Despite the windy conditions, July and August fished exceptionally well. The juvenile blacks and sailfish have been around in good numbers. We’ve just returned from a 3 day charter with 4 great guys from the Gold Coast on a surprise 50th birthday bash and a fantastic introduction to light tackle marlin fishing, with them catching 15 for the 3 days, – their best day was 8 from 13 bites.
August saw us fly fishing for a good portion of the month. American anglers Jimmy, Larry and Mark came all the way to Oz to catch their black marlin and tick off another species of billfish on a fly. We raised an average of 4-5 fish a day and caught 4 for the trip which was excellent considering the challenging conditions (20-30knots).
We also fished with 2 first time marlin flyfishermen from South Africa, Brenton & Roland for 4 days in late August and caught 1 on the fly and 3 billfish on conventional tackle.
I am heading off today for Ninnian Bay (north/west of Lizard Island) for 6 days of barra fishing and bait fishing before commencing the heavy tackle marlin season from Cooktown next weekend.