06/11/2023

Competitive Bill fishing makes a successful comeback

By Ryan O’Brian, Ministry of Youth and Sports

The Saint Lucia Game Fishing Association completed a highly-rated Billfish tournament, with participants both local and regional already looking forward to the next event.

Blue Fever, a boat out of Trinidad and Tobago, headed the top 10 participating boats—normal class with 6300 points, followed by Saint Lucian boats Exodus and Reel Extreme with 2400 and 2100 points respectively.

The best male angler was Marc Telfer on Trinidadian boat Blue Fever with 2100 points. Best female angler went to Robin Merry and Raphaela Desilva on the Saint Lucian boat Mac Daddy, both accumulating 600 points. The best junior angler prize went to Brody MacQueen for his 600 points on the Saint Lucian boat Exodus.

President of the Saint Lucia Game Fishing Association, Ryan Devaux said: “We had a great three days. We had to change our location on one of those days because of weather , but I think we are in third place. We've caught two sailfish and a dolphin today. We've caught seven for the tournament. Lost quite a few, which tells us the fish are there. Everyone's had a great time fishing and many people are saying they want to come back which is wonderful and encourages us to keep building on the tournament.”

Adrian Sabga was part of the team on the boat AFUNDAY.

He said: “All in all it was a great tournament. The facilities are amazing, the fishing was unreal. Saint Lucia has probably one of the best fisheries in the Southern Caribbean. Unfortunately we didn't get to pull out as many Bill fish as we hoped to, but all in all, this is a tournament I would definitely visit in the future.”

The tournament was held in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports through its Alternative Sports Program.

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