Tags flags on Fritto 1

Some very hot marlin fishing action was recorded on Day 1 on the Lake Macquarie Big Fish Bonanza.  This is only a snapshot of the day’s action – the tournament finishes today:

Seaka, skippered by Geoff Thompson has streaked to the lead with 9 tags on day 1, followed by Rocket on … Rocket with 7.  Scotty Thorington’s Flying Fisher had a second grand slam in a row with another 6 marlin – 3 striped marlin, 2 blue marlin and 1 black marlin.  Garry Holt’s Diversion added a late fish to end up on 5, all on 15kg.  Andy tells me that on Fritto 1 they raised 9 marlin, hooked 6 and tagged 4.  While Karly Curtis was doing it for the ladies on board Ningaloo with brother Brad at the wheel. Karly tagged 4 from 6, all striped marlin in the 80-95kg range (decent sized stripes) with one on 15kg and the rest on 24kg.

On the Capture side of the tournament, Capt. Adam Jordan’s Iona 2 tells me they had 11 bites fishing with Kristy weighing a 58kg stripe on 8kg.  They also weighed another at 84kg on 15kg and tagged a third stripe on 15kg.

Line classes come into play significantly for point scoring so this is not an indication of the leaderboard!

Part of the marlin fishing grand slam caught off Port Stephens on Flying Fisher yesterday

Lake Macquarie Big Fish Tournament

Starts today with some hot marlin fishing going on yesterday indicating this might be a good one!  Capt. Scotty Thorington’s Flying Fisher 1 had a grand slam day with 6 from 6 – 4 striped marlin, 1 blue marlin and 1 black marlin. Ben “Notso” Bright who joined Scotty for his annual Port Stephens cameo on the first day of their Port season yesterday tells me that The Force caught 5 and a few trailer boats caught a few as well.  On Flying Fisher they were switch baiting in the morning and trolled skip baits in the afternoon hooking up on their final fish 5 miles in on the way home.  Ben says there is a lot of life out there with flying fish, tunas etc.

54 odd boats are fishing the comp from today. Good luck to all who are competing!

Sunshine Coast Game Fishing Club Classic

Day 1 yesterday saw Reel Capture take the lead with 2 black marlin and 1 sailfish.  Other boats with fish on Day 1 include Out Quoting with a sailfish, No Name (yes that’s the boat name) with 2 blue marlin, Reelaxin with 1 blue marlin, Blue Reela with 1 blue marlin and Galaxy 2 with two black marlin.  A great start~!  Good luck to all again today and thanks Tony for the update!

Jess Sams Tournament in Ulladulla

Fishing began yesterday for Jess Sam at Ulladulla as well but I don’t have any reports yet (anyone?)

Cairns Marlin Season Footage

Jordan has finished the Cairns Giant Black Marlin fishing season 2011 highlights on board Castille III, you can check out Part 1, 2 and 3 here.  Likewise, I have finished our KEKOA season DVD and have uploaded three new highlight clips to YouTube here.

Tommy Wright in action on board Hot Shot.

63 boats competed over the three days of the tournament with good weather conditions prevailing as well as a solid run of fish.

As it had been pre-BluWater Classic during the Tollgates Tournament the weekend before, the best bite continued to north of the Tuross Canyons.  Overall there were 80 marlin tagged as well as 4 captured – the best capture a 132 kg blue marlin to Lee Duffield.

The most marlin tagged by a boat over 6.5m went to Mr Hooker with 9 fish. In second place was the team on Hot Shot with 8 fish.

The most marlin tagged by a boat under 6.5m went to Blue Yonder with 4 fish. The Heaviest Shark was a 184 kg tiger to Jason Sinclair. The Highest Point Scoring Male Angler was Paul Baker with 43,000 points. The Highest Point Scoring Female Angler was Belinda Hawke with 24000 points.

Junior Thomas Wright on Hot Shot scored 87,000 points to give him the Junior Award. The Runner Up Junior was Brock Lazaro with 77,500 points. The Small Fry prize went to Jackson Hatton with 10,000 points. Great to see the young anglers doing so well!!

Many boats are enjoying some great marlin fishing early in the season out of Bermagui – hopefully it continues!

Some marlin fishing updates from Ulladulla in the leadup to the Jess Sams Tournament this weekend. Peter tells me he fished his boat Mayhem on Saturday and tagged two striped marlin, at one stage having 3 stripes up on a teaser at the back of the boat but only managed to switch one of those three. Meanwhile another local boat Blackjack tagged a 150kg black nearby.

Peter says there are bait schools all over and the fish appear to be wide spread all the way from 25 fathoms where Blackjack missed a double on the way in, all the way out to the shelf. One local pro also reported seeing 5 marlin while fishing in close of the headland, which means the marlin are within reach for everybody regardless of the size of boat. All going well it’s ready to fire this weekend!

North of Ulladulla there are reports of blacks, blues & stripes off Jervis Bay, The Banks  (170kg + black marlin) and Kiama with some boats reporting up to 6 and 7 fish in the one day.  South of Ulladulla the fishing continues to fire with reports of plenty of action at the Bermagui Bluewater Tournament  over the weekend where local boats Mr Hooker and Hot Shot battled it out for champion boat.

Anyone wishing to fish the Jess Sams Tournament can get an entry form at www.ulladullagamefishing.info

Bermagui

• The tournament report is still to come but I heard that Mr. Hooker took out the three day event. One fish behind was the team on Hot Shot with their junior angler Tom Wright taking out Champion Junior Angler with 8 tags.

Port Stephens

• While the marlin fishing has been slower mid-week, the fishing fired up in time for the weekend once again. On Saturday, Calypso (with Capt. Ross Finlayson at the wheel) released five while Blue Illusion got three stipes and spearfish.  Fritto 1, braved the 25 knot North-Easters yesterday for a 2-2-2 on the first two baits that hit the water. Andy tells me there were  a lot less boats on the water due to the weather.  Brent Hancock’s Tacklworld is also reporting 5 for Seaka at the Carpark, including a marlin grand slam, and four for Shelby, while Brent and the team on Born Free fished further to the south for two good stripes.  Brad Curis on Ningaloo tells me the fishing has been pretty consistent since the start of the year with 1 or two a day, and more on the good days. He released an estimated 300lb blue marlin on their last trip out on Friday and a stripe the day before, with their best day fish the week before with 5 stripes.
• More record hunting is also going on for the crews of Diversion and Gunnrunner.  Lone Wolf also got in on the act with a pending Australian Small Fry Record for Nathan Plunket – a 72.6kg black marlin on 15kg line. That’s Nathan in the black visor – great going for the young fella!
  

Upcoming Tournaments

• The Jess Sams Tourny at Ulladulla, Lake Macquarie Big Fish Bonanza and the Sunshine Coast GFC Classic are all on this weekend. Check out the tournament calendar for more details.