This post was imported into WordPress from my old Black Marlin Fishing Blog website without any accompanying photos. If you’d like to see the original post, with the accompanying photographs, go to the original Black Marlin Fishing Blog site and navigate to the post using the archive navigation links on the right-hand-side.
Like the whales, the fleet are migrating north. KEKOA has now safely arrived in Townsville where she will remain through the Townsville Billfish Challenge. Reel Chase is fishing Bugatti Reef and surrounds with mothership Orphelia until the end of the week. Tradition continues to mosey on up towards Cairns and Castille III and Iona II are leaving the Gold Coast today. Its a great time of year with fishing and more fishing to look forward to!On the fishing front, Bat reports a few more little blacks are showing up in Cairns as well as the sails including this nice one from a trip on Tuesday on board Billfish. Townsville club boats have also reported a few last weekend at Bowling Green although all was quiet when we went through on Friday. As more boats head through the grounds we’ll be looking forward to the news that they have arrived!Update: Tradition has arrived in Mackay for a few days before beginning a 7 day trip to Cairns. Capt. Jim on Reel Chase has ended the trip to Bugatti Reef with mothership Orphelia with a celebration at Whitehaven. He’ll troll through Bowling Green tomorrow (Thursday). They had a good few days fishing with several more big GT’s released as well as some quality mackerel and reef fish.Update 2: As an aside: Although we caught just the one sailfish in the surrounds of Bugatti Reef on our first trip when I was aboard last week, Capt. Jim thought there were certainly more around. Fast forward to the most recent trip when crewman Owen went for a spin in the helicopter from mothership Orphelia. Owen reported seeing pods of sailfish including a few free jumpers. Sounds like some good potential there! Also, Capt. Jim told me a funny story of a nice sized spanish mackerel turning into a 60lb GT. Apparently the mackerel was darting around on the surface like it was being chased by a shark. Suddenly it went deep and started pulling line hard. Eventually, it was brought to the boat and it was now the GT. Somehow the lure being transferred from one to the other!And, I put the Youtube link to the Pelagic in Action DVD preview clip on the Video page. Gets you in the mood for the season ahead!
