Still the best place in the world to catch giant black marlin
An excerpt from Marlin Magazine article by Editor Dave Ferrell who joined KEKOA during the 2012 Giant black marlin season off Cairns:
[quote author=” – Dave Ferrell, Marlin Magazine”]On day two, Capt. Fallon turned out wide of the bank to look for the tuna schools, and we ran across them busting the surface and drawing birds just about 18 miles from the reef, which is pretty close. It didn’t take long before we got the trip started with two yellowfin of 100-plus pounds, and then a nice fat bigeye. Kawaja caught the first marlin of the trip later in the day, a black around 700 pounds. We got a little blue later before calling lines in, and it just kept getting better from then on.
Over the five days of fishing, we caught eight blacks and two blues; a 250-pound mako on a lure; several yellowfin tuna over 100 pounds; a bigeye tuna; and a nice wahoo. The blacks, including that behemoth you see on the cover of this magazine, weighed between 300 and 900-plus pounds. We even had several close encounters with whale sharks, and Kawaja was able to jump in and snap a few pictures.
I didn’t take a close count, but I believe that most of the fish were caught on lures, and several came up on a homemade mudflap teaser. One fish we didn’t see flat out ate the huge teaser, and only let go after a very tense bout of tug of war that I thought was going to end up bending the outrigger. When the fish finally let go, the teaser came flying out of the water like it was shot out of a cannon!
The last time I was in Australia, we ended the day with a doubleheader of a 900 and a 500, and I never thought I’d see something that cool again, but I was wrong. While we fought the fish that we called 900 on the last day of this trip, two or three little males surrounded her, looking for action and lit up like fireflies. They stayed right with her during the fight, and at one point they all bolted away together in a big flash of blue and white as the big girl tried to break free. Now that was some cool stuff.[/quote]
View the full article on Marlin Magazine online here. Thanks Dave – a pleasure to have on board!
