On the heels of big record-break­ing fish and big�cash prize pay­outs�in 2008, the year 2009 proved to be an­oth­er amaz­ing year for the T&T Game Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TTG­FA). In 2008�a young 15-year-old by the name of Sean Men­don­ca fish­ing on In­di­go put T&T on the world map when he land­ed a whop­ping 890 lb Blue Mar­lin in�the TTG­FA�Mar­lin Mad­ness Tour­na­ment in To­ba­go. That catch made him the new IG­FA Male Ju­nior At­lantic Blue Mar­lin World Record Hold­er. This made front page news in the lo­cal and re­gion­al news­pa­pers and the sto­ry was fea­tured in sev­er­al of the lead­ing in­ter­na­tion­al fish­ing jour­nals and mag­a­zines. �Lo­cal fish­er­men have al­ways be­lieved that there were some very large fish in our wa­ters�and the�T&T Game Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion want­ed to prove�just that�by in­clud­ing 130 lb tack­le for the first time in its 29 years of host­ing this tour­na­ment. So when a year lat­er a 825 lb At­lantic blue mar­lin was caught by Jo­van Jan­go on board Reel Fi­nat­ic in the 2009�TTG­FA's 29th An­nu­al Mar­lin Mad­ness Tour­na­ment it was no sur­prise.

As a re­sult of this catch, the Reel Fi­nat­ic team made up of mem­bers Ed­ward Aboud, Stu­art John­son, Lin­say Grell�and Jo­van Jan­go won the tour­na­ment. The plat­inum and gold spon­sors, The Min­istry Of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and Carib,�loved the lime­light�as much as the an­glers and team mates that con­quered these beasts. Sil­ver spon­sors in­clud­ed Roof Sys­tems, Gatorade, Black Bart, Sure Parts, Car­go Con­sol­ida­tors and Bronze spon­sors in­clud­ed Laugh­lin and De Gannes, Re­al Mar­ket­ing, Sub­way and Mount Gay.�But be­fore the Mar­lin Mad­ness, there was the 2009 TTG­FA/Bea­con In­sur­ance Wa­hoo Tour­na­ment which was host­ed at the T&T Yacht Club (TTYC)�in March. This was won by Cap­tain Adam Cony­ers with crew mem­bers, An­drew Crooks, Gor­don Dal­gleish and Ryan Farah on Luhr'd Away.�An­gler James Har­ris on board�Hou­di­ni took the heav­i­est wa­hoo prize with�his 49.2 lb catch. Oth­er spon­sors in­clud­ed Copy-Rite copy pa­per and Cas­fab Ltd.

In June, the Well Ser­vices Group of Com­pa­nies spon­sored the King­fish tour­na­ment which was held at the Lure Restau­rant in Sweet Wa­ter Ma­ri­na in Ch­aguara­mas. Mark Vil­lain of Anger Man­age­ment caught a 27.4 lb king­fish and walked away with the heav­i­est fish of the tour­na­ment. First place, how­ev­er, went to the late Cap­tain Sid John­son of Bar­bie Doll Too thanks to the con­tri­bu­tions of an­glers, David Hatt and Kirk Agar. Team Anger Man­age­ment placed sec­ond with the Blue Fever team plac­ing third. Then as schools closed in the first week in Ju­ly, the TTG­FA host­ed their 11th An­nu­al�Vi­ta Malt Ju­nior An­gler Fish­ing Tour­na­ment at the TTYC. As ex­pect­ed,�a large�num­ber of ju­nior an­glers par­tic­i­pat­ed and their catch was again over­whelm­ing. Over 30 rod and reels and nu­mer­ous tro­phies are giv­en away to these young fish­er­folk to in­spire them to keep fish­ing. Thanks to the many spon­sors in­clud­ing Mi­con, Welch's, Kit Kat, Oval­tine, Nes­tle and Cas­fab Ltd, it looks like the sport will be kept alive for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. In Au­gust the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC) spon­sored the 2009 Tar­pon Thun­der tour­na­ment which was won by team Map­pa­pie.

