We left this morning to head North for Cooktown to commence the 2010 marlin season. Hard to believe another season is upon us. Our first five days will be flyfishing with Mr Ishikawa from Japan and then conventional heavy tackle fishing from the 21st of October with the lads from Kiwi land. The weather appears good for the next couple of days, though a huge high is on it's way which will bring plenty of wind - not ideal for the fly fishing, though still good for the big fish.
I'll be reporting on the fishing every other day where possible and also posting to a new blog - www.cairnsblackmarlinblog.com along with fellow Captains' Darren "Biggles" Haydon on the Allure and Hayden Bell on the Release.
Being a La Nina year with warm temperatures already, it'll be interesting to see how the season progresses, with several reports of fish seen already. The water looks great out hear today at 26.7 degrees on my depth sounder.
Although a quiet couple of months on the normally steady light tackle charter front, we've been busy (since last blog) with a flyfishing trip to Japan with fellow kiwi captain - Geoff Lamond from New Zealand - fishing for blue marlin with Mr Ishikawa. The fishing was excellent and exceded our expectations. In the four days of fly fishing we raised 10 blue marlin between 150 & 300lbs. We threw the fly at five, had four on - jumping them off - breaking them off and got a gaff into a potential world record, estimated 300lbs before it took the gaff and broke the line.
It was a fantastic experience and we're looking forward to the opportunity of another shot next year.
August saw us head north to the Lockhardt/ Portland Roads area of Cape York with Darren Haydon, Hayden Bell and Brazakka, fishing with Fred Turner and his friends on his annual trip to the Great Barrier Reef. The "Spirit of Freedom" was once again the mothership for the trip and we had 18 days of great fishing for Spanish mackerel, trevally, bottom fish and heli fishing with Brazakka for barramundi.
We took 5 days to travel to Lockhardt, where the owner of the Top Shot, Greg joined us with mates Tom and Sam where we had unreal fishing and crabbing throughout the trip.
My last 2 day light tackle trip from Cairns in early September, saw us catch the usual Spanish mackerel, barracuda, scaley mackerel etc. We raised a nice fish around 300lbs on 30lb tackle but couldn't get a bite and finished on the death with a 50lb sailfish which made the trip for English anglers, Martin and Scott.
