Broome charter skipper Ash Pittard is on top of the world after claiming a prestigious global award.

The owner of Broome Billfish Charters, he was crowned the Top Overall Release Captain Worldwide by the internationally recognised The Billfish Foundation for 2025.

Highlighting the incredible quality of his local fishery and his passion for sailfish, Ash released 448 billfish last year to claim the title.

Ash couldn’t attend the awards ceremony in Florida, but his trophy arrived a few weeks ago and went straight to the pool room.

Skippering his 11.5m custom-built game boat Billistic, Ash recorded the highest number of released billfish (primarily sailfish) in the Indian Ocean, across Australia, and globally.

He beat major international game fishing operators to grab the gong, claiming the lead in the last month when the Broome action fired up and he was catching 20 sails a day.

Ash said he was lucky to be able to fish one of the best sailfish locations in the world, and recalled catching 49 fish on one day last year, amongst the 438 he captured in total.

“It is an incredible sailfish fishery, I have never seen anything else like it,” he said.

“We find pods of 10-15 fish at times and it is just great to see that, let alone catch them.”

A fishing fanatic, Ash grew up in Bunbury, where his grandfather gave him the gamefishing bug with line-class efforts on species like samson fish.

He evolved into a keen competition angler and trips to Exmouth became regular, before he moved to Broome in 2018.

Ash took over the business early in 2025, having already skippered for the previous owner for a couple of years, and is loving spending most of his days on the water off his hometown.

“I do really enjoy it and when we fish on a charter we do the same as if fishing a tournament,” he said.

“Even on days off we are out there doing exactly the same thing as on charters.

“We would be out there all day every day if we could.”

What has worked for Ash is honing his craft so more fish raised are being hooked.

Where the strike rate on the boat was previously around 50 per cent of raised sails being hooked, he has been able to get it up to 80-90 by sharpening his techniques, usually based around teasing the fish and then casting deadbaits at them.

Sight casting to fish working baitballs has become a favoured approach.

That finetuning paid off with the big win.

“I was pretty happy to hear that, it was pretty cool,” he said.

“I messaged my dad and grandad straight away.

“I always wanted to win it. I record every fish we catch, which is also important to me as we want to provide as much data to The Billfish Foundation as we can.”

The Billfish Foundation is a non-profit organisation that works globally to advance the conservation of billfish and associated highly migratory species to improve the health of oceans and economies.

It combines data collection, research, and advocacy into one collective voice on behalf of anglers, the fishing community, and billfish.

Ash is loving the billfish action in Broome at the moment as the season cranks up.

He’s been averaging around 10 sails per day in recent weeks and is preparing for the upcoming Broome Billfish Classic, where he will be skippering for a bunch of his mates in the popular tournament.

Ash Pittard from Broome Billfish Charters with the trophy he won for releasing the most billfish across the globe in 2025.