Congratulations to the CARTERICAN crew on their victory in the first ever N.C. Billfish Series! Lee Smith & team finished the season with a whopping 3378.6 points. BUILDER’S CHOICE followed close behind in 2nd place with 3300 points. THE GENERAL landed Top Charter Boat recognition with 2300 points and a 3rd place finish!
SERIES STATS! Of the 183 Billfish entered: 70 blue marlin, 76 white marlin, and 31 sailfish were released– a total of 6 blue marlin were weighed = 97% Release Rate!
Shoutout to Lisa Merriam on REEL QUICK (with 400 pts / 1 Blue Marlin) & Allison Struyk from the PIRACY (400 pts / 1 Blue Marlin) the Top Lady Anglers in the series!
Brown Gaddy on the QUALIFIER finished 1st in the Jr. Boy Angler category with 1325 pts / 3 Blue Marlin + 1 White Marlin. Vann Segrave followed in 2nd aboard RE-LEASED with 525 pts / 1 Blue Marlin + 1 Sailfish.
THE GENERAL’s, Gray Fickling, came out on top in the Jr. Girl Angler division with 375 pts / 3 sailfish. Addie Howard’s 28.5 lb. wahoo caught during the Inaugural Big Rock Kids Tournament earned the J&B crew 2nd place mentions!
Earlier this year, the eight N.C. Billfish Series tournaments teamed up with weigh masters Randy Gregory and George Lott to recognize and award the best tournament boats and anglers in North Carolina. The series went off without a hitch, aside from the Hatteras Grand Slam Tournament, which was forced to cancel with the approach of Hurricane Arthur. Four of the remaining seven tournaments were based out of Big Rock Landing downtown, including the Swansboro Rotary Memorial Day Bluewater Fishing Tournament, the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament, the Big Rock Kids Tournament and the N.C. Ducks Unlimited “Band the Billfish” Tournament.
“Morehead city is truly blessed to have a cool place to hold a billfish tournament,” Gregory said. “A lot of credit goes to the town and the Big Rock Tournament for putting that stuff together. It’s a town facility, and it’s pretty cool that we can have a venue like that to work with.”
The mission of the N.C. Billfish Series is to promote North Carolina’s billfish tournaments, sportsmanship, marine conservation and competition in our world renown offshore fishery. Competing boats are awarded points for billfish released or landed in the N.C. Billfish Series tournaments with trophies for the overall winner, top private and charter boat for the best three out of eight tournaments plus points for participating in each tournament. Trophies will be awarded for the largest blue marlin, yellowfin tuna, dolphin and wahoo. A “special” award will be given to the boat with most total points (total points awarded for all tournaments) and individual awards will be given for outstanding junior boy, junior girl and lady angler.
Click here to view the final results of the 2021 N.C. Billfish Series!
(Photo by Point Click Fish, Supporting content provided by Carteret News Times article)