A final update before Christmas and a few days offline:

• Steve Bedwell from Port Macquarie Game Fishing  Club sent me an updated report from last Sunday’s club day.  Steve said 5 boats fished in great weather. Purple Haze went 1 from 2 blue marlin at approx 120kgs  to Darren Lewis. While Renegade took a short bill spearfish for junior Jessica Hyde  which went 21.4 kg on 15 kg line.  Hermans Heros fished for an unfortunate 2-1-0 blue marlin and striped marlin . A reminder that the Golden Lure Comp starts on the 6 January and runs to the 14th January with more that $35,000 in prizes to be won!  Thanks Steve!
• And Steve Williams also sent me a catch up report from the recent Yorkey’s Knob Wahi Wahi comp: While the tournament is wahoo and mahi-mahi only point scoring, Grant Harradine fishing on board Stressless scored himself a PB, hooking and tagged his first sailfish of 45kg on board at the top of Linden Bank. Steve says you still can’t get him off cloud nine and he can only imagine what he’s going to be like when he finally tags a black marlin after four losses (including an 800lber lost after 3.5 hours skipper error!!!)

A quick report from Capt. Ken Brown on Megumi who caught a blue about 300lbs on Wednesday on the canyons E/SE of Point Lookout for angler Kirby Ballen. It was Kirby’s first marlin and Ken says he’s been levitating instead of walking around since!  Ken also headed out to fish off Cape Moreton yesterday, but the wind was up and the sea very rough. They decided to give the shelf a swerve and dropped some light tackle lures in on ‘The Trench’ where they raised a little black after 5 minutes. Unfortunately the fish didn’t hook up and it was an early return to port as the team on board were getting sea sick.

More early Christmas presents in the form of marlin in South-East Queensland. What better way to spend the holiday!

• On the Gold Coast, Capt. Dean Beach on Castille III hit the blue marlin for the first time since the boat’s return from the season up north.  They released two blues at 300 and 400lb and a nice dolphin fish. He’s out again today and already has a 200lb striped marlin on the board!
• Steve tells me that brother Andrew Morely on Express, a 6.5 m trailer boat from the Surfers Paradise GSFC fished the Tweed Canyons yesterday as well and went 3-3-2 on blue marlin and topped the day off with some blue-eye on a deep drop.
• Meanwhile, Vince on Barco fished Tuesday for zeros but found them yesterday as well with a 1 from 2 blue. Vince also says there’s a lot of dolphin fish out there (which would be great on the table for Christmas!)
• A late report from David Granville on the Sunshine Coast who tells me Reel Capture finally got its first juvenile black of the season Tuesday with owner Craig McCulloch finding himself with a rod in his hand instead of a steering wheel. Craig threw out a live bait on 4kg while the rest were still jigging bait and of course it got eaten. It was a small fish about 25kg but nice to finally get off the mark as it has been a slow start on the Sunnie Coast for the small blacks. Unfortunately that was the only bite for the day apart from a couple of snapper on plastics!

Yet more reports to add to the sked. It’s so great to hear so much fishing is going on in the leadup to the holidays:

• Barry Alty’s Mistress is now up to 5 blue marlin in 4 days fishing at home on the Gold Coast. Barry says what is interesting is that 3 of them have been respectively; 450, 450 and 550lbs which is quite unusual. Most of the blues they get on the Goldy are in the 300lb range with the occasional one a bit smaller and the occasional one a bit bigger, but seldom any over 400lbs. There seems to be a different class of fish around at the moment. Barry predicts this may be the year of the grander blue!
• Daniel sent me a report and photo (below) from the Sydney GFC boat Gale Force on the weekend. On Sunday, they released 2 striped marlin east of the 12 mile. The first fish was hooked on a lure, the second fish was hooked on a skip bait and was one of at least 2 very small marlin (45Kg max) following the teasers. Daniel said once the fish felt it was hooked up, it went crazy in the spread and ended up cutting off their favourite rigger teaser! I know how painful it is to lose your favourite teaser! Thanks Daniel!

A couple of more reports to add into yesterday’s sked:

• Another blue marlin report from the Gold Coast yesterday with Craig Summerville’s Tsunami releasing two from two blue marlin at 400 and 250lbs.
• Also a very late season Cairns black marlin for us on KEKOA yesterday on Opal Ridge for Frank who is visiting from the UK with his two sons. It looked so good on the Bank yesterday with yellowfin busting all over, if it was a month earlier, the fishing would be going off! Also fishing a late season day trip on fly on Thursday, Capt. Chris “Sharky” Miles on Kanahoee tagged a sailfish (on fly) at Jenny Louise Shoal.

Catch up video: This is a youtube clip made by Lyndsay Dunn of Chris Caron’s 850lb-er which was tagged with a satellite tag during the Lizard Island Black Marlin Classic this year on Number 10 Ribbon Reef.  Energetic fish!