Fishing Reports

Cairns 2007

Looking back through my diary between September and December 2008, shows a fairly grim look at the giant black marlin season off cairns. In all, it was a fairly slow year, and knowone really knows why. Maybe the fish remained offshore? Or maybe the fish were down south off townsville, needless to say, it shows we really don’t know all that much about their movements.

We started fairly late on the 20th of September and finished late on the 17th of December and the best fishing we saw was in the last 2 weeks.
September saw beautiful weather and even with long time cairns skipper Capt Peter B Wright on board we only managed a few bites.  We figured while the fishing was so slow we would head wide and have a look at Osprey reef, atleast we could almost guarantee excellent “chop off” fishing.  After a couple of days wide we returned to the middle and had the 1 bite and let go a 800lber fish on 5 ribbon reef. This was our first fish for the season, and a nice one at that, it was also the start of the long a waited trades to blow.

During the tournament the trades really blew and it was thought that the fish would all come tailing into the reef in the large swell, albeit fish were caught, not to mention some enormous ones, the big blow didn’t bring the mother load.  Regular big fish angler Henry smidt let go an estimated 900lber, and another 800lber and 3 more small fish were caught for the week in what was the worst weather I have endured on the reef.

The high light for October was a great calm spell and a few fish were being caught in the middle, Daryle Gregory managed probably the smallest black marlin caught on the Ultimate lady to date when he wrestled a fish of 20kg to the boat.  On the last day of the trip, I was in the tower heading out thinking to myself…”what a beautiful day and it only takes one fish to turn this trip around”. We fished 4 ribbon and just after lunch, a very large fish turned up between the boat and the big bait. It circled, and failed to eat the large scaley on the first attempt, it then circled again behind and then in front of the bait, suddenly changing color to jet black, it turned and engulfed the bait head first in a going away bite that had the entire fishes body out of the water.  It is with out a doubt, the best bite I have witnessed, and a memory I will have with me for a long time!  The sad part of this story is we fought it for 10 minutes before another fish swam over the line and cut us off.  However, this fish did have the desired affect, as every one onboard left with at least seeing this magnificent fish.

The next trip saw us head wide to the sea mount, and on our first day, similar to other days we have fished the area, we saw nothing until 4pm, when we caught 3 from 6 bites.  With another large fish breaking us off with no apparent reason.  We celebrated that night with the success of the afternoon in glorious weather. However, consistent to fishing the edge this year, where a boat will have a successful day on a particular reef, only to find the very next day that the fish had disapeared.  After a couple of days scoring all zeros, we headed back into the bank.

We fished the bank for the next couple of trips chipping away at some small fish, on lures and baits.  The cyclone up north hampered one trip, where wind an rain made it hard going, however similar to 2 paragraphs up, it only took one fish to turn the trip around, however this fish wasn’t exactly the target species.  We had headed up north and on the last night of the trip we were having dinner when a large thump was heard.  We all hurried out side to find a shark and jumped into our inflatable that was tied up behind the boat.  Which in turn proceeded to destroy our dingy. We quickly pulled the dingy alongside.  James and  I looked at each other in disbelief as to how the shark got in there in the first place…and then as to how were going to get it out!!  The shark must have over heard, as it then decided to bite into the inner tube thereby deflating the front section of the dingy, we were then able to secure a rope to its tail and with the front of the dingy deflated and under water it more or less was able to swim out on its own accord.  These guests also left with an everlasting memory etched into their minds.

The rest of the season went with out hitch, with various other fish to 850lbs, a couple of blues and a bunch of small ones thrown in for luck.  As mentioned earlier, the best fishing for us was the last 2 weeks of the season, where we released 20 fish, and altogether 39 for the season, with 5 over 700lbs.

The fishing may have been slow this year, and the big ones for us were very thin on the ground, however good times were had by all, and cairns still remains the greatest big marlin fishery in the world.  I can’t wait for next season!

Good fishing.
Tom