From Cairns heavy tackle, Capt. Adam and Iona 2 have been heading up the Ribbons in not too favourable weather. Even still they managed to release two yesterday on Number 10 Ribbon Reef at 300 and 150lbs (picture). Its a really good sign for the season ahead, the fish being around so early.

From Townsville light tackle, today was Day 1 of the Mike Carney Toyota Billfish Challenge.  Unfortunately, the quiet we experienced before the tournament has continued through the start. Not a single black marlin was seen although two sailfish were tagged and released from amongst the 30 boat fleet.

On board Screamer, Pemberton Jnr (Lindsay) tagged the first billfish of the tournament just after 1pm.  At 2, the team on board Elektrakushen put a tag in a sail that angler Brad Kane had been fighting for two hours on the 6kg line.  These were not the only seen.  On board Castille III, Capt. Deano raised a pod of sails for a double hookup which unfortunately turned to a double jump off soon after.  And there were a few more reports of fish lost around that same time including Burgundy Lady who had a couple of bites that couldn’t be converted.

Thank goodness for the west! With no reports from either of tournaments held in NQ over the weekend come in yet, Broome has come to the rescue once again.

• Jeff reports that things are heating up in Broome as they usually do at this time of year. Billistic caught 20 sails on Saturday, following on from 16 on Friday. Fish Broome Charters has also been in the action with a double digit day on Saturday.  Jeff went out Sunday with a bunch first timers managing to catch 8 from a progression of double hookups.  He found jigging for bait didn’t work too well though as every time the jig hooked up on bait there would be a bunch of sails marauding it back up to the surface   (UPDATE: Billistic (Broome Fishing Charters) has released 62 sails in the last 6 days!)

Read the rest of this entry »

A quick report from Paul on Think Big in Cairns who also took advantage of the weather over the weekend to get out wide.  Within 20 minutes of putting the lines in the water they already had a couple of nice tuna on board and were connected to a 100lb black on 8kg, which they tagged and released 30 minutes later.
Read the rest of this entry »

Steve reports that in the week since the tournament the weather has vastly improved and the fishing is firing once again. On the weekend, 5 knot winds and 28 degree temperatures greeted the 20 plus boats on the water.

Read the rest of this entry »

Report courtesy of Steve Tatham – thanks Steve!

Competitors fishing the Dampier Classic over the weekend encountered very unfavourable conditions with the winds mostly 30-35 knots, peaking at 42 knots on the Monday.  Billfish numbers were down on the huge result from last year (291 sailfish and 53 black marlin in 2009), sailfish significantly, and this year there were more marlin caught than sailfish. But it was still a good showing considering the conditions with 46 black marlin and 12 sailfish tagged.

Read the rest of this entry »