Halley on song as Challenge wins Presidente Fishing Tournament

It's good to be Lee Halley. The jovial master angler and 'a few good men' on challenge wound up virtually unchallenged when they scooped the top two prizes recently at the presidente deep sea fishing Tournament held November 11-13 at chesterfields Dock.

The crew - Max Choisy, Nell Lake, Chi-Chi, and the man himself--pocketed the $1000 first prized for Heaviest Qualifying Fish and second prize of $500 for most weight Overall.
With excellent fishing conditions predicted, Challenge got the jump on the rest of the competitors by trolling the deep drop-offs north of Anguilla and Sombrero Island early on Friday, a gamble that paid off handsomely with the catching of a 56lb Yellow Fin Tuna, The weight of which was not surpassed by any other boat. They also had a few hits on the line from a Marlin.

Challenge then stormed back on Saturday to reel in 350lbs of Wahoo and Yellow Fin Tuna to give them a total winning haul of 607lbs over the two days.
Third prize for second Most Weight overall went to Tini Tinitalli's Oli-T for 457lbs of fish while Mike Kopee's Good Latin took Third most Weight with 403lbs .
Philipe Casaubon and El Padre won forth prize for largest qualifying Mahi-Mahi prize(27.2lbs) and also the best Junior Angler prize for one Wahoo and two Mahi-Mahi (total27.2lbs).

Jelmer Snow's Wiggl IV finished up with a total of 291lbs for fifth prize while the best lady Angler prize went to Evelyn Heilman from Oli-t for her 41.1lb Yellow Fin Tuna.
Antigua-based Georgette won a prize for traveling the furthest distance to the tournament (110miles). No boat qualified for the Billfish Release prize.
Gerrit Matser's stikker did not feature in the result bur insisted they were in the right place on the Anguilla side of Marlin Boulevard.
"We had some big strikes, but were unlucky," said Matser. "Making it worse, all we heard on the radio was Halley rubbing it in every five minutes that he had a catch. We had to switch off." he joked. "But lee deserves to win. He's very good."

Twelve bots took part in the tournament, which turned out to be one of the most productive in years. A total of 2,336lbs (62 Wahoo, 9 Yellow Fin Tuna and 8 Mahi-Mahi) qualified for the scales though many more did not meet the 15lb minimum weight from most boats was 30 lbs.
The 10th anniversary of the tournament was organized by the Big Game Fishing Foundation, which donated $500 to the Soualiga Capoeira Foundation.

Sports fisherman Lee Halley is the owner of Lee's Roadside Grill, Voted #1 restaurant in St. Maarten three years in a row.