The goal of TBF’s Gulf Regional Competition is to engage anglers throughout the Gulf billfishing community and increase participation in TBF’s Tag & Release program through the competitive spirit of anglers. This regional competition recognizes the outstanding billfishing found across the Gulf and the captains, anglers, and crews who contribute valuable data to billfish conservation.
Only eligible billfish tagged within the Gulf are valid for this regional competition. Anglers, captains and mates MUST be current TBF members to receive an award based on their submitted Tagging Data Report Cards. Regardless of membership, all data from every card is valuable for billfish research, and membership is not required to submit tag data.
Overall tagging categories are calculated as the total number of eligible species reported tagged by a captain or angler.
November 1st – October 31st
All tag reports must be sent to The Billfish Foundation or entered in TBF’s Tag & Release Online Database by November 15th of every year to be eligible.
Eligible species: blue marlin, white marlin, sailfish, spearfish, and swordfish.
* To enter the competition, all youth anglers MUST include their date of birth within their online profile of the tagging database. If submitting physical cards via mail, write in the date of birth in the space provided next to their name. Youth anglers must be active TBF members to win.
Gulf waters
TBF recognizes the valuable contribution of mates in the tagging of billfish. In addition to anglers and captains, mates may also be awarded for their level of achievement.
Awards will be given during TBF’s Annual International Tag & Release Award Ceremony.
Every year The Billfish Foundation is proud to recognize all the winners for the past year’s Tag & Release Competition. This ceremony allows us to highlight the captains, anglers, and mates who contributed invaluable catch data towards billfish conservation.
No Qualifiers
The post-release survival of billfish is vital and TBF urges that proper tagging procedures are used when tagging any billfish to ensure safe, healthy releases (see TBF’s Tag & Release Program brochure for more information). Improper tag placement, ‘speed tagging’ or using too much force when tagging can result in serious injury or death to the fish. For this reason TBF does not encourage tagging during tournaments. However, if a boat chooses to tag any sailfish during a tournament they will be counted toward the TBF Gulf Regional Tagging Competition. All participants are encouraged to see TBF’s Tag & Release brochure for information on safe handling and proper tagging procedure.
