Release Marlin Tournament update

[Finnseeker]

Press Release
Cabo San Lucas Mexico, March 19, 2008

New Advisor/Committee Member
The WCBRT is pleased to announce and introduce Ned Wallace of the famed sport fisher, "Tiger Spirit" to the Committee and advisory board of the WCBRT. Ned and his boat Tiger Spirit, are no strangers to the tournament winners podium. With Ned's many years of tournament fishing experience and respect in the Sportfishing industry, the Committee of the WCBRT will greatly benefit from Ned's input and advice. We welcome Ned onboard and thank him for his support.

Video Camera's
Teams are encouraged to use their own personal video camera's for WCBRT events. We recommend this to further back up and verify released billfish in addition to tournament supplied digital cameras. Personal video footage will be accepted and reviewed each day by the seven member independent advisory rules panel, should there be any dispute. A tournament supplied disposable camera will also still be supplied, as previously, but we recommend each team have a dedicated video onboard to capture video footage of each of their marlin releases.

10 Series Television Filming
The WCBRT has entered into an agreement to start filming a pilot, made for television show, that will air on Versus Television. The May 2008 WCBRT and December 2008 WCBRT tournaments will be used to create the first ten series television show. The Camera crews will arrive on the May 13th to film several teams preparation, pre-fishing and will follow those teams throughout the WCBRT series during the course of the year. The producers have agreed to donate 15% of the proceeds from the TV show back to the WCBRT, which will in turn be donated to The Billfish Foundation/Norma 029 Mexico Fund and the Los Ninos del Capitain Children's Charity of Cabo San Lucas.

33 Certified IGFA Observers
The WCBRT is pleased to announce a highly successful IGFA certification observer course was recently held in Long Beach on March 15, 2008. This certified observer class was organized by WCBRT Committee member Bill Morris and run by Dan Anderson and Jason of the IGFA. The WCBRT now have a minimum of 33 new IGFA Certified observers that will be flying down to participate and observe in the WCBRT. In addition, the WCBRT has received several requests from other longtime IGFA certified observers and IGFA representatives to participate and observe in this years WCBRT. A big thanks to the IGFA for its support and putting the IGFA observers class on! The WCBRT will have the most certified IGFA observers in a any tournament at any one time to date.

Observer Tournament
As a thank you to all the participating WCBRT observers, the WCBRT will be putting on a new "Observer All Release Billfish Tournament" (OARBT) on May 21, 2008 from 7:00 AM until 3:00 PM. WCBRT observers will be fishing on several of the various tournament team's boats who have graciously donated their boats and crews to help the observers compete against each other in a one day Observer Tournament. The same rules apply for the OARBT as the WCBRT, with the exception that the tournament crews sponsoring their boats will serve as the observing officials on the observer's releases.

The top observers of the OARBT will be awarded trophies at the awards dinner during the evening of May 21st along with the WCBRT tournament winners. Once again without the tremendous support from several teams donating their time and boats to thank these observers, and offering up their boats to observers, this thank you day tournament would not have been possible. Should anyone else wish to offer their boat / crew for the OARBT fishing day, we would appreciate this as well as the observers, so we can make spread the observers out on more boats and create greater competition amongst the observers teams.

IGFA Qualifying event
The WCBRT is pleased to announce that it has been accepted as an IGFA qualifying event for the prestigious IGFA World Championship event held each year in Cabo San Lucas. The IGFA World Championship is the week before the WCBRT each year.

Sponsors
The WCBRT would like to thank Eagle Claw for their support and sponsorship with providing the mandatory 8/0 EAGLE CLAW L2004EL- NON OFFSET CIRCLE hooks for the WCBRT tournaments. Please note, this is the only tournament approved / legal hook allowed with live and dead baits in WCBRT events. Teams will be subject to WCBRT observer and or committee inspections daily for use of this particular and unaltered, WCBRT tournament legal hook.

The WCBRT would like to thank King Sailfish Mounts for their Gold sponsorship and support of the WCBRT. KSM has been a longtime partner, supporter, sponsor of The Billfish Foundation. This partnership and support of the WCBRT's conservation efforts will bring more attention to Cabo San Lucas from other sponsors who support the efforts of all conservation based tournaments in Cabo San Lucas.

The WCBRT would like to thank Pacific Coast Sportfishing Publication for its Gold Sponsorship support and sponsorship of the WCBRT this year.

The WCBRT would like to thank Roffer's Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service, Inc., No Worry's Restaurant and Bar, QuickRig Corporation, Marlin World, Pelagic High Performance Offshore Gear, Berkley, Minerva's Baja Tackle, Cabo Villas, Melton International and Southern California Marlin Online web site for their support and sponsorship of the May and December 2008 WCBRT.

As you know we at the WCBRT don't put a single penny in our pockets for putting on these WCBRT events and we donate our proceeds to TBF Mexico Projects (fighting the Norma 029 lately) and Los Ninos Del Capitan Children's Organization. This really is what puts us apart from the vast majority of other tournaments - not putting on a tournament for the tournament owner's financial gain.

The WCBRT are a "FOR FISHERMEN BY FISHERMEN" tournament. Our volunteer team goes to a lot of effort and hundreds of hours, and thousands of dollars expense over the last few out of your own personal wallets, to put these events on for the sake of promoting the concept that marlin tournaments can be 100% release, 100% circle hook, award big prize money and give the money proceeds to protecting the fish we all love to catch and help out kids in the place where they are held. Sponsorship is tax deductible.

