Castille III owners Mark and Stephanie Ripper joined Capt. Deano and the boat in Townsville last week to do some light-light tackle marlin fishing. Leaving Wednesday around 5 pm, team Castille ran down to Cape Bowling Green to anchor behind the spit for the night.

Day 1, Thursday, heading out to the grounds, around 12 nautical miles from the anchorage, the wind was blowing a consistent 20 knots and the fishing started slow. Just 3 bites with Stef unfortunately losing a nice sailfish on 4 kg line after 30 minutes.

Day 2, Friday, the wind was still up but the fishing was making up for it with 8 bites from marlin and Mark successfully releasing a black on 4 kg. The team also managed to raise a pack of 6 sailfish and switch baited to live yakkas to them. Unfortunately, the light tackle came into play and Stef broke hers off on 4 kg and shortly after, Mark did the same on 2kg.

Day 3, Saturday, the wind died and the fish showed up in numbers tagging 4 marlin from 8 and pulling the hooks on 2 others close to the boat. Day 4, Sunday, was a short day with flights to catch, tagging 1 from 2 before returning to Port at lunch.

Photo: One of Stef's 4 marlin for the day 3.

Fancy sharing your marlin pics to be in with a chance to win? I'm giving away a couple of Pelagic T's to the best photo to be added to the BMFB Flicr Group by December 1. That gives you plenty of time still to take a magic shot or dig through your existing collections. As you share your photos with our Flickr Group, you'll see them in the slideshow at top.

Enter the Photo Contest using Flickr

To add a photo to Flickr and enter the BMFB photo contest, just follow these easy steps:

1. Log on -- Use your Yahoo! ID to login to www.flickr.com . If you don't have an account, you can sign-up for free. Join the Black Marlin Fishing Blog group by clicking "Join this Group?" on the group homepage.
2. Upload an image -- After logging in, upload your images from the "You" tab.
3. Send the Image to Our Group -- Use the "Send to Group" function above the image to add your photograph to the Black Marlin Fishing Blog's photo pool.

It's as easy as that.

Photos above from the BMFB Photo pool from myself on Reel Chase and Capt. Tim on Tradition. Read on the "What's New " page for more information about Flickr for novice users.

Wild Turkey took home this years Cairns BlueWater 6kg Tournament held over the weekend with 5 black marlin tagged - storming home with 4 on Sunday. It sounds like a good showing with close to 20 fish released.

Photo of Mick and Champion Lady Angler Sue and marlin (2 marlin and 1 tagged mac tuna) fishing on Seaduca.

According to the club, this year's tournament had largest number of black marlin tags in its history. Good news all round!

Elektrakushen got down the Cape early on Saturday morning and it paid off with the little blacks seemingly waiting for their arrival. By 7:30am they'd already missed two fish. By 8:30, they had two. And by 10:30, four. They spent the next three hours on a (bigger than the usual CBG juvie) but that was okay, because the bite slowed down at lunch time as well.

All in all, about a dozen TGFC boats made it down in the absolutely glamour weather - an oily 5 - 10 knots. Most had their action early on the Saturday including Sea Baby IV with (I hear) 4 for the day including a double header of sails. Team Sedative also got in on the action with two, jumping another one off. And Mojo got one for each of the days. August has always been a hit and miss month. On the whole it seems Saturday was the hit, and Sunday the miss.

But we're still champing at the bit to join the guys up there - because when it's on, it's very on.

Update: It seems Sunday was not a miss after all with Sea Baby releasing another 4 for the day and Kanahoee with a reported 5.

Well it's that time of year again when the fleet who do not permanently reside in Cairns get ready to head North. Many will be stopping over in Townsville on the way for some light tackle action. Reel Chase got a head start leaving the Gold Coast last week.

Fishing their way up, Capt. Jim reports that they have enjoyed some glorious days on the water - for a change - with light breezes and flat seas. Some slight sunburn and slow but quality fishing.

Stopping over in Yeppoon, which is a great spot to fish, they got a couple of good days reddie fishing in. Capt. Jim says the numbers of trailer boats out fishing even on a work day is quite amazing, and so the secret spots don’t last long, but they managed a number of good red emporer and big mouth nanagai.

On day 2 Peter Zac pulled in this monster emperor which weighed in at 13kgs. The boys were convinced it was a cobia as it fought hard all the way to the boat. They also managed a couple of cobia and the usual sweetlip and snapper. Not a bad haul at all!