While the official tournament results are not in – word from boats competing in the Cairns BlueWater 6kg Tournament was that a great time was had by all. As I mentioned on Saturday, it’s great to see some little black marlin featuring in the results.

The tournament was won on countback by Rohan Cross and his team on board Nickers. A great effort – scoring one for the little guys who were in the under 7.5 metre class!  Second place was taken out by Captain Chris “Sharky” Miles and team on board Kanahoee followed in third place by Steve and the team on board Hellraiser all with one tag.  Photos of Rohan with his black marlin and later, his trophy on Nickers above.  And also a big congrats to Emily Poulter on board Think Big who took out the Heaviest Other Gamefish on Day 1 as well as Champion Junior Overall with her 11.5kg tuna.  Thank you Paul for the report!

And how’s this for an unseasonal report. Dave Tucker fishing on Climax out of Port Stephens yesterday caught this stripey which was 2.3 metres short length trolling on the Carpark. Dave says the water was 20 degrees and another boat scored a nice dolly – thanks Dave!

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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!

Well, it’s definitely not on fire, but there have been a few more reports of marlin and sailfish in the north in the last week or so as the light tackle season gets underway and the weather eases allowing boats to explore the grounds.

Off Townsville, Elektrakusen ventured to Bowling Green for the first time this season for a lone sailfish late last week.  Chris reports that there is bait on the northern grounds and that Townsville Bulletin fishing newsman Eddie Riddle has reportedly raised a couple of blacks there in the last week.  Further to the north off Lucinda, local legend Peter “Mutta” Mammino has reportedly been raising a few around the reefs, tagging two small black marlin and a sailfish.

Off Cairns, Square Bear pulled the hooks on an angry little black marlin Friday and also raised a sail.  Tara also tells me that Steve on Hellraiser  likewise had a couple of bites from little blacks in the paddock.  Grant on Cjig also took advantage of the better weather for a trip out jigging on the shelf.  Grant says there are still a lot of Spanish about as well as mac and yellowfin tuna but they didn’t raise any marlin.

Meanwhile another Cairns local Shan took his 5.8m runabout Extreme out to enjoy the fine weather with similar results. Shan reports losing a small 20-30 kg black on near Oyster in the first five minutes after setting the teaser which broke him off by darting under the teaser.  He also had a free swimming/sunning sail of around 30kg cruising alongside just east of Pixie but it wasn’t interested in eating.

Heading North, Sydney based Little Audrey has begun its trip north for the upcoming Cairns Heavy Tackle Season. Capt. Daniel Carlson and crew are spending a few days on the Gold Coast before the journey continues.  Dan tells me on the way through they released their first GC blue marlin of the season for first time angler Tom Murray, a solid 650lb-er which was released in 15 minutes after a great jumping display!

The August Black Marlin Fishing Blog newsletter is coming out in the next few days. If you haven’t already subscribed, you can do so here.

**Update: Joe Joe’s Capt. Tim Ryan tells me that Saltaire lost an estimated 400lb black marlin at Opal Ridge on Sunday…. there are some bigger fish around already!

Following up from the Broome Billfish Classic which also finished over the week, the 2011 Dampier Classic wound up on Monday.  Steve tells me that the weather was glorious for them this year as well with great conditions for both the billfishing and capture sections. 

The bait balls have been present out wide of the ships for a while so the fishing was expected to be good – and it was!

126 black marlin and 12 sailfish were tagged over the four days.  Interestingly sailfish numbers were down considerably (see my table below – since Moose liked the one yesterday so much, I thought I’d do another

Five smallfry anglers (10 years and under), as well as four junior anglers successfully tagged marlin during the competition, with all the fish being a first billfish for the smallfry anglers. The Wench won the with 13 black marlin tags.

There were also some exceptional shark captures including a 265kg tiger shark caught on 6Kg line class – which is a pending world record (and would break the existing record by more than a 100kg) and a 27kg tiger shark caught on 1kg line, another pending world record!

Thanks to hosting club King Bay Game Fishing Club’s President Steve Tatham for the report!

Below is the number of marlin/sailfish for the past few years.

Final Results

A total of 564 sails were raised for 224 tags as well as 71 marlin for 13 tags.  (Points are allocated 1000pts for marlin and 500pts for sailfish.)  Fish Broome came home champions with a massive 19,500 points – 39 sailfish tags (no martians) – four sailfish clear of Game On with 17,500 points. In the 6-7.5 metre category Cluster Ducks were champions with 11,500 points and in the under 6m class, Shags won with 4,000 points.  Steve Ring on Fish Broome was Champion Angler (8,000 points / 16 sails) and Champion Female, Danielle Cox with 3,000 points.  Champion Junior went to Eric Locke with 5,000 points which included his first ever marlin.

It’s interesting to note that the number of marlin raised each year is increasing (I put this table together from previous tournament reports on the blog).  We saw something similar at Cape Bowling Green when it transitioned from a sailfish fishery, to a juvenile black marlin playground.  (Although recent year trends indicate in might be swinging back the other way?)

No rich fish were recaptured unfortunately!