Contact: Richard McIntyre FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Phone: (473) 440 3753 Monday 31st January 2011.

Fifty Two Boats and Ninety Four Billfish Releases at the 42nd Budget Marine Spice Island Billfish Tournament
Grand Slam Grenada 24-27th January 2011

The first ever Title-Sponsored "Budget Marine--Spice Island Billfish Tournament” ended with a 'gala dinner' in the covered car park of premises adjacent to the Grenada Yacht Club on Thursday 27th January around 9.30pm. It concluded what has to be considered as 'one of our best ever Tournaments'

On Sunday the 'BM-SIBT' Committee got things underway by registering 52 Boats --one more than was registered for the 2010 Event which in itself was an excellent turnout. The Grenada Yacht Club docks were stretched to breaking point to accommodate them all. Two hundred and Forty Seven anglers registered coming from Trinidad & Tobago (32 boats – more than half the entry!), St Lucia (1 boat), Barbados (4), Martinique (1), Guadeloupe (1), United Kingdom (1 boat), Ireland, USA, Canada and Grenada (12 boats). One angler even travelled all the way from Malaysia to be here for this event! Following registration the skippers briefing was well attended and anglers enjoyed the cocktails and happy hour. Next day they were all raring to go after enjoying a sumptuous breakfast provided daily on the fishing days. At 6.45 all the boats paraded through the Carenage creating quite a spectacle on their way out. At 7.30 am the cannon was fired for the Bimini start and they all took off in different directions. Almost immediately there were reports of "Hooked - up and fighting”; Liquid Remedy called in the first release of a blue marlin at 9.00am. Last year’s champions, Papasan released a white and a blue to start their campaign. At the end of the day Majic Lady was ahead with two blue marlin and a sailfish, Gigi II was 2nd with the same catch, Liquid Remedy was 3rd and Luhr’d Away 4th, both with two blues each. In total 40 billfish were released on day 1.
Day 2 Tuesday 25th saw better weather conditions and quite a bit of drama in the intense action, Iron Man were on fire - they added a blue to their 1st day sailfish release and then got a double hook up and released 2 more blues! They had less good fortune later in the day when they had a bait taken by a porpoise (very unusual) and lost a lot of time fighting that... Their great marlin achievement was then surpassed at lunch time when Gud Tyme had a quadruple hook up on blue marlin and managed to successfully release three of them!! In all 35 billfish were released on day 2 and Iron Man were leading followed by Spherefish who caught 2 sails and a blue, Luhr’d Away moved to 3rd and Gud Tyme were 4th. Anglers enjoyed a barbeque in the evening courtesy of “Anything on the Water” a Florida based yacht broker.
Wednesday 26th was the Lay day and a variety of 'Dishes' were prepared by the Tournament Committee and all the Anglers, Sponsors, guests and quite a large local contingent enjoyed good food.
Thursday 27th saw the weather change for the worse and it became a bit rough outside which slowed the fishing somewhat. Why Worry had a double hook up on blue marlin and released one for Ryan Agar but lost the other - later Ryan released another blue which would eventually place him as first angler with three blues for the tournament. Gud Tyme released 2 sails to take first overall and Temptation worked hard and managed to release two blues and a sail in the choppy conditions to jump into 2nd place ahead of Iron man, Spherefish and Luhr’d Away none of whom scored points on the final day.


In all 19 billfish were released on the last day to give an impressive overall tournament total of 94 releases - no other tournament in the region can match this level. The releases were broken down as 39 blue marlin 20 white marlin and 35 sailfish. A fact that will please conservationists is that no billfish were brought to the scale - possibly reflecting the increased minimum weight for blue marlin of 500 lb... In addition to the billfish releases 44 dolphin fish, 33 wahoo and 17 yellowfin tuna (to 165lb) were landed giving great sport.
As another new feature for 2011, interested parties were able to get instant updates of how the tournament was progressing and who was catching what via Facebook (page = Spice Island Billfish Tournament) - this resulted in an increase in Facebook fans from 93 before the event to over 200 at the end!
After a great tournament which saw everyone congratulating the committee both on the fishing and especially the smooth organisation, the final results were as follows:
Spice Island Billfish results-1.jpg
First place boat Gud Tyme (Trinidad & Tobago) 2400 points, second: Temptation (Trinidad and Tobago) 2400 points, third: Iron Man (Trinidad & Tobago) 2100 points.

First place angler: Ryan Agar (Why Worry Trinidad & Tobago) 1500 points second: Francois Mouttet (Majic Lady Trinidad & Tobago)1300 points , third: Dominic Wallace (Blue Fever Trinidad and Tobago) 1100 points.

Top Release Boat – Spherefish (Grenada) 5 releases
Top Release Angler – Francois Mouttet – (Majic Lady Trinidad & Tobago) 3 releases
Top Female angler: Michelle Elliot (Orion Barbados) 300 points

Boat pool (weight of fish brought to the scale): First: Surf n Turf (Grenada) 365 lb, second: Cool Runnings (T&T) 324 lb, third: Wayward Wind (Grenada) 205 lb, fourth: Ocean Strike Her (Grenada) 177 lb.

Top Grenadian boat: Spherefish 2000 points and 4th overall

The BMSIBT committee would like to thank all the participating boats and anglers for supporting the event, and of course their title sponsor Budget Marine, major sponsors Camper & Nicholsons Port Louis Marina, Grenada Board of Tourism, and Carib Beer for making this competition possible.

Gary Clifford
SIBT Committee 31/1/11