No big turnaround in the fishing post Lizard Island tournament although the water certainly looks good enough and more small fish being seen and caught amoungst the boats still fishing at the top (Bounty Hunter, Top Shot, KEKOA, Calypso, Askari). Further down the reef, Down the reef, the team on Capt. Chris “Sharky” Miles’ Levante put their guest Sean Fitzpatrick onto a nice big one (photos above).

Coffs / Solitary Islands GFC

Eleven boats fished the Solitary Islands Game Fishing Club’s In Hours pointscore on Saturday, and the striped marlin are still holding in numbers off the Coffs coast. Staying connected to them, however, was another matter! The weather was somewhat ordinary in the morning, but there was plenty of bait holding in 50 to 80 fathoms, so the stripes were expected to be on the job. Plenty of bites were recorded, but just the one fish made it to the tag pole, caught by Bill Livingston on Seaborn.  (Thanks to Bill for the pics!)

Fraser Black Marlin

Mooloolaba GFC club boats including Jamie Behrens’ TakkaChee who went 3 from 6 and Never Home who went 4 from 9 fished Fraser Island/Rooney’s Point on the weekend. Jamie reports that the fish were 10kg to 15kg with a couple of smaller ones thrown in. The billfish were biting on the bottom of the tide on Saturday while on Sunday they were finicky with only 4 or 5 caught with plenty of others missed. Jamie said that the 6” lures and bullet weighted gars worked best for them.