One hun­dred and six­ty-two tar­pons were caught and re­leased by 109 an­glers on 26�boats in this tour­na­ment. Michael De Fre­itas of team Map­pa­pie walked away with the pres­ti­gious Best An­gler prize. Oth­er�crew mem­bers of the win­ning team in­clud­ed Mark Telfer, Do­minic Wal­lace, Travis Ali and Fer­nan­do Navar­ro. Michael�will rep­re­sent T&T in the 2010 IG­FA In­shore World Cham­pi­onships host­ed by the Flori­da Keys Out­fit­ters. De Jep along with an­gler, Brett Thomp­son came sec­ond in the best boat and best an­gler cat­e­gories re­spec­tive­ly.Bob­by Breen placed third. This tour­na­ment was al­so host­ed at the Lure Restau­rant in Sweet Wa­ter Ma­ri­na in Ch­aguara­mas and oth­er spon­sors in­clud­ed Well Ser­vices Group of Com­pa­nies, Gatorade, Carib, Evian and Re­al Mar­ket­ing. The last quar­ter saw teams from T&T show­ing their dom­i­nance on the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stages.

First there was team Part-T-Time with Cap­tain�Robert Stauble and crew mem­bers Gra­ham Bar­ber, Michael Chin Le­ung Fatt, Mark De Ver­teuil, Chris­t­ian Hadeed, An­tho­ny Fly­nn and Al­li­son De­veaux who were vic­to­ri­ous in the St.Lu­cia Game Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion's 19th An­nu­al Bill­fish Tour­na­ment in IGY Ma­ri­na, Rod­ney Bay in ear­ly Oc­to­ber. Team Mag­ic La­dy�al­so from T&T placed third. This was fol­lowed by Cap­tain Stu­art Dal­gliesh and his crew Gor­don Dal­gliesh, Brett Ken­ny, Alan Shep­pard and Mark Laz­zari of team PRI on board Fi­nesse plac­ing sec­ond in the 2009� Mar­tinique Bill­fish Tour­na­ment. They al­so won an­gler with the most re­leas­es, boat with the most re­leas­es and best south­ern boat prizes. �How­ev­er, the year end­ed with the biggest news of all and again it was the young an­gler that made the news�a year ear­li­er that would dom­i­nate the head­lines again. This time it was in the most pres­ti­gious of tour­na­ments on the plan­et, The IG­FA World Cham­pi­onship Bill­fish Re­lease Tour­na­ment in Cabo San Lu­cas, Mex­i­co. The four-day tour­na­ment start­ed with the lo­cal team made up of Sean Men­don­ca, Mark Vil­lain, Clint Quong Sing and Der­rick Tardieu tied at�third place af­ter the first day. They were then tied�for sec­ond place af­ter the sec­ond day and tied for first place af­ter the third day.

On the morn­ing of the fourth and�fi­nal day of fish­ing they took the lead with an ear­ly morn­ing stripe mar­lin catch and re­lease.�How­ev­er they could not hold on to the lead and had to set­tle for fourth place in the end. �Speak­ing of the end, what a co­in­ci­dence�it was that all of this�ac­tion in Mex­i­co that in­volved some of our young and promis­ing an­glers was tak­ing�place�while an arch of rod and reels was be­ing formed by 20 an­glers at the back of St Fin­bars Church�to ho­n­our the end of a pi­o­neer in game fish­ing, Sid John­son. He�passed un­der the arch while our boys were re­leas­ing their last fish of the tour­na­ment. How proud he would have been of their suc­cess and know­ing that the sport is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by a group of young and en­thu­si­as­tic an­glers who are equal­ly con­cerned about con­ser­va­tion ef­forts to en­sure that fu­ture gen­er­a­tions en­joy game fish­ing.