A NEW YEAR ROUNDUP

A long time between blogs and another successful heavy tackle black marlin season for Cairns has come and gone. Once again proving itself as the best location in the world to chase not only black marlin but giant black marlin with good numbers of them caught right throughout the season.

Late November / December also provided opportunities for fishing amongst the tuna aggregation in the Coral Sea! Unreal action and something I think most people need to see at least once in their lifetime.

Now with all the Southern boats gone the locals finally have their waters back. Of late we have been doing a variety of charters from blue marlin fishing to light and medium tackle. We've been catching blue marlin to 200lbs with several bites from bigger fish. The dolphin fish have been consistent and sometimes extremely thick both on the edge and abit wider on the blue marlin grounds. Yellowfin, sailfish and Spanish mackerel have all been caught whilst fishing along the edge which is to be expected through the months of December /January.

With charters at the end of the week and the monsoon trough as it is - fingers crossed a cyclone does not form and rule them out.

GRANDER ON THE BANK

Have just had a 2 day break and we're heading out again tomorrow on a 4 day charter. We caught a nice fish around 1000lbs for George Campbell the other day at the bottom of Lindenbank. It was a great performer and his sons Glenn and Paul got some excellent video footage that we'll download on my next return.

On the same charter we went out to the tuna aggregation for a couple of days and showed the boys how awesome the life and the fishing is out there. Tuna schools 200 metres deep and 3 and 4 whale sharks around the boat at a time. Yellowfin to 60kgs jumping everywhere around us for the last couple of hours of every day.

I will be looking to head offshore to the tunas again this trip with the weather coming down and the winds from the North, the conditions should be ideal for this kind of open ocean fishing.

EARLY NOVEMBER FISHING

We headed for #10 Ribbon Reef to fish today, anchoring at No Name reef tonight. I've spent the last 3 days fishing on #8 where we caught 2 fish on Monday, 3 from 4 on the Tuesday, raising half a dozen others including a big one with only the 1 bite late yesterday at the final hour around 6.00pm. The run from Lizard Island back to Cooktown to start the charter was rough to say the least, continuing for the first couple of days of this charter and really sorting Jens out on day 1.

Congratulations Sharky on the Lizard Island Tournament win. We started reasonably well on the first couple of days of the tournament with plenty of opportunites on the last few days, though unable to secure successful hookups. Our final tally being 6 fish.

LIZARD ISLAND TOURNAMENT UPDATE

Day 4 of the Tournament - we had a frustrating day 3 yesterday failing to hook two fish (1 big one) and today we caught a small marlin of a 100 pounds with continued frustration having had a bite out of a monster fish estimated at around 1100-1200lbs that didn't take the bait as planned. Reports of several big fish around today.

OCTOBER UPDATE

We're currently fishing the 3rd day of the Lizard Island Tournament today with regular Japanese angler Omi Tomonori. We caught 1 fish on the first day and yesterday caught 3, with perfect weather conditions.

Our final tally for Ray's 2nd trip with Troy and Zane was 4 over the 7 days (8-14 October). We then fly fished with Mr Ishikawa we're we raised a total 6 fish for the 4 day charter. We threw the fly at 2 of them - hooked both and on both occasions broke the tippett (heartbreakingly). We estimated 1 around WR size of 250lbs and the other around 150lbs.

We had excellent fishing on the following 5 day trip with Karl Maxa and his mate Silly (20-24 October). We caught 9 fish in total with a selection of fat rats and 2 nice fish around 800/850lbs.

SEASON UPDATE

The fishing over the past few days has been just one or two bites a day with a few other tailing fish seen. Yesterday however the action improved late in the day with abit of a flurry, finishing with 8 bites for the day - 2 caught with 1 around 650 lbs and one around 250lbs, breaking line on one around 700lbs. The water quality is excellent with strong current to the South and South Easterly winds.

Fishing #10 Ribbon Reef we caught a nice 500lber on the first day of the charter with regular angler Ray Doody and his mates Troy and Zane.

The fishing prior to this with Ray, Webbo & Pino was reasonable - caught 5 for the 7 days with the largest estimated at around 700lbs and the others around the "fat rat" 300-400lb range. All great fun on the stand up. We got a bite out of a huge fish on day 3, though were unable to strike it.

Our fly fishing charter with Ishi in mid September was a challenging one. We raised several fish over the 4 days, though they were difficult to tease and unfortunately came away empty handed. We'll try again at the end of this week for Ishi.

The charter proceeding this was with Justin Gan and his wife Sui. We fished Lindenbank off Cairns before fishing our way North to the Middle Ribbons, where we found fish along the edge. We caught a total of 4 marlin for the charter with several others seen and had a bite out of a 700lber that we were unable to convert. The weather was sensational and the tuna and wahoo fishing excellent.

Our late September charter with first time Cairns marlin anglers Greg Soudoure and friends Keith & Tony was great. We caught 6 fish for the 4 days with one est around 800lbs. A great introduction to the Cairns marlin fishery for the boys.

"Hi Ross - Thank you very much for the heavy tackle fishing trip off Cooktown last week. You, Pete and Eddy showed us a fantastic time and of the many fishing charters which I have been on over the years, yours was by far the best... in every aspect. To catch 6 marlin in just 4 days was well beyond our expectations and the 800 pounder was just beyond belief.

Above all, we really appreciated the compassion you showed the fish and the passion you hold for your industry and its longevity.

We wish you all the best in the future and hope to be back on "Top Fish" sometime soon.

Cheers

Greg, Tony and Keith

EARLY SEPTEMBER FISHING

The light tackle marlin fishing action has been slower than usual this year. Regular anglers Lee and Josh Shardlow joined me for 3 days in early September. We spent the first day looking for a small black or sail inside the reef with no joy, though plenty of mackerel action and some GT's on poppers late in the day. The following day we headed outside to the Shelf and fished our way North to Lindenbank. The trolling was slow but the jigging was excellent, though the score certainly favoured the dogtooth more than they did Josh (a jig sponsor would come in handy!).

The conditions on the Bank looked excellent with strong South current & good water temperature (25.8 degrees).

My next September trip was with Greg, Arthur & Kim Laidler, from 8-10 Sep. We fished offshore around Lindenbank once again and had great fishing for mackerel, wahoo, yellowfin tuna, dolphin fish and had a bite from a marlin around 200lbs. The weather was excellent 5-10 knots providing superb reef conditions for a first time Cairns fishing trip for the Laidlers'.

From the 11th to the 13th, we fished heavy tackle with keen anglers Renee, Carlos and Memo from Mexico. The weather first day was ideal around 10-15 knots with the strong current still pushing South. The Bank was loaded with bait, scad, runners, skipjacks and yellowfin and all looked set to fire. First day, no bites from a marlin but we kept the boys busy with some nice wahoo and yellowfin. With the wind blowing up the next day to 20-25 knots - rough conditions had the guys wondering, do we really fish in this stuff?? That afternoon we caught a black around 200lbs, lost another one just out of leader reach - possibly around 180lbs and then at the end of the day, jumped off a small fish around 120lbs on a lure. They're here!!

On the final day we had 1 bite at the top of the Bank, but no hook up before fishing our way South for the run home.

With 2 days off now to load the boat and restore, I am looking forward to fly fishing with old time client and friend, Mr Ishikawa for 4 days.