Thinking of fishing this fabulous fishery? This page lists profiles of the very experienced captains who contribute reports to this blog and offer fishing charters across the country! Any one of these professional captains would love to welcome you on board for a marlin fishing or sport / gamefishing charter. For more information about amazing boats in the fleet, please visit the BMFB Boat Directory which includes links to each boat’s website directly.
About this page:
- Profiles are listed alphabetically (by surname).
- Use the alphabet links at top to skip to profiles of that letter.
- Click on the “Add to Address Book” to download the v-card format and add to your address book.
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Brett is a lifelong game fisherman. He caught his first billfish in 1984 at the age of 12 and has held National Records in Australia and Papua New Guinea. He was the first angler in Australia to tag 4 Blue Marlin in day, at the age of 15.
In 1989 Brett commenced professional fishing on the Gold Coast and Cairns working as a Deckhand for Skippers such as Phil Roebuck, Peter Kirkby, Ray Johnson, and Peter Radtke. He became a qualified Skipper in 1995, and drove the 36′ custom “Gold Strike” for the next 3 years. Brett spent 1999 in the Maldives as Captain of the 45′ Hatteras “Mad Hatter” and returned to Australia to oversee construction of “Mistress”.
Brett is qualified as a Master Class 5 Fishing and Trading, and as a Marine Engine Driver Grade 2. He has extensions allowing him to drive a commercial boat up to 200 miles offshore.
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“Brownie” has been fishing most of his life. His first sport fishing experiences were in the Whitsundays in the 60’s targeting sailfish for guests of the Hayman Island Resort, where he worked as a deckhand on the island boats. He purchased his first game fishing boat in 1985 and a few years later, had a 40ft Pleysier built. From the mid 80’s to the mid 90’s he and Captain Bill Edwards, the late Captain Geoff Ferguson, Captain Bob Jones and Captain Ross McCubbin pioneered the blue marlin fishery off the SE Qld coast.
In the mid 90’s he concentrated on producing and presenting his Brownie’s Coastwatch shows for Channel 7 and doing his Coastwatch reports in 7 News. In 2005 Brownie retired from TV and returned to the blue marlin fishery on board Megumi, a 44ft Assegai. He formed the Brisbane Sport Fishing Adventure Club, which is a small exclusive fishing club whose members have access to the boat for 12 months and fish for enjoyment rather than points. Although the members use the boat a lot, Megumi is available for charter.
Brownie operates in SE Qld, where he still has some media interests and concentrates his efforts on the blue marlin and inshore light tackle fisheries between Fraser Island and the Gold Coast.
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Daniel’s passion for fishing began as a youngster, tagging his first black marlin at age 12, he was hooked. In 2007 at the age of 18 he and three young mates won champion boat capture at the prestigious NSW inter club Tournament in Port Stephens.
In September 2007 he worked on deck aboard Mistress and in 2008 joined Captain Kim Anderson on New Moon for a bumper season, the highlight of which was a massive 1324lb black marlin.
In 2009 Daniel seized the opportunity to captain Little Audrey and excelled as captain in his first season tagging 19 black marlin from 20 days in Cairns. 2010 began with a bang with 22 billfish from 14 days, highlighted by winning the prestigious Australian International Billfish Tournament with 7 Billfish in 2 days.
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Captain Dave Cassar has been game fishing since age 10, catching his first billfish at just 11 years old. From these early beginnings, Dave pursued his lifelong dream of fishing as a career, and at 16 he began crewing charter boats in his hometown of Bermagui NSW.
From the marlin and tuna rich waters of Australia’s south eastern coastline, Dave spent seasons chasing the gamefishing circuit around the globe, with Hawaii, Panama, Costa Rica, Bermuda, Florida and North Carolina just some of the hotspots fished.
The wealth of knowledge gained from fishing around the globe, along with nine consecutive seasons on the Great Barrier Reef off Cairns (four of which were spent under the legendary Captain Laurie Wright) has led Dave to commence operation of Slammer Sportfishing Charters.
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Capt Brad Craft has spent over 30 years in the gamefishing and diving fleet and has over 25 years experience as a captain. Having worked with world renowned Captains Peter Bristow and Laurie Wright and run boats Sea Strike, Diamond Girl, Shoki, Silvery Moon and Reelistic.
In 1999 he designed and built a series of 34ft sportfishing boats under the PIRATE name, all of these vessels are still active charter boats today. In 2004 he and angler Jay Teeter weighed the 10th heaviest fish in Cairns history 1304lb, a strong advocate for tag and release this fish was the last fish to be weighed.
