Line Readie tops 2022 PWD Sportfishing Challenge Tournament

The Chris Read-captained boat Line Readie was in scintillating form over the two days and walked away as champions of the PWD 2022 Sportfishing Challenge Tournament at Portland Cottage in Clarendon at the weekend.

Line Readie amassed a two-day total of 652.50 points to be crowned overall champion and claim the top prize of $300,000. ‘Wassy’ was a distant second after amassing 239.15, with Reel Music coming in third after their combined total of 195.95.

Read and his vessel dominated proceedings from the start, racking up 62 pounds of mutton snapper on the opening day and then following up that with another 75 pounds on day two.

With the snapper fish carrying heavy points, Read took advantage of the conditions to claim top honours.

“Historically, this has been a mutton snapper tournament and has been biased over the years for inshore boats. When I saw the conditions with the wind and the seaweeds, I decided I was not going to troll at all, so I went straight to the snappers, and it worked out well,” Read said.

heaviest snapper

It was no surprise that Read and his team also claimed the $50,000 prize by walking away with the heaviest snapper, which came in at 11.9 pounds. Boat 2 Kantankerous claimed the other $50,000 prize for the heaviest barracuda, which weighed 15.7 pounds.

Tournament organiser Gregory Mair said fishing is now back following the successful staging of the event.

“The tournament went very well with no accidents, and the anglers loved it. It took us just four weeks to organise the event after the Government announced the relaxation of the COVID-19 constraints, and all in all, we will be looking to expand our capacity to host more boats for a bigger and better tournament next year,” Mair said.