The big marlin season is underway with the vast majority of boats now fishing by this week. And a few reports are starting to filter in.

Capt. Brad Craft on Castille III has owner Mark Ripper and Mark’s daughter Katie on board this week with Katie seeking a go at the 50lb record.  Brad says they caught two fish on 50 lb  from 6 they had up Saturday, but yesterday was a quieter day for them.

On Amokura, Capt. Brett Goetze reports a couple of smaller fish as well with a 1 from 2 yesterday at 150lbs with the one they missed slightly bigger. They also went 1 from 2 the day before around the same size. Brett says that they’ve seen quite a few fish tailing around but they are not biting real good at the moment.

Capt. Tom Francis’ Ultimate Lady also reported their first big fish of the season after a late start with a fish that Capt. Tom put at 800lbs yesterday.  They also got another bite out of a smaller fish and raised two others.  Tom also tells me the big blue Viking Norby (if you watched my interview with Tom you would have seen Norby at the start parked next to UL) fought a presumably nice fish into the night that took them right up into the reef last night, with them releasing it not long before 8pm.

The Sunshine Coast crew on Kamikaze also spent the week on the reef with Lachlan reporting that they are seeing a fish a day and converting a couple including one about at 400lb between Number 7 and 8 as well as a smaller 80lb model at the top of Number 10. While they raised a few more smaller fish without bite, they threw the hooks on a 500 and also unfortunately pulled the hooks on another fish around 350lbs off Escape on the way back to Cairns.

Update: and a quick report in from Chris “Sharky” Miles on Levante who also reports that they are catching a fish a day, small ones, from a couple of bites a day at best but there is nice water and south current so it shouldn’t be too long now!