As past president of the Cairns Professional Gamefishing Assosciation he fought tirelessly to remove foreign owned longliners from Australian waters and was instrumental in the introduction of a ban on the commercial take of Billfish in the Australian fishing zone. This was passed by Parliment and introduced as law in 1995.
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Capt. Tim Dean has been fishing the East Coast of Australia almost his entire life, starting out at the age of 5 years old with his father John. After setting up ‘Calypso Fishing Adventures’ in Port Stephens in the summer of 1992, Tim began his illustrious career as much sort-after big game captain.
A major part of Calypso‘s season is dedicated to big game fly fishing from Port Stephens, of which they do more than any other vessel in the country. Tim is also a 16 year veteran of the Cairns Giant Black Marlin season and has made many significant catches at the helm including 1280lb black marlin his biggest fish.
Traveling the entire east coast of Australia each year Tim meets/knows fishermen from all areas, commercial and recreational. Tim is extremely passionate about the Marine Park issues around Australia and their impact on small coastal communities and fishing people everywhere.
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Captain Craig “SPARRA” Denham has over 25 years experience in the charter industry on the east coast of Australia and numerous international destinations. Learning from some of the worlds best captains and crews has giving him a great foundation in the charter business.
Being a captain for the past 15 years, he has lead his anglers to numerous ultra light tackle and fly fishing world records including a 733lb black marlin on 6lb line. His main passion is still heavy tackle fishing, catching many 1000lb black marlin for clients including the largest black marlin caught in the last 30 years weighing in at a whopping 1389lbs!
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Captain Luke Fallon’s dream of a life on the sea started while day dreaming in the school classroom, and now 25 years on Luke has carved out a career, which has seen him become one of the most respected and successful captains chartering the East Coast of Australia.
Luke started on deck as a 16 year old for many of the regular Cairns heavy tackle captains such as Jim Dalling, Greg Edwards and Terry Parker. His eye for detail, strong work ethic and enthusiasm left such an impression on the fishing fraternity that they had no doubt that Luke Fallon would start the next generation of successful skippers to fish the Great Barrier Reef. His captain’s resume includes being at the helm of The Warrigal, Reef Hunter, Reel Easy 2, 5 years on the Assegai and now 5 years on the KEKOA (starting with the KEKOA 47 in 2006).
Career highlights include catching 9 giant black marlin in a single day and landing many fish close to and over 1,000lbs–the biggest a staggering 1,298lbs.
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Corey Hard grew up fishing the reefs surrounding Bouganville Island, P.N.G. On returning to Sydney, Australia at age 10 he continued his passion for fishing from his “tinnie” around Sydney.
At 24 years of age Corey headed north to pursue his dream of catching giant black marlin out of Cairns. He gained valuable commercial experience on prawn trawlers, longliners and mackerel fishing before getting a start as game boat deckhand. The next 5 years were spent on the great boats such as Kananhoee, Desperado, Sea Baby and Viking II before going on to captain Desperado, Inya Dreams and Iona. Corey was winning captain on Mauna Kea in the Cairns Black Marlin 40th Anniversary Tournament before achieving his dream of skippering the Assegai 55 custom Askari in 2009.
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Adam’s interest for game fishing began 12 years ago fishing the Newcastle and Port Stephens waters for black, striped and black marlin. His need to catch the illusive 1000lb black marlin and the opportunity 8 years ago to do a trip north to Cairns for the Giant Black Marlin Season from September to December got the former rugby league player hooked on big game fishing! His passion for his new sport and for boats made the decision for Adam to purchase the 43ft O’Brien Iona in 2005.
He employed the experience of world renowned Captains Trent Visscher and Tim Dean to refine the knowledge and practical expertise that Adam had already acquired in his 12 years of game fishing. This experience with Capt Tim along with his proven results has gained Adam respected recognition in the Cairns Fleet — and his results have been rewarded with clients worldwide rebooking for the upcoming Cairns Giant Black Marlin Season.
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Capt. Chris (Sharky) Miles has had a passion for fishing from an early age, graduating from land-based to boats, taking to the water every spare chance, in all types of vessels. By the age of 16, he had started his marlin fishing career on deck with Capt. Frank Thompson (93-94), Capt. Dave Pemberton (95), Capt. Bob Jones (96-02). In 2002 he accepted the offer from Captain Peter B Wright to crew in the Canary Islands, Dominican Republic and Bimini in the Bahamas, fishing for the giant Tuna in the DUYFKEN. In 2003 he took the helm of Tenacious winning the Lizard Island Black Marlin Classic back to back in 05/06 and in 2007 was picked up by Maritimo to promote their new Sportsfisher 550 for the Cairns Season which proved to be a successful venture for both parties. In 2008 and 2009 Sharky Skippered the Mauna Kea. 2010 will find him at the helm of Sea Baby IV — already starting his season off on top with a win at the Townsville Billfish Challenge.
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Capt Tim Richardson and Tradition have earned an envious reputation for
their ability to find fish for their clients consistently year after year. Capt Tim Richardson has fished the Reef for 18 seasons with 23 granders caught or released, and it shows with his number of repeat clients that come back each year to fish on a beautiful boat with a hand picked crew by Capt Tim.
Tradition is a 49 foot custom boat built in Cairns by the legendary Dick Ward and has been constantly updated each year including a major refit in 2010.
Fully air conditioned with accommodation for up to 4 guests in great comfort, she is available for liveabord, mothershipping and also working from Lizard Island. Tradition also has a full set of video cameras to record all the action.
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Captain Tim Ryan over a 12 year period has accumulated a very extensive background working the mecca game fishing and aquatic playgrounds of the Australian East Coast including Port Douglas, Cairns, Lizard Island, Townsville, the Whitsundays Islands and Port Stephens.
Tim has winning game fishing tournament successes at the Port Stephens Inter-Club Classic (the largest tournament in the southern hemisphere) and also at the Yorkey’s Knob Tournaments in Cairns.
Tim has a passion for all things aquatic and piscatorial and is keen to show clients the splendours of the Great Barrier Reef whether it be snorkeling, diving, cruising or chasing down that fish of a lifetime. He will ensure your adventure aboard MV Joe Joe will turn into a long life memory.
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Capt. Ashley Wallis captured his first marlin at the age of fourteen, and since then has tagged over 800 billfish. Ashley’s had some great fishing. One week for instance; his anglers tagged 61 marlin in seven days.
Ashley started skippering professionally in 1998 on a boat called OB1. During the four years on OB1 Ashley fished the waters off Batemans Bay and Bermagui and then, in 2003, Ashley began skippering the Ultimate II and extended his fishing range to include the waters of the world famous Great Barrier Reef.
Throughout Ashley’s successful game fishing career he took many anglers to victory in over a dozen tournaments, such as the prestigious Australian International Billfish Tournament, but it is not only in tournaments where anglers can triumph, one lucky angler achieved a personal best of tagging 14 marlin in one day and he has also helped many anglers accomplish the dream of catching a marlin of over one thousand pounds! After seven years of skippering the Ultimate II and achieving his best season of tagging, 132 marlin, Ashley is now skippering the Kalira and will be specialising in game fishing on the Great Barrier Reef. Ashley can tailor a trip to suit your requirements.
Capt. Jared Weir has been fishing for over 20 years – the last 17 as captain – in some of the most prolific sport fishing destinations in the southwest Pacific. He began his professional career in Vanuatu where he was instrumental in establishing areas such as the Maskelyne Group that are now considered some of the country’s legendary grounds. Jared has fished extensively in the Port Stephens and Gold Coast areas as well as his home base of Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef.
He has served under renowned sport fishing figures such as Capt. Marcus Thomson (Vanuatu), Capt. Dean Beech and Capt. Geoff Ferguson (Australia) and Capt. Mike Stine (USA). Jared has been part of the Shaka team since its inception and was intimately involved in Shaka‘s design and construction.
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IGFA Certified Capt. Laurie Wright has been fishing these waters for 30 years, and in that time has guided his clients to numerous, large Black Marlin, world records, light tackle and heavy tackle tournament wins and hot fishing. Whether you want to fish heavy tackle, light tackle or enjoy the thrill of fly fishing, we have an exclusive charter available for you.
A long-term commitment to his clients and the game fishing industry has seen Captain Laurie Wright’s guests return to fish time and time again. Captain Laurie Wright has steered his anglers to many world records, and the men’s world record black marlin on 8# test line (462#) and the women’s world record black marlin on 30# test line (814#) are still standing.
Laurie is a long standing member and a past President of the Cairns Professional Game Fishing Association. You are invited to share Captain Laurie Wright’s love of marlin fishing and the Great Barrier Reef.
