Starting with some great fishing outside of the Lizard Island Black Marlin Classic and a catch up report from Capt. Darren “Biggles” Haydon on Bounty Hunter. Biggs reports a 1136lb black marlin caught at Escape Reef on Sunday. Biggs says that it was a tough two hour fight for angler John Patterson which they got to the boat at 5pm on Sunday. Congrats BH team!
And Capt. Brent James’ Mauna Kea has capped off a great four days fishing yesterday with a fish that he put at 1200lbs for father Perry. Their total over the four days was a 9-9-8 to 850lbs besides the big fish yesterday. And Perry tells me that it was daughter Yasmin James that caught 7 from 8 on her first trip to Cairns!
Capt. Tom Francis’ big blue boat charge, the Ultimate Lady is back on the reef (great to see you back Tom!) Tom says the came out from Cooktown in the afternoon and had three bites, breaking the line on a fish about 700lbs and releasing one about 500.
In the tournament: what a start to the day! The first fish tag was reported less than 10 minutes after start fishing to Capt. Bobby Jones’ Iceman and it was non-stop after that with a total of 27 tags for the day all together! Just a few minutes after that came the first big fish of the day with a 950lb black marlin for Peter on Capt. Adam Jordan’s Iona2 (photo above).
Capt. Daniel Carlson’s Little Audrey steam-rolled the competition adding 5 tags at 900, 600, 500, 500 and 200lbs to put themselves into the lead with 10 tags. Here’s a picture of Ken’s fish from Day 2 that Capt. Dan put at 950lbs with satellite tag in shot.
Another boat having a big fish day, Capt. Ross Finlayson’s Top Shot who added three tags to put the team into 3rd place on countback and included a fish that Ross called 999lbs that was also satellite tagged! This was Ross’ second big fish for the day for regular Lizard Island angler Tominori Omi who tagged one earlier in the day already at 850lbs. Getting a workout!
Another having a great day on the water, Capt. Steve Ahlers’ Hellraiser who released three including two nice ones at 850 and 650lbs for Sarah.
Keeping his team in the leader hunt, Capt. Ashley Wallis’ Kalira added another two tags, as did Capt. Brett Goetze’s Amokura including another nice fish for angler Frank at 850lbs. Photo I took of this fish on Amokura below.
The current standings are (provisional): Little Audrey on 10 tags from Kalira with 7 on countback to Top Shot also on 7 in third. With 6 tags Amokura. With 5 tags Hellraiser from Althaldo. With 4 tags Castille. With 3 tags Viking, Duyfken and Iona2. With 2 tags Moana III, Iceman, Reel Easy, The Joker, Kaizen and Bite Me. And on one tag a piece Think Big, Kekoa, Onsite, Illusion and Game Over.
Whitsundays Little Black Marlin
A report from Russell & Marlene Hicks on Topless who raised 4 little blacks and tagged two over the weekend off Hayman Island Whitsundays. Good to see they are still there!