If anyone wants to join the committee of the WCBRT, wants to help volunteer at some level or wants to be a sponsor in helping us with our WCBRT event - we would love to have you on board with us! Again this is a tournament for fishermen / by fishermen. The more successful this event becomes means the more money that we can donate to TBF Mexico to fight to protect the stocks in Baja plus help out a great bunch of kids

The Committee
www.wcbrt.com


3rd Annual World Championship Billfish Release Tournament – Cabo San Lucas Mexico, 17th May – 21st May 2008

For Fishermen By Fishermen

This World – Class event gives back to Charity while raising the bar and challenging all big – game fishing tournaments.

In the spirit of Competition, Sportsmanship and Conservation, the world's top anglers have united to present one of the Worlds richest and most prestigious billfish tournaments ever held. The World Championship Billfish Release Tournament (WCBRT) is set for May 17th through May 21st 2008.

Considered by blue water anglers as the Striped Marlin Capital of the World, the Tournament Committee provided a tournament "For fishermen by fishermen" . The prestigious three day all circle hook, all catch-and-release tournament produced the highest number of released striped marlin ever released in a money tournament worldwide, all on circle hooks plus the highest cash payout ever for a striped marlin money tournament worldwide.

The World Championship Billfish Tournament is an IGFA qualifying event that followed closely on the successful IGFA tournament a week before. The WCBRT has again proven and lead the way for other billfish tournaments by putting on a circle hook only, 100%, "No Muerto" release money tournament in Mexico.

Any tournament that can call itself the World Championship Billfish Release Tournament has to be able to back up all what it makes out to be after all “ WORLD” implies to the best of the best as in “ World Series”, “World Champion”

Many have questioned tournament directors Chris Badsey and Dave Brackmann for naming the tournament as a “ World Championship Event” that is held in May each year following the IGFA World Championships and December.

The WCBRT transcends fishing by bringing attention to all circle hook all release money tournaments in Mexico for great causes, the Billfish Foundation and the Los Ninos Del Capitan, Cabo San Lucas children's charity.

Already in the 3rd year of the tournament and realizing new heights each year the

WCBRT Tournament has broken every single record for an all release, circle hook only, money tournament in Mexico. Actual first place trophy and prize money is now USD $ 1 250 000.00 offered with the Million Dollar Tagged Striped Marlin been the richest striped marlin money tournament in the world as the first record.

The second record was set in the tournaments first year of the 2006 WCBRT which produced an amazing record 213 billfish released even fishing under the full moon, with a daily average of 71 marlin, an average of 3 marlin released per boat per day. This was more fish release than the prestigious IGFA World Championships 4 day event a week before with 69 teams entered

The third record was set in the 2007 WCBRT which produced an amazing record setting 335 billfish released or almost 5 marlin released per boat per day even fishing under a full moon condition! There were 119 documented lost fish in addition to the official released fish bringing the 3 day total to 454 striped marlin hooked up. With a hook to land ratio of 74% on circle hooks and 100% release the 2007 WCBRT format proved highly successful. This was more fish release than the prestigious IGFA World Championships 4 day event a week before with 63 teams entered.

The fourth record and World Records were set in December 2007 event of the WCBRT. The 2007 December 7th & 8th Mini WCBRT produced an amazing record setting 1157 billfish released for 2 days for an average of 115.7 marlin released per boat per day ! Team Reelaxe recently set a World record by releasing 190 striped marlin on day two of the tournament setting a NEW WORLD RECORD. Another tournament world record was set for the most released marlin in a single day in any tournament by a single team and the most released striped marlin combined for the tournament 1157. Team Reelaxe released a total of 330 striped marlin in the two day tournament setting another tournament record for a single team in two days.

Many of the big names around the World of Big Game fishing recognize the importance and the impact the WCBRT has on fishing tournaments around the world and doing their best to put their names on the leader board and ascend from obscurity. The point is that this tournament is full of great fishing teams from around the world, some are well known and some not so known. 11 Countries are participating this year some 20 teams.

One of the exciting aspects of this 3 day tournament is that Cabo is the Striped Marlin Capital of the world and teams do not have to run far to catch and release billfish. Right after the Bimin start marlin are been caught and released immediately making it very competitive with IGFA certified observers onboard and WCBRT observers overseeing the catch and releases that are also documented by the tournament supplied camera’s. In 2008 the WCBRT will accept team video’s as an added back up to recording releases.

What people like about the WCBRT is that it really gets your juices flowing as every team is catching fish and the money goes to good causes. World class teams that enter from around the world can charter any boat, be competitive with their skilled team and walk away winners. Unlike most other tournaments No money or percentage is deducted or kept by the tournament directors of the WCBRT.

Another first, the WCBRT has dedicated a fishing day after the tournament for all the observers to have their own tournament/fish off amongst the observers that will be crowned the observer WCBRT Champion and will be awarded at trophy and prize at the banquet. With the help of several teams donating their boats and teams for the day, this will allow the observers to participate in an observer tournament as a thank you for their participation.

The May 2008 event can offer accommodations at the Tesora hotel for under USD $ 80.00 a night all inclusive per room and right in the Marina overlooking all the teams in front of all the action. For further information contact a committee member and see rules and entry forms at www.wcbrt.com