2018 South East Monsoon Sailfish Tournament ‘The race is on’ |28 July 2018

Since 3am today, local anglers from Mahe, Praslin and La Digue are out sea, battling in the 2018 South East Monsoon Sailfish Tournament organised by the Seychelles Fishing Sports Club (SFSC).

Being held under the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) rules, the tournament is a full release sailfish and billfish tournament.

The only exception is a marlin can be boated if it qualifies for the Sacos Million Rupee Grander Prize.

All billfish must be properly released in order to score points for the registered angler and his or her team, while all the requirements must be captured on video.

The uninterrupted video footage should show the last few minutes of the fight, including the angler and proof of the billfish species and the video must capture the global positioning system (GPS) time on the boat console.

Each team has been issued wristbands so that multiple releases can be identified individually, with either the angler or leader man wearing a different colour wristband for each individual release.

Should a team release more fish than the allotted wristbands, the angler or leader shall wear two wristbands.

A boat must catch, store and return to the weighing station with fish caught by the team members on that boat only, and during the tournament only.

A boat will be disqualified if it weighs in fish from any other source, or if it weighs fish caught prior to the start of the tournament.

Weigh-in will begin at 2pm today on a first-come first-serve basis.

Teams will not be permitted to weigh any sailfish, marlin, spearfish or swordfish.

The only exception is a marlin will be weighed if it is considered for the Sacos Million Rupee Grander Prize.

For all other eligible categories, teams will be allowed to weigh only their two heaviest fish. The team must identify their two heaviest fish from each qualifying species.

There are nine prize categories in the tournament and they are tournament winner, tournament runner-up, best junior angler, heaviest barracuda, heaviest dorado, heaviest bonito, heaviest yellow fin tuna, heaviest wahoo and most released Billfish.

The winning team (best team) and runners-up (best team runners-p) will be determined on a point-based system to be calculated as follows:

Sailfish caught by a team(s):

Sailfish released per rules – 2,000 points

If two or more teams are tied with the same points, the winners and runners-up will be determined by establishing the earliest caught sailfish of the tied sailfish.

Official time will be established by the video recorded GPS boat console or hand-held GPS time.