Photo of Mistress‘s blue marlin from Tuesday. Capt. Brett Alty said that although the water is getting colder they found bait in 400m and had the one bite from this nice solid blue – short and fat – that he put at 350lbs.  You can see a slideshow of the great pics taken by Sean Barnes that I’ve shared on the blog FB page.

Update from Cairns where the fine weather spell seems over for another week and as Bounty Hunter returned from their 3 days on the water with a final tally of 8 juvie blacks for the juvie anglers;-) Well done to all the youngsters!

And a very interesting update for us via Sam Williams’ latest Black Marlin Bulletin from the fin sampling study (download here).  Sam says this edition gives an overview of the major research findings from the project and answers the questions such as – Where do the small black marlin in the Gulf of Carpentaria most likely come from? How many black marlin stocks are there in the central indo-pacific? and What information supports spawning grounds for black marlin and where?

I won’t spoil your read but I found it very interesting particularly the part where it has been confirmed that “there are not many genetic differences between year classes of juveniles black marlin on the east coast, indicating that the same adults are contributing heavily to the seasonal spawn each year“. Thoughts?

Read this and the all the past bulletins, and find out more about the project here.