FEB 14

And this year, most of the top prizes including the 'Catch of the Tournament" title were won by commercial fishermen from Gouyave in St. John's.

A prize giving ceremony was held on the Gouyave Jetty last Friday where trophies, cash prizes, fishing supplies and beer were presented to the winners in the different categories.

Under tournament rules, only species such as dolphin, tuna and shark catch are eligible for the competition. Species such as Marlin and Sail Fish cannot be entered based on the conservation rules of both the Big Fish and Bill Fish tournaments.

Local businessman Richard Mc Intyre, one of the founding organisers of the tournaments, said that since the international Bill Fish Tournament is no longer a "kill" tournament but "tag and release" where Anglers release their catch back into the sea after tagging it, the other event - Carib big Fish - needed to have similar conservation practises.

"We begged them (commercial fishermen) please, we're are not going to include the Marlin and the Sail Fish into the competition because we feel it is a renewable resource, we want to see them actually return to the wild", he said. "We didn't want the fishermen to target those species, we wanted them to target more (fis like) the Shark, Yellow Fin, and other species", he added.

Accoridng to Mc Intyre, the organisers received extremely good and tremendous co-operation from the fishermen. "We had over 190 anglers from abroad and there was not an instance where we had any problems", he remarked.

The Carib Big Fish Tournament is sponsored by the Grenada Breweries and its Manager Herbert Mc Kecren congratulated the fishermen at the prize giving ceremony for conducting a safe and healthy competition. He gave assurances of Carib's "continued and increasing support" for the event.