Fishing Reports Info

With unfishable weather up here and all tournaments run regardless the weather unless a strong wind or gale warning are current I headed to the Gold Coast to fish with Jim and Ryan McKinnon on their recently done up 233 Haines Hunter Formula Galaxy II.

Day one on the Friday we took the safe option of running the beach into Kirra bay and fishing the Kirra bait spots. We found little bits but not the mother load. From lunch on we trolled home down sea.

Day two was a better forecast and we were going heavy tackle regardless. We put the lures in at 120m and trolled all day. We saw Team Garmin and Adios fighting fish beside us and were right in the middle of the action but it didn't happen.

Day three we had heard about some slimey mackerel. We put the gear out in amongst lots of birds and it didn't take long to start marking some excellent bait. We drove off it to where another boat had just popped off a black and had our own fish on. It spat the hooks after 50-100m and we didn't get a good look at it but we were thinking billfish. A short while later both Jim and I saw a bill whack but it didn't pop the rubber band or carry on with it. By then Amigo the only game boat in the area had tagged one. We lost the bait for a while and then watched Amigo pop one off live baiting. That was enough for us so we started live baiting. Second troll up wind Ryan got this 14.8kg wahoo. It won heaviest other species light tackle for him.

We put one bait out and cleaned the deck of blood. Just as the second bait went out and we had gone about 15mins we were on again. This was a 60-70kg black marlin. We fished into overtime and ended up on 5.1kg of drag on 8kg line and eventually popped it off over the 3 hour mark and with 1.5 hours to get the wahoo back to the weigh station before the deadline.