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!!!)

Report from Megumi‘s Capt. Ken “Brownie” Brown who fished the canyons E/SE of Point Lookout and went 2 from 3 on blue marlin. Ken says one was about 350-400 for angler Ross Skerman and the other about 250-300 for Peter Mitchell.  Ken also says they had a bite from an absolute animal just after putting the lines back in after the 2nd fish, and although they didn’t hook up, he got a good look at it as it swam across the the back of the wake. Ken says it was the biggest fish he’s seen in many years of fishing for blues off SE Queensland!  They did a bunch of circles around the area and raised it again with it coming up under the short rigger, pecs all lit up, but once again, wouldn’t eat.  Then, it cruised over to the long flat line and did the same thing.   What a shame!

Ken says the big fish are definitely out there its only a matter of time before someone will put one on the scales that’s over the mark!

Also a video to share from Ben “Notso” Bright from his day solo fishing from a few weeks ago, where he went 2 from 4 sailfish, all on fly, off Weipa.  Good stuff Ben!

From the reef: I heard that Capt. Brad Craft on Reelistic had the pick of the day on Friday releasing two nice black marlin at Spur Reef at 750 and 950lbs.  And also….no wait a second…that’s it~!  Good on you Brad for the nice fish and for giving us something to write about   Still, today is another day, right?!

Meanwhile over in Weipa, someone else who is having a ball ticking fish off his 100 species on fly in a year target list: Ben “Nosto” Bright headed out solo again on Last Cast and ended up with two from four sails on fly solo.  That’s 43 species now in just under four months!  Some more great footage to come.

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.

From heavy tackle back to light: Townsville clubbies will be taking advantage of some nicer weather after the tournament later this week to head down to Cape Bowling Green to see what may still turn up (water conditions were more like early-August during the comp and so Townsville Game Fishing Club boats could be light tackle fishing right into October this year).

Michelle Harries and her partner Peter fished the northern grounds Sunday on their 25 Betram Midnight for Michelle’s very first sailfish! Michelle has the billfish bug now and tells me they’ll be back out there again to find a little black to go with.

The water temperature during the tournament was averaging about 21.6 degrees on the grounds and still needs to get a fair bit warmer before optimal conditions for the juvenile black marlin.  So the Townsville clubbies should hold out hope of fishing late into the season this year.  The fact that after a couple of years absence, that any black marlin were caught at Bowling Green this year gives hope to the Sunshine and Gold Coasts who have likewise been pretty light-on for little blacks over the past couple of years.