The Weipa Billfish Club’s trophy cabinet has some shiny new additions after capturing several major titles at the annual Queensland Game Fishing Association award ceremony in Brisbane. Photo: Weipa Billfish Club.
While remote towns can often feel forgotten in the shadow of the Big Smoke, Weipa’s award-winning anglers are continuing to make waves in the world of game fishing.
The Weipa Billfish Club had a few extra kilograms of luggage to take home after cleaning out the Queensland Game Fishing Association (QGFA) awards trophy cabinet in Brisbane earlier this month.
The club celebrated a major achievement by winning the QGFA Champion Club Overall, QGFA Champion Club Participation, QGFA All Ports Champion Club (Zone 1& 2) and QGFA All Ports Champion Club Overall titles, with individual standout angler Theona Down also capturing the Champion Female Angler – Tag & Release and All Ports Champion Female Angler honours at the coveted awards.
Ms Down, who organises the annual Ladies Gamefish Day, joins a line of QGFA female award winners from Weipa.
“I think it says volumes for us up here; I think everything’s South East Queensland, but not in game fishing,” she said.
“I’m not the only person in Weipa who has won this award; four out of the five anglers that won it have won it from Weipa.
“It’s wonderful — I think we have such a good fishery that produces fish year-round, whereas other places are maybe a bit more hit and miss.”
The win for Weipa came after an almost two-year research journey following a satellite-tagged sailfish, which resulted in the most data-rich and successful sailfish tracking project from Weipa to date.
Weipa Billfish Club founder Ben Bright, who has been involved in the study since the sailfish was caught and tagged in November 2024, shared a map created by Charles Darwin University PhD candidate Matt Hammond that tracked the fish’s movement for 12 months.
In November 2025, Mr Bright received an excited phone call that the tag had popped off as programmed within Weipa sailfish grounds, making it a possibility to recover the tag floating at sea.
With only 14 days of battery life left on the tag, the clock was ticking, and after enormous effort and luck, the team managed to recover the tag at the eleventh hour for it to be sent for data retrieval.
After several months, a preliminary analysis map showing the probable movements of the fish was created, which is to be analysed in further detail as more data from the tag becomes available.
“Weipa’s just got so many more runs on the board in terms of fish that we’ve tagged now — I think we’re in our 30s now from memory, versus the east coast, which has got about 10,” Mr Bright said.
“It just highlights how lucky we are to have the fishery we’ve got for its consistency; we can actually get some solid research done, whereas everywhere else on the east coast has really struggled to get all their ducks in a row to get tags into the right fish in the right locations.
“We’re leading the way, and with the acoustic stuff we’ve done, a lot of that has been a world first; there’s nobody else anywhere that’s successfully tagging billfish with internal acoustic tags.”
Ms Down said it was an incredible time of pride for the small-town billfish club, which has consistently shown to be home to some of the top players in game fishing.
“It’s pretty amazing for little old Weipa to be at the forefront of such great fishing and research,” she said.
Theona Down was a standout at the awards as the Champion Female Angler – Tag & Release and All Ports Champion Female Angler. Photo: Supplied.
