2005 Fishing Report
2005 Marlin Season
It was a slower start to the season this year with the fish not showing in big numbers until around the 20th Sept. The action was fantastic though for our charters during late Sept.
October fished well and the middle Ribbons seemed to be the most consistent location along the reef and remained that way for the entire season. October highlights were numerous starting with a great fish around the 950lb mark caught on stand up 130 gear at No 4 ribbon by regular client and good mate Quentin Ridge. The fight by memory lasted around 30 mins with many spectacular jumps and hard runs although I think that Ridgey put away the stand up gear after that and elected to try the chair on the next one.
The Lizard Island Tournament started fairly slowly with our regular client Omi Tomonori able to stay in front or one behind the leader board throughout, until the final 2 days of the 7 day event. We just couldn’t seem to get the one good day or flurry of fish to give us the advantage.
Tenacious with Capt “Sharky” Miles at the wheel ran out eventual winners .
We fly fished after the tournament for 4 days with regular client Ishikawa and on the second day Ishy realised his lifelong dream after a great fight and boated a black marlin later weighing 200lbs, 20lbs shy of the existing 10kg tipped world record.
Fantastic effort and totally deserved by a man more dedicated and persistent than anyone I’ve known. Congratulations Ishikawa.
We were to finish out the rest of the month’s fishing from Lizard Island Lodge with Martin Hirsch and John The first couple of days there was good action on No. 10 with John’s first black marlin, a nice one around 850-900lbs.
The fishing around Lizard then shut down and remained that way for the rest of the season. With the bite on in the middle Ribbons and 6 fruitless days being stuck at the lodge we took stock of our crew meals and supplies, water and fuel and loaded Martin and John onboard to fish out the rest of their trip as a liveaboard charter.
It was a good move as our first hookup once reaching No 5 was a double of 700 and 350lb fish. Catching both.
Many big fish were being caught, lost and seen. It was champagne fishing although we seemed to have missed the best bite by a couple of days.
November provided memorable fishing also. With many big fish caught. New client and first timer to the GBR, Brook Duvall from the US had a great week catching some beauties between 700-950 with one estimated 1000lbs PLUS.
Still the fishing around the No. 5,4,3,2,1 and Lena was providing the best action.
Regulars, Adrian Gornall and Martin Keeble had a fantastic trip also catching more big ones with a couple of great 950’s that went like champions.
A 7 day cancellation from the 19th November saw me move down off Cairns to attempt to fill it.
My last charter of the year finished on the 9th Dec with good fishing still to be had.
Our season tally ended on 92, second top boat for the season with the Allure catching 94.
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