BIG GAME FISHING: WHERE IS TERRY? Grander Search Part 5: The Great Barrier Reef October 1997

Grander Search Part 5: The Great Barrier Reef October 1997

My good friend and superb angler from Houston, Texas, Richard Richardson and I headed back to the Great Barrier Reef in early October after having experienced such excellent fishing there at a similar time last year. I had fished the reef with Cpt. Glenn Jones the last 6 years but unfortunately he had suffered a tragic death from a severe asthma attack shortly after we left last fall. We had therefore booked with one of his friends Cpt. John Gill whom we had met last year when we put into Cooktown.

We arrived in Cairns in the early afternoon on Tuesday. After a look around and some brief shopping we got a good night's rest in preparation for the upcoming fishing. The next morning we flew to Cooktown some 100 miles to the north to meet the boat. The crew was not at the small airport to pick us up so we took a colorful taxi ride down to the wharf. There we met Cpt. Gill and his crew from the 45 foot Precision "Power Play." The two mates were Carl (better known as Wombat) and young Steve. There was a lovely cook onboard whose name was Vicky although most of the crew called her Cookie.

It took about an hour and a half to make the 30 mile trip out to the reef after finishing loading the provisions and our luggage. It was a beautiful sunny day with almost no clouds in the sky. We emerged between # 3 and # 4 ribbon reefs and began fishing as soon as we crossed the Continental shelf. We caught a few school-sized yellowfin tuna on the small jig we were trolling in the middle of our baits, one of which was used for sashimi for dinner and the other was quickly rigged as a skip bait. Later in the afternoon we had a knock-down from a large wahoo that avoided the hook and then caught a slightly smaller 50 pounder. Approximately four thirty we had our first marlin strike. It was a small black that spit the hook on its first jump after I pushed the drag lever up to our fighting drag position of 45 pounds. The fish ignored our dead baits and struck a lure placed in the "stinger" position. That night we anchored inside the #5 Ribbon Reