The day after the Lizard Island Black Marlin Classic and many of the fleet were straight back into it. And the fishing didn’t let us down, and the weather didn’t let us down either..not (30knots!! Very trying conditions!)
Capt. Ross Finlayson on Top Shot made sure his new guests didn’t miss out on all the fish action straight lining it to the top to meet up with the mothership, he released 6 to 550lbs. Likewise Capt. Corey Hard’s Askari also had another good day with 3 at 750, 250 and 150lbs.
Capt. Bobby Jones’ Iceman released another big one right up there as well as two smaller models. While on KEKOA, Capt. Luke Fallon welcomed back Capt. Chip Van Mols to the reef with daughter Jada and partner Dan. We put Jada onto her first two GBR black marlin with a 700 and 800 and she did an awesome job in the chair in wet and windy – the sea was angry that day my friends..
Further down the track, Capt. Brett Goetze’s Amokura had another blinder in the rough going 4 from 6 to 400lbs.
I also had the chance to get a catch up report from Capt. Craig “Sparra” Denham on Black Label who are in port now for the next few days. They released two on Saturday at 300 and 800lbs and had their own big fish day on Friday with a 300, 750 and 950 – and word is that the 950 was more like 11!
Meanwhile Townsville, not content to let Cairns have all the big fish fun, has served up another big one for local club boat Reel Crazy. Renee tells me that she joined Mick Dykstra and Andrew Broughton, for an extended stay at Myrmidon during the week, but the trip was cut short late Thursday after a missive fight, with a monster black they couldn’t put a figure on. Renee says they got a good look at her more than once and put her well over but by how much they don’t know. She spent a massive 9 hours in the chair on 130lb at the button and over at times, to no joy, into the dark. With conditions ugly and starting to become unsafe, at 8pm the big girl won her freedom! Something everyone onboard will surely not forget for a long time!
Back to the juvie blacks off Yeppoon. Bite Me Marlin Charters Scotty Coulter says that the fish keep coming. Several private boats took advantage of the nice weather during the week (a few sickies) while he was laid up with an engine issue and on average they were tagging 3-4 fish a day, 13 – 20 miles from the harbour with a water temp of 23c. He’s back out and at them from this week and will be doing Break Sea trips off Fraser on the heavy tackle as well into winter. As we know, the fish are already firing off Fraser as some of the fleet heading north for the blacks found it hard to drive away from the blues!
And here’s an early report from you. Peter Williams emailed to let me know that KAOS fishing out off Port Stephens on Sunday, tagged a black and a striped marlin in the 70-80 kg range one on 10kg tackle the other on 24kg tackle (photo). What an early season kick off for down there!
