Gold Coast

As the tournament approaches this weekend, good news for the fishos on the Gold Coast came from owner Grant Thomson on Cjig.  On a boys day out, fishing on the Tweed Canyons, the boys went 4 from 5 blue marlin yesterday (Monday).  Grant says they were all nice fish in the 130 to 180kg range and included a double header.  Great stuff!

The tournament kicks of with fishing for Ladies Day on Friday and fishing for the All Tackle All Species on Saturday and Sunday.

Coffs Harbour

Another club looking forward to their upcoming tournament on April 14, with the fishing improving week after week in the lead-up, is the Solitary Islands GFC at Coffs Harbour. Rick reports that on Saturday’s club comp day 15 blues were raised with 8 tagged by the club’s fleet of seven boats.  The bite started with a 120kg blue marlin on Foreign Exchange for angler David Poulter, who now has 4 blues to his credit just a couple of months after joining the club and starting game fishing. The best result of the day was on Steakout, which managed a spearfish early in the day, followed by a double blue marlin hookup later that afternoon, with anglers Karen Godwin (Karen’s first marlin) and Joe Davidson both getting the fish in for tagging.

Rick tells me there has been a very clear pattern emerging since the rain stopped of an early to mid-morning blue marlin bite, followed by an even hotter mid to late-afternoon bite. The afternoon bite has also seen a succession of doubles. Foreign Exchange reported a double blue hookup last Sunday, and Glen Booth’s Wicked Weasel also hooked up to a double on a mid-week fish Thursday – Glen reports they finished with 8-6-2 on Thursday on Wicked Weasel while Kanahoee went 1-1-1 and Secret Men’s Busines went 2-2-2.

Foreign Exchange also stumbled across a whale carcass floating out wide which got them a healthy dolphin fish straight up.  While they quickly tired of the smell and left to go blue marlin fishing, Rick says the carcass was last seen floating south – Port Stephens look out ;-)

Port Stephens

I added a point score update from Garry Holt on Diversion to yesterday’s report, but in case you missed it, here it is again: For NPSGFC Diversion is on 126,500 points (11 tags), BBGFC Sharaka is on 11 as well with 113,000 points (all but two caught on 24) and NPSGFC Gunrunner on 307,029 with 9 tags. James Holt, having caught all 11 of Diversion’s fish is well in the lead for Champion T&R Angler.

Yesterday was Ladies Day and Ben report that the Lizard Island GFC visiting team on Carbon Trading prevailing with 4 from 5 marlin for Maeve.

I’ve also had a couple more reports from last week of fishing – thanks to everyone for sending those in (you can email me reports at any time to info@blackmarlinfishingblog.com). Tim reports that on his Reel Diamond they fished last week for a first marlin for angler Peter Rozenauers – a black marlin – followed by a hat trick of striped marlin over the next 2 days and ended up with 10 marlin in 2.5 days – great fishing!  Danny and his team on Gale Force are representing Sydney GFC in the comp.  Danny reports that while they have managed to stay connected to the leaders with 6 fish for the weekend and are currently running equal fourth with two other boats.  Danny also said that boats fishing on Saturday were treated to the sight of  dozens of free swimming marlin, occasionally teaming up to harass a doomed bait ball on the surface.  On Sunday, Diversion and Shakara moved away from the main group of boats fishing the Carpark where they found a bunch of fish in the same area going head to head. And Andy on Fritto 1 reports adding 2-2-1 to their club’s score on Sunday which rounded out a much slower weekend for them by Port standards, but their NPSGFC T3 is on the board!

Video

This is Addixion’s 9-3-3 blue marlin from last week on the Gold Coast. Congrats guys – good stuff!