» BMFB Weekly Sked: Coffs, Port & More

Broken Bay: Capt. Brett Thomas on Gorilla reports that some fish have turned up off Sydney again. On Wednesday they saw 4 and caught 2 from 3 bites – all stripes about 80kg for Adam and Peter with Ben and Kel Driver. Brett says there is heaps of bait out on the edge off Broken Bay and that it’s been there a while, but now more fish seem to have found it!
Good fishing on Sunday off Coffs Harbour for Solitary Islands GFC Boats on the good side of a dramatic colour change. Kestelle went 6-4-3 on blue marlin while Kikino had a 9-7-3 made up of two blues and one striped marlin. The striped marlin was also a first marlin for young Cody Smith. Before the weekend on Friday, Gameful Employmentwent 4-1-0, breaking line on a nice blue. Glen reports that most of the activity was straight out the front only 12-13 miles from port.
Fishing yesterday Foreign Exchange tagged 1 from 5, two of which were very small stripes. Oh for a pitch bait! The marlin tagged was a 110 kilo blue marlin for visiting Victorian GFC angler Peter Svilar, who came up to see what this blue marlin hot spot was all about (after catching his first, he reckons it beats shark fishing hands down!) Glen says that all the activity yesterday remained in 90 fathoms, but slightly north of Coffs. The water colour was patchy, but again, if you found bluer water, you raised a fish.

Update: Rick reminds us that they are only two weeks away from the Heavy Tackle Challenge, and with a hot blue marlin bite and striped marlin moving back in, the action should be pretty good. So far they have boats from Sydney, Cairns and Port Macquarie signed up for the Challenge, which is shaping up to be a great new event on the east coast calendar!
An update from the Flying Fisher at Port Stephens who hit their season target of 110 marlin on Monday with almost two weeks to go. Amokura fished inshore for the little blacks yesterday and released two as well.
And Capt. Adam Jordan on Iona 2 fished for blue marlin out wide on Sunday after a month off from fishing and released a 350lb blue marlin for Pete Tolar. Pete was celebrating his 60th birthday – what’s a better present than that! Capt. Adam reports raising two more blues on the teasers. He’s hoping that fishing should be on the improve this week with the current slowing down.
I also had a quick report from Cairns local Shan who fished on Hellraiser 2 with Capt. Steve wide off Cairns on Sunday. Shan says they raised an estimated 400lb+ very excited blue on lure. Unfortunately there was no hookup, but says its great to know they’re around even at this time of year.
From over in the west in Exmouth, Kurt tells me that 5 of the 10 sat tags were deployed for the IGFA Great Marlin Race during Gamex, with the other 5 to be deployed in the coming weeks. We look forward to hearing how far they travel. The Western Australian Interclub was run in conjunction with the AIBT and was won by King Bay GFC from Karratha/Dampier.
Meanwhile I’ve added the Broome Billfish Classic (July) and the Broome Bluewater Blast (September) to the tournament calendar. Jeff says that fishing in Broome is mainly focused on Barra and bottom fish at this time of year with the weather too unpredictable to chase the blue water beasts. But hopefully the dry season is just around the corner and we’ll start to hear some of their amazing results.