Yesterday the first unofficial Lionfish Derby was held. As a sort of test case a group of active lionfish hunting friends organized a derby amongst themselves. We had a total of 14 participants (of which 11 were hunting) divided in 4 teams. Each team had to report at 8AM at VIP Diving. At 8.30AM we all took off loaded with tanks, dive gear, ELF's and of course hot water (in case someone got stung) and coolers with ice to keep the fish fresh. Everyone had to report back at Sunset Beach where the counts and measurements would be made over a nice BBQ.

All teams did a great job having safe and enjoyable dives while taking out lionfish left and right. There are unconfirmed reports that the clicking of our ELF's could be heard all the way to Venezuela. In total 122 fish were caught. Belmar, Mona Lisa and VIP Diving donated prizes for the highest number of fish caught average per team member (13 fish), the biggest fish caught (13 inches) and the smallest fish caught (about 2 inches). Luckily the prize for most unfortunate sting did not have to be awarded. Nobody got stung.

We did this on a relatively small scale this time to work out the logistics and see whether we want to do it on a larger scale in the future. It was a resounding success so we will definitely do this more often and announce it properly when that happens.

Here are some pictures of the event:

Bas -- great post !! It shows that with an organized effort, divers can make a dent. Imagine if there were 25+ divers doing this every day. Congrats to the entire team for their efforts !!

That's great Bas, you guys did an awesome job. Pity I wasn't able to make it this time.
We'll try to make another effort on the 16th during the freediving event at Playa Frans.

KOB -- I think there probably are 25+ divers doing this every day. Just not organized as a group. There are 130 or so ELF's in circulation and many of those are held by very active hunters. I take mine on every dive I do unless it's a course dive or people have strong objections (in which case I will first try to explain that without this action there will not be much left to see in 5 years time but if people are paying for a dive and insist on no ELF I will of course honor their wish). So far most people totally agree with taking out the lionfish and many actually enjoy helping me doing it! I often cook up the catch right after the dive so my divers can get a taste of how great the lionfish is to eat!

BAS!! Oh my gosh this is great!! I saw 2 on our last trip & the "ranger" said there was actually 3 in the rocks where I saw them....Would have been great to just bag them then... Lo & I were just talking the other day that if there was a demand to eat them - then there would be a real change in the Bonaire waters for the good!! I hear they are really good to eat? But not so easy to clean?? I am so choked we werent there to see it happen - would have loved to participate (rules allowing of course) CHEERS!!!
Cheers

They are actually also pretty easy to clean, you just have to be careful with the spines. When I am not hunting 'derby style' I only take the big ones with me and I clip off the venomous spines before I bag them. That makes it all pretty easy and safe. Lemme know when you are here and we'll go out on a hunting trip!

Excellent!! Glad to see it and frankly wish I were down there to participate and assist in the decimation of these reef marauders!! Buon Appetit to you all!

Great initiative Bas! Which site(s) did you go to? I would like to suggest/organise such an event in the Washington Park because there are quite a few of those hanging out and some are big too!

Great job Bas and all, keep fighting the fight.

Bas -- thanks again. As you know, we're already booked to dive with you in September and do a little lionfish hunting. We're really looking forward to it and the lionfish BBQ afterwards !!

Well Done Bas!

Bas, regarding the photo of the measurement....

I thought the official length measurement was from the mouth to the base of the tail, not to the end of the tail.

So who won?

e.

Sweet Bas!! Cheers!

Fantastic effort and I think it is save to say, after such dedicated effort that there is no fish this common on Bonaire for the first time. We now have to admit this sad fact.

Bas T. wanted to organize the Derby together with Stinapa but after calling Ramon we found out that they are already working on their own Derby. So with the people from the Lion Fish Hunting Group we organized this one. The weather was really nice for us so 3 of the 4 teams went North. Bas Noij and his team got a prize with the smallest fish, Michael Pement and his team won the prize for the biggest fish and Bas Tol's team won the price for the most fish. We also did a dive up north .The strange thing that day was that we didn't find a lot of fish deep (85') but around 45'. Normally most fish are a lot deeper...

(Message edited by modfreddie on April 11, 2011)

Mel, we got our rules from this example: http://www.lionfishderby.com/docs/pdf/2010SecondAnnualLionfishDerby_Rules.pdf

It states there measure from tip of snout to tip of tail. Seems to me that is the way to measure anyway right? There are several ways you can do it. I think you talk about 'standard length'. We measure 'full length'. You can see the different measurements here:

OK, I am indeed using standard length, because that is the way it is done in the scientific fish biz. When we measured them in the Bahamas, we were using standard length. I think 45cm was our largest, compared to 49cm for the record at the time. I don't know how much you'd add on for the tail!

Perhaps I should qualify my previous post about lionfish being the most populous fish on Bonaire. Of course there are more Brown Chromis, more Bicolored Damselfish, perhaps more Bluehead Wrasses, but lionfish would be the top CARNIVORE. And this niche is totally dominated by lionfish, with the greatest potential to effect everything else.
Fishelson reported that the density of lionfish in the worst parts of the Bahamas could reach 2000 lionfish per km of reef and that they would consume as much as 5700 kg of other fish in one years time.
Thanks to the dedicated Marine Park, and to dedicated "Deputized" hunters, we will not see such numbers. Besides, we started the eradication program BEFORE the first lionfish was even seen on Bonaire, and that was a first in the Caribbean.

Very cool post . Thanks for organizing the event and sharing on BT .

Bas,

Congratulations on your lionfish hunt! There are indeed many dedicated lionfish hunters on Bonaire, as you mentioned. Just this past weekend, I went with two friends on a lionfish hunt, on which there were two hunters and a capture-bag person (non-hunter). On a single afternoon dive of 55 minutes we caught 33 lionfish, average 16.5 per hunter. Also, as was mentioned above, we caught most of the fish in the 40-foot depth range after coming up from 100 feet.

Overall within our group of 4 divers (one couldn’t dive last weekend) we have two teams of two divers each and each team has caught over 500 lionfish on Bonaire’s reefs. One team has a count of 583 the other 514. Just out of curiosity, because catch numbers are not kept by the Marine Park, how are the divers in your group of lionfish hunters doing? We go out to hunt about 3-4 days per week, one or two dives each day. We have found that talking to divers provides a constant source of valuable first-hand information about lionfish sightings on various dive sites. If we hear about a high lionfish count, we get our friends and go out to specifically clear the reef at that site. This has worked well for us. We had a great celebration lionfish dinner, including lionfish “bisque”, with many friends in March on reaching 500! We wish all lionfish hunters a good hunt and tasty BBQ afterwards.

Cindi

Good work Cindi! I never knew you were such an active hunter as well! Look up the Facebook group "Bonaire Lionfish Hunters". We can share some more information on there!

33 lionfish in 1 dive with 2 hunters is extremely impressive! Well done!

Always wishing for more data! I now wish that we could keep a log of lionfish on each dive site. For example,since 12 Nov, 2010, Bari has produced 99 lionfish for me. Others, I am sure have taken lionfish from Bari.