The Ladies Ribbons certainly know how to have a good time! Not only were there plenty of fish caught yesterday, but the girls had a lot of fun starting with the ‘dress up’ for the sailpast (and water balloon bombs) right through to the weigh-in at the end of the day. We stayed right away from the main balloon firing line, mainly the girls on Cool Runnings, Kalira and Moana III! Fishing with us were Kelly Barnes and Katherine Thomas from Brisbane (Mooloolaba GFC). Despite suffering the effects of nasty bronchitis, Kelly fought and landed a foul hooked 25.2kg yellowfin tuna on 10kg line (after over an hour’s fight!) Later, Katherine had two shots at…blue marlin, on 15kg and 24kg but unfortunately we couldn’t stay connected. Coming from a pretty good blue marlin bite down at home, Katherine hardly expected to be hooked up to not one, but two blues at a black marlin event!
There were a few sailfish caught, and plenty of other gamefish weighed – dolphin fish, mackerel, wahoo etc – and a couple of hard luck stories including the girls on New Moon who fought a marlin for just over two hours before losing it and to Greg Sims’ team on Square Bear who hooked up to a 150lb black marlin literally minutes after cease fishing. The presentation is tonight – until then the results are a closely guarded secret.
Capt. Tim Dean on Calypso returned to port after his week out wide and reports another great trip with up to four shots a day on what was almost potluck marlin – it could be a black, it could be a blue (even a grander blue, hey Corey ;-) They finished up the trip yesterday with a small black on the edge. [Deckie Corey was on the receiving end of one of Graham McCloy’s practical jokes about a ‘grander blue marlin’ via the radio in the saloon. We heard it nearby, and our boys were similarly devastated when we found out too.]
More blue marlin, owner Grant Thomson on board Cjig for the journey back to the Gold Coast reporting more good blue marlin fishing, this time at Noosa Canyons. They had planned to troll out wide but the weather put paid to those ambitions and they came via Hervey Bay and the Wide Bay Bar instead. Grant says the bite was red hot with 3 shots in 2 hours on the northern shelf kink. The first fish was around the 500lb mark but it threw the lure back pretty quick. Grant didn’t get a good look at the 2nd but finished up releasing one 250lb model.
We also heard from Capt. Dean Beech on Castille III who finished up his trip out wide into Townsville yesterday on a high note with plenty of dogtooth etc speared and the boys getting shots on marlin on the lures.
