striped marlin, with tagged fish ranging in estimated weights from 65kg to 120kg. The favourite destinations for the day on our grid were Manuka Doctor, Kilwell #11 and Whangarei ITM which are at the back of Stevies and a bit further out by the Seamount, and off the Cavallis. There were some good work ups out the back of the Cavallis with gannets and dolphins everywhere, and shoals of saury jumping all over the place, it was good to see. A few kingfish were brought to the weigh station with the crew of Black Jack landing a few of them. Tanya Tupou had the heaviest kingy which tipped the scales at 12.8kg. On the evening, we had the best team uniform competition and the team on Sieda won with a set of cheeky little t-shirts, especially Sue’s “Tip-Sea Oozie.” There was also the major lucky angler draw for the mystery travel prize from Air New Zealand, where our ten drawn anglers survived to be the last, and Shanelle Te Hira was the last woman standing, to win the prize, and Katrina Wedding won 2nd place for a stay at Whangaroa Lodge Motel.

Day 2 was a little jigglier but still very good out to sea, and again with hook ups all day, and concentrated from 1pm onwards. All the hook ups ended up in 6 tagged striped marlin, and 4 of them to weigh in. The tagged fish were estimated at 60 – 80kg and the heaviest striped marlin for the day was 129.8kg boated by Angela McInerney on 37kg line, from Albacora. Kate Sturge on Gunslinger also had a qualifying weighed stripy, weighing 106kg, on 24kg line, and the other fish were sadly underweight. It really has been a struggle this year to find stripys over 90kg! Leesa Finau on El Camino brought in a yummy mahimahi of 9.25kg and a few snapper came in as well. The two heaviest snapper of 6.55kg and 6kg were caught from Liberator by Louise Navaro and Denise Larmer. The Black Jack crew again had a kingfish session, with Lisa Clemmett landing the heaviest of the day, at 12.05kg. On the night we drew the early bird prize and Lisa Clemmett was our lucky early bird angler. We also had a fun dress up time, with the theme this year being pirates, and there were so many good costumes but the best of the best was worn by the team on Klingon III. Then came time for the poems and there were a lot of poems as well, and we have some very talented poets at the club. The clapometer rated the poem by the crew on Vengeance the best, and that will appear in our year book.

Prize time, and most of the prizes were won by anglers with catches, which is always good, and the rest were lucky drawn. The heaviest snapper remained the fish caught by Louise, and Tanya on Black Jack still had the heaviest kingfish. There were no tuna caught so those prizes were lucky drawn and Angela had the heaviest marlin, with Kate 2nd. For tagged billfish we had an angler who tagged 2 striped marlin; Adelaide Wallace on Anita Rose, and in 2nd place was Anastasia Gower on Albacora who tagged one stripy before 3rd place Keryn Moffat on Replay, who also tagged one stripy. We had so many anglers who tagged a marlin that we decided to give all of them an engraved wooden platter with a marlin on it, in appreciation of their tag and release.

Angela McInerney won the glorious Calcutta money prize, as well as the Donna Watson Trophy for the heaviest gamefish, and the Dutton Trophy for the heaviest billfish. Kate Sturge won the Hair by Chris Trophy for the 1st qualifying billfish landed, the Weighstation Trophy for the fish worth the most IGFA points, and the Kingfish Lodge Trophy for the heaviest fish caught on 24kg line. Adelaide Wallace won a lovely necklace and marlin pin from Keoghan’s Showcase Jewellers to go with their trophy for the most T&R billfish and shark. Hamish Sheard from Pacific Motor Group put forward a water blaster for a trailer boat prize, and this was won by Albacora, who had a points tally of 751, for 2 striped marlin. No blue marlin were caught this year (they have been largely absent from the catch tally) so no one won the holiday in Hawaii from Pete and Raewyn, but they have said that this prize will still be there next year.