A still from Ben’s GoPro hat cam of his marlin on fly – solo

As I’m traveling out to never-never land for a quick trip over the next couple of days, internet connectivity and I may be a rarely meeting commodity–but hopefully if any reports come in, I’ll get them up so please do check back.  For those not following the facebook or twitter feeds though, a round up from the weekend:

Cairns: Capt. Adam Jordan on Iona 2 is now off once again on his annual vacay to Bali but had a quick fish at the Bus Stop on the way into Cairns yesterday. Adam said he’d raised 5 marlin by 10:30am including one nice fish, and released one at 150lbs before heading back into Cairns for an early mark.

Weipa: another great effort solo for Capt. Ben “Notso” Bright who took advantage of the wind easing Sunday to get out from Weipa in his Cairns Custom Craft Centre Console Last Cast for a look about.  Ben not only managed to re-fill the fish freezer with some good eating mackerel but also released a sailfish in the process. Ben is also currently working on a personal target of 100 fish on fly (he’s up to 36 now by the way) so when another billfish came up on the teaser, once he identified it as a black marlin, he couldn’t resist the chance to get it on fly.  After he pulled the teasers in, he whipped a cast out and he was hooked. And then things went crazy. Ben says he’s got some great footage on the GoPro once again so we’ll just have to wait until he has a chance to edit it.  Less than 25 minutes later, and after a few missed shots (lets remember this is solo!), the tag was in!  Great stuff Ben!

QLD South-East: Capt. Rob “Smithy” Smith has reported a few more billfish showing up with the good weather over the weekend in the South-East.   On the Sunshine Coast Reel Capture released the first billfish of the new season for SGFC with a striped marlin on 8kg. Smithy also reports SPGSFC trailer boat Ramjet released a blue marlin off the Gold Coast on Saturday as well. Meanwhile, the boys from Larva Lures also raised a blue and a striped marlin, before finishing with three good sized dollies.

WA: Josh Bruynzeel’s On Strike has been out in his new boat, a 30ft FURY 282 centre console and is certainly getting amongst the fish. On Friday, Josh almost had a marlin slam releasing a stripe and a black but unfortunately not converting a big blue.

Some more promising news for crews fishing any of the light tackle tournaments upcoming over the next month in North Queensland with a few first year marlin reported during the first two days of fishing at the Cairns BlueWater 6kg Tournament being held out of Fitroy Island at present.  On both Day 1 and 2, 3 billfish were tagged each day and a number more raised and lost.  And, what is most promising is that 5 of the 6 fish have been ‘first year’ black marlin in the 30-40lb range.

Last year the Cairns BlueWater comp, like the Townsville Billfish Challenge which follows next weekend (Sept. 2-7), saw the majority of all billfish tags being sailfish with only a single black marlin released.  (Likewise the 2010 Townsville Tournament saw all sails and a single black which was a bit larger than the usual first year model.)   Hopefully this is a promising sign that there are still some juvenile blacks around in the north and with weather conditions settling down considerably this weekend, hopefully more results will come through all the way down the coast from Cairns to Townsville.

Day 1 tags went to Nickers and Kanahoee which has Capt. Chris “Sharky” Miles at the helm this year.  (Sorry I don’t have the third boat’s name. Anyone?)  Day 2 tags to Marcel, Chaos and Hellraiser and so the tournament is still anyone’s to win with the final day’s fishing today.

(Apologies if I’ve spelled any boat names incorrectly. I do that!) Thanks Mick for the update!

We’re in town on a day off and I’m away from my computer so I’ll keep this brief and add the photos later. Just a few reports from Tuesday’s fishing which are: Calypso with one from two, a nice 750lb-er which Capt. Tim Dean said was a hot fish.  Their guests from Texas must be having an absolute ball already following up from their three to 700lb the day before. Hot Shot also had another nice solid 500lb-er on the Bank nearby.  Iona 2 did battle with the small fish with the one as well.  And Tradition also released a 300lb-er late at 6pm.  Capt. Tim Richardson said they also had some late bites on Monday jumping three off..all after 6 then as well!

There was a bit of rain out there yesterday and by the looks of it in here, a little more is on its way today!

After a couple of days of nice flat calm weather, Wednesday started with a tropical thunderstorm rolling through the anchorage at 2am, and the clouds and rain still lingered by morning… But what a day it turned out to be. By lunchtime, the sky had cleared to blue and the wind had dropped right back.

On KEKOA, we trolled south over the Bank and in towards Spur Reef and picked up two energetic flying blacks in the 200-250lb range for Adrian and Blake before taking an early mark back into port. That put us a five for the three days. We’re out again late this afternoon and fishing tomorrow.

Capt. Tim on Tradition reports it was a bit quieter on Number 8 yesterday. He headed up to Number 10 Ribbon Reef and released one from three on Second Corner before heading into Lizard Island.  I also spoke to deckie Brad on Iona who also came in for changeover from their latest trip ending with  6 in 7 days including the 950lb-er at Escape Reef and another in the 500lb range.  Brad tells me they also had a ball spearfishing and fishing for bait in the mornings.

More photos from yesterday:

There are always a few big girls at the Bank and so when word filtered through last night that Troy on Cool Runnings had just released one he put at 900lbs, we weren’t surprised.  Capt. Tim Dean on Calypso, who returned to Cairns on changeover last night was reluctant to leave the spot as the water looked good and he was marking plenty of fish.  Congrats to the Cool Runnings team who are spending another day on the bank today.

Hot Shot have also returned from their last 5 days of light tackle fishing–a successful trip–which now sees them move onto heavy tackle for the season.

A few of the professional fleet have also encountered over the last few days a 5.8m runabout called Extreme with owner Shan who tells me he spends a lot of time fishing both Linden Bank and Jenny Louise.  Shan fished Monday at the bank amongst the fleet and raised two blacks estimated at 600lb+ and 2-250lb with no conversions although he did sink the tags into two nice wahoo (22.5 & 17kg) before beginning his eventual 3.5hr journey in, due to the squall that came through. Its always great to see the little boats out there–and sometimes showing us all up too!