Starting at the bottom and working north:

Capt. Brett Goetze on Reel Chase tells they started a brand new trip at Linden Bank going three from three with fish at 350, 500 and a nice one at the end of the day that Brett put at 900lbs. Photo of the smaller fish above. Any more reports from down on the Bank?

We had another great day on KEKOA for Art and Susan which started with a swim on the reef on what had to be one of the best weather days of the year. While we’re sometimes wondering why we bother going fishing before 4pm at all, the bite makes it well worth the wait. Big explosion on the stinger watched by everyone one board and with a bit of trepidation for Susan who was on strike, and she was soon connected to another big fish that Capt. Luke Fallon put at 900lbs to match husband Art’s fish of the same size from the day before (photo below). But the day didn’t stop there, another big bite on the stinger bait within minutes from lines in saw Art hooked up to another big fish about 800lbs that stayed on the surface and did some great jumps in the fading light before we drove over to it and promptly pulled the bait out of it on the leader :-)

Conversely Capt. Tim Dean’s Calypso was straight out of the blocks releasing a nice big fish early in the day. Tim had another encounter with another good fish a little later too that had a try of everything on offer.

The talk of the afternoon was the solo angler/skipper on board the trailer boat out from Cooktown that was hooked up to what Capt. Tim Dean (who was nearby at the time) estimated a 900lb fish for several hours at the end of the day. Not sure how it ended (if you’re reading this let us know! Email me) but we did make sure he got back behind the reef for the night which he did in the dark well after 7pm. Epic battle on standup for him with often one hand winding and the other steering/throttle!

A little further north again, Capt. Tim Richardson on Tradition was marking but not catching..until he did. He released another fish for Helmut that he put at 300lbs.

There are a couple of boats who are laying low at present, Capt. Brad Craft (Castille) and Capt. Brent James (Mauna Kea) experiencing some pretty spectacular fishing that makes everyone else’s great day’s fishing pale in comparison. We’ve heard some from Brad, but hopefully full reports from them to come soon.

Catch ups:
Now, I hope you can all take the time to read this trip report from Murray “Muzza” Olden who fished on board Calypso with Capt. Darren “Biggles” Haydon and team last week. Great story from a great trip on the reef for Muzza and Phil who regularly fish with Biggles. In their three days, they released 7 fish, with two of them right up there which is just outstanding fishing! Muzza says the photos (below) were tidied up by “Snap Action” photography from Geraldton and they have plenty of video from the trip too so we can look forward to a youtube video clip of that soon. Thanks Muzza so much for sending along! Read it here.

Also a catchup from Capt. Ashley Wallis’ Sea Fever who we saw on the reef with a bit of activity going on at the back of his boat a few days ago. Ashley says they released a 300lb-er on Monday while Tuesday they saw 10 fish in total including a big girl with a pack of 4 males. They were otherwise occupied however and he couldn’t get a bite. Later they released one about 250lbs and pulled the hooks on another about 650lbs after a 40 minute fight. He’s back out there today to enjoy some more of this great weather and fishing!

I’ve been having more connectivity issues so will update if I here more when I get better service.