Riley Smith

Riley was a classic fishing grommet who, if he wasn’t fishing for jacks, queenfish, trevallies, or basically anything around Exmouth that would take a lure or a bait, was out gamefishing with his mum and dad. Soon after Peak Sportfishing began operations, Eddy saw potential in young Riley and started him on an apprenticeship that any young jetty rat would die for. Between sweeping up, keeping the shed tidy and washing the boat when the boys got in, he learned all the skills of rigging, proper tackle preparation and bait rigging. He has been a full time crewman with Peak Sportfishing since 2017, and is as talented an angler as he is a professional sport and game fishing crew, with skills surpassing those of plenty who are years his senior. Unbelievably, he turns 18 in May, 2020. 

Some of his Riley’s accomplishments include being part of a fly rod world record black marlin capture and dozens of tournament wins as both angler and crew, including four consecutive GameEx team wins with Peak Sportfishing in the billfish tagging category, and three Champion Angler wins. In 2017, the year Peak won the comp by nine billfish, he also won Champion Angler overall with 10 billfish releases. 

He says his greatest accomplishment to date was in 2017, out on fun day fishing with Wes as captain and Eddy as crew, when he successfully switched a 263kg blue marlin on 37 kg stand-up, winning him an Australian junior record.