Kekoa Sports Fishing

Gearing Up – Its Heavy Tackle Time!

Kelly — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:32:16 +0000

Well another Townsville light tackle season is over, and we’re gearing up now for heavy tackle in Cairns. We’re starting on September 19 and word is that the big blacks have already arrived so we can’t wait to get stuck into them.

Stay tuned as we update throughout the season.

Read the boat test

Kelly — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:18:00 +0000

Courtesy of BlueWater Boats and Sportsfishing Magazine and author Warren Steptoe, read the boat test of the new KEKOA.

Available in BlueWater issue 80 on sale now.

Final Barra Blast of 2010

Kelly — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 00:56:56 +0000

Now we are on the final day of our final barra trip of 2010 and we can’t believe the time has gone so fast. Luckily, the boys are ending the season on another high note and so after the marlin seasons are through, we’ll be looking forward to coming back again next year. This week, due to the tides, we started up on the Jackson and Skardon where the wizzer action was fast and furious — with one particular drain producing more than 30 fish in an hour!

For the final few days however, we’ve returned to our favourite spot on the Ducie and the boys are also getting amongst some larger fish. After a slow few days up north, Danny came to form yesterday with some good fish including a 94cm barra and 114cm salmon! (Unfortunately, I don’t have a cord for Danny’s camera that will let me access his pics..) But otherwise, Richard has been stealing the show I hear!

Raymond's 'red' barra (like a MG)

Richards 88cm

Richard's 90cm

Raymond on the Ducie

Ducie 500

Kelly — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 08:19:56 +0000

Another top week on the Ducie is over and we’re already looking forward to coming back here next year. This week, we fished some of the lower Wenlock as well for over 500 barra’s released. Brad pulled out a winner at 105cms. While Steve, on his first barra fishing trip ripped out a 88cm beast from the snags adding to his swag of 80cm plus fish for the week. Likewise Danny, on his first trip catching his first barra and then some, pulled them in left and right! Jason steered another big one around the boat on his new spin outfit at 94cm and Luke stayed consistent with another 92cm. I put my bass outfit to the test with a couple high 70′s on the light braid — a lot of fun! Lets go again!

Brad's 105cm

Steve 87cm

Luke pulled another biggie from the snags

Kelly's 77cm

Jason's 94cm

Danny & Jase and their double hookup

You can see more photos are on Kelly’s Facebook page.

Archer River Roamings

Kelly — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 23:11:33 +0000

The Mike Carney Toyota team from Townsville joined us on board last week for another visit to the picturesque Archer River at Aruakun. We had another week of perfect weather and quality fishing. Running up and down the river fishing the fresh produced good sized fish with Chris finishing the week with the biggest at 99cm – just shy of the magic mark! Mike did catch his metre long fish, although it was a black jew not a barra.

Chris with his 99cm

Mike on the Archer

Lunchtime barra on the coals

Mike and his metre+ jew

2009 Cairns Giant Black Marlin Season Recap

Kelly — Sat, 29 May 2010 04:18:59 +0000

As we near the end of our Weipa season, its time to put our eye firmly on the next goal–namely the upcoming marlin season in Cairns. The new boat is running like a dream and we can’t wait to push her to the limits on the reef. With the extra space the 56 feet affords us, returning guests can expect to be able to be able to relax and truly enjoy their time on the boat more than ever.

We still have a few spaces available for the upcoming season. Contact Captain Luke by email or telephone to 0428 789 840 (+61 428 789 840) for more details. We’d love to have you join us on board!
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To get you as excited about the upcoming season as we are, a couple of highlights from 2009:

Video Still: Jason @ 1000lb

Video Still: John's est at 1200lbs

One of the highlight’s of the 2009 season for the boys on KEKOA was the return of Jason Hassett from Melbourne to fish the Lizard Island Black Marlin Classic in late October. It was Jason’s second trip with Captain Luke, and after losing a 7 and half hour battle with a fish ‘well in excess of a grand’ in 2008, he decided it was all out war in 2009. He brought along his good friend John Wildburger for support and they well and truly got their just rewards.

In four straight days they let go 4 fish over 800lbs including two over a grand – one of those being a huge 1200lbs.

Check out the video of these two fish:

KEKOA fights est 800lber at #5 Ribbon

Big fish jumps away from the boat

A video still of Eric's 900lb-er

Also in 2009, Eric Jalabert from New Caledonia returned to fish the reef after a few year’s absence, and now that he has marlin fever back in his blood, he’ll definitely be back again.

By departure on Day 1, Eric’s mate Christian had yet to arrive in Aus (he joined them on the reef a day later by sea plane), and so Eric decided to start his trip solo. And he jumped straight in the deep end, releasing a fish Capt. Luke estimate at 900lbs and another at 200lbs on his lonesome!

More highlights coming soon – just a soon as I can corner Capt. Luke again!

Ducie Delivers Again

Kelly — Sun, 23 May 2010 04:13:39 +0000

Back to the Ducie River this week and the boys have once again enjoyed some good fishing on the flats in the morning and in the drains in the afternoon. The young guns fishing with Capt. Luke were on fire on Friday with 43 on the flats in the morning and adding another 24 on the drains to end with 67 for the day. The biggest fish was 93cms.

Chris with his best at 91cm

Jeff with another good fish at 87cm

One of Chris first ever barras

Another beautiful Ducie sunset

David Granville Weipa Trip Video

Kelly — Wed, 19 May 2010 05:42:44 +0000

By popular demand!

Archer River Action

Kelly — Fri, 14 May 2010 22:11:42 +0000

The boys went for a big trip UP the Archer yesterday about 40 mile inland and Lui did his trademark barra lunch cooked in a hole in the ground (with Moldan Salt of course!) The Archer is a very pretty river and once you get past the mangrove banks at the mouth, it turns into sandy banks to the water’s edge with gum trees lining the river bed. After a couple of 50-60+ fish days, the numbers were down a little yesterday (taking time out for a leisurely lunch!) but a couple of metre plus barra’s more than made up for it.

Firstly Ross, fishing with Brad for the day, landed the biggest barra so far and his biggest ever on a lure at 108cms. And on the last cast(s) of the day, Robbie and Lui managed to double hook a greedy guts barra and bringing it on board to go 103cms. Congrats guys!

The beautiful Archer River

The barra in a hole lunch

Ross's big 108cm barra

Double hooked!

Robby with his and Lui's 103cm double

Joeseph and his 92cm from Wed

Flats Fishing Again on the Ducie River

Kelly — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:25:57 +0000

The boys have come and gone from an early morning fish on the flats of the Ducie and once again they’ve been straight into the fish with close to 50 in this morning’s session alone. Some nice fish amongst them – shots from Luke’s camera of Luke and Brad2′s fish below. On the other Brad1′s boat, Jack has the same camera so I’ll download some of his pictures tonight.

A fun start to the morning after arriving at daybreak and with all on deck ready and raring to go as we had to quickly pull anchor and take off upriver in chase of tender 1 which had decided to come unhitched, complete with lifting chains still attached and was making its way upstream with the incoming tide!!

Luke strikes again

Brad got the first point scoring fish

Brad2 has been collating points (size weighted), and fittingly, he’s already in the lead. It’s not as fun if you don’t count!