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Cairns marlin season wrap-up

EVERY spring between September and November an area along the Great Barrier Reef experiences one of the world’s greatest, marine, natural wonders. The nutrient-rich Coral Sea currents triggers all kinds of resident and pelagic fish species to gather and spawn. We witness a number of astonishing sights, such as thousands of giant trevally (GTs) so tightly packed in their spectacular, spawning aggregation that it looks like part of the coral reef edge.

For this reason, it was nic-named years ago as the floating bommie and many skippers have panicked approaching it thinking it’s a detached reef until they work out what they’re actually seeing? Another amazing sight is to see a huge, female black marlin near the surface tailing down sea in the company of several smaller males in their spawning ritual! This is something I’ve been lucky enough to witness many, many times.

When it started

Even today many people often ask, how was this black marlin fishery discovered and it’s an interesting question because before the early 60’s, no one here really new the extent of it? It wasn’t until two marine biologists studying the Japanese longline statistics in the Pacific Ocean and the Coral Sea brought to light the staggering catch rates of black marlin near the GBR off Cairns and Lizard Island. 

Their papers and maps entitled, The Distribution and Relative Abundance of Billfish in the Pacific were released in 1965 by two scientist’s, Dr John Howard from the US Institute of Marine Science in Miami, Florida and Dr Shoji Ueyanagi from the Nanki Regional Fishery Research Institute in Japan. Their information showing the massive catch rates and sizes of black marlin in particular was astonishing!  

The first grander

When these papers were released it confirmed what some of our east coast game fishing angler’s thought that the outer Great Barrier Reef could be alive with marlin. Some of the professional Spanish mackerel fishermen in Cairns had also experience huge marlin crashing their hooked-up mackerel before they could be boated. One keen angler to venture offshore past the outer reef edge to find out if all the reports were true was George Bransford back in September, 1965.

Their first day out on the locally built timber vessel Sea Baby, they witnessed one of their big baits disappearing down the throat of a real giant marlin and using only 80-pound test tackle the battle was very one sided. The huge marlin simply dominated the fight and they couldn’t get anywhere near it. The line eventually broke, but it inspired Bransford and crew to keep trying. With a few modifications to the boat, including a better fighting chair, they ventured back out to try again. 

On September 26 in 1966 they hooked up another large marlin that Branford thought at the time was a lot smaller than the beast they had struggled with the year before. After a two hour battle the marlin was finally gaffed and secured alongside. When they tried to get it in the boat they had trouble even lifting its head out of the water. They had to tow the big black all 45 miles back to cairns where it later weighed an astonishing 1,065pounds. On 80-pound (37kg) tackle, the big marlin was a new IGFA world record.

Famous Cairns

It didn’t take long for the game fishing world to find out about this record-breaking black marlin and a couple of other Aussie anglers were quick to get to Cairns the following season. Arthur Stewart absolutely annihilated the Australian 130-pound (60kg) record with a 1,156-pound black marlin. That record though was very short lived when a few weeks later another Aussie angler by the name of Basil Mitchell weighed a 1,208-pounder! 

Suddenly the little sugarcane town of Cairns was on the world’s big-game fishing stage and the Great Barrier Reef has never stopped producing these giant black marlin every season to this day. This year’s springtime action started off as per normal in late September with several big fish hooked-up along the northern Ribbon Reefs off Cooktown and Lizard Island. 

Come October the outer reef busted loose with so many huge blacks hooked and released and among these were a number of 1,000-pounders (granders). The first giant to be weighed-in went 1,245lbs, caught on the 47’ O’Brien built, Adventum, skippered by long-time Captain, Darren “Biggles” Haydon. The reports of so many big days from all the other charter vessels working the reef were also making headlines. 

Among these for example, was Captain Dan McCarthy running the Cairns built 47’ Moana. They had several amazing days with four and five releases of big blacks between 600lbs and 900lbs. Captain Corey Hard on the famous old Woodnutt, the Sherriff was also releasing some huge marlin up to and over 900lbs. It was amazing when I rang Hard for a report in late October he was trolling wide off Lindon Bank and during our conversation he hooked-up a nice big mother he reckoned was right up there!  

The whole fleet were into the action all through October and it also saw the start of the Lizard Island, heavy tackle Tournament.  Gone are the days when this event allowed the weighing of any large marlin on the island’s gantry and now it’s an all release tournament, with a special, prestigious Grander Club Tag & Release Trophy Award for any angler releasing a thousand pounder. 

To qualify for this special award an accurate photo of the grander been tagged needs to be submitted to the Lizard Club’s committee. The angler to receive the award this year was Ralph Czabayski from the South Australian Game Fishing Club when he tagged and released a solid 1,100-pounder. 

This experienced South Aussie team including, Ralph, Steve Morris and Grant Goldner were certainly on a role, as they also won this closely fought tournament while fishing onboard the 58’ Precision, Miss Nic, skippered by Captain Chris “Sharkey” Miles. 

Early November the bite was still very good and many vessels had started moving south around Lindon Bank off Cairns. The Bank was firing and Captain Corey Hard on the Sherriff was still having a great time releasing a bunch of big blacks. The conversation I had with Hard on the second week of November he had already released a hundred blacks for the season.  

Another nice surprise to the reef this year after eight long years away was Captain Bobby Jones and his wife Lorraine. The Joneses weren’t running their charter vessel this time though, but instead were fishing and catching some nice ones onboard the 45’ Riviera Release, with Captain Haydon Bell. 

As the season started to wind down towards the end of November and the big marlin started moving further away from the reef edge, it was time for the fleet to do the same thing. This is when the natural baits are replaced with lures to cover more ground and every season the odd grander black is caught on a lure. Late season also sees some nice blue marlin turning up as well.

By the end of November, the fishing had slowed right down and even the wide grounds off the Bank were only producing the odd black and a few blues. It was a different finish to last year’s season when the numbers were still excellent right into early December. Captain Corey Hard on the Sherriff was still working right up till the first week of December and he cleaned-up again with 113 releases for the season. Another great effort!

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