January 16, 2009: - - Many of Australia’s top young surfers made the long journey to the south west extremes of Western Australia keen to sample the awesome waves that this event’s custodian, Taj Burrows, has grown up in and they certainly scored on the opening day with the remote surf break known as Three Bears providing perfect powerful surf to 2m (5ft).

With temperatures in excess of  40 degrees, four wheel drive shuttles were implemented to get the enthusiastic youngsters into the pristine remote beach south of Dunsborough in what turned out to be a real surf adventure. The extreme heat also saw more flies than most of these competitors had ever dealt with and the name change for the day to  Taj’s small flies was appropriate.

The quality waves and performances made the effort worthwhile with a great day of red hot competition. Local surfer Creed McTaggart (Margaret River) set the standard scoring the day’s top ride with an excellent 8.83 in his under 16 Boys round one heat win.

“I’d love to win Taj’s own event – Being a WA surfer and local to the south west area we all look up to Taj – To me he’s the greatest surfer in the world and surfing an event around his favourite surf breaks is really cool” said McTaggart after his win.

“The waves are great but even though it’s close to my home I rarely surf here, I actually think the waves around Margaret River are better than here but still, these waves are really good!”

The WA boys were the standouts today. Young 15 year old Kalbarri surfer Jai Perkins was in terrific form winning his heat ahead of 11 year old standout Jack Robertson (Margaret River) who also advanced in second place with a superb performance.

Like McTaggart, Perkins also enjoyed the waves but made a point of analyzing the waves against those of his home area much further north – “They were fun and great waves to perform in but Kalbarri  has better waves I think.”

With Taj Burrow set to attend the event on the final day on Sunday, maybe he can discuss the pro’s and con’s of all the breaks in his area with these WA regionally proud surfers!

Interstate surfers were also in prominent today. Heat winners included Eli Steele (Sunshine Coast Qld), Soli Bailey (Byron Bay) and Jesse Horner (Cronulla) with all surfers thoroughly enjoying the surf and ambience of the rugged South West coastline.

Increasing swells look certain to provide for excellent conditions right through to Sundays finals with likely surf locations being Yallingup Main Break, Smith Beach and Rabbit Holes – all breaks that have nurtured the skills of Yallingup’s most famous local surfer Taj Burrow.

The Billabong Taj’s Small Fries is proudly supported by Sony, Virgin Blue, Surfing WA, Stab Surf Magazine , Von Zipper and Surfing Australia.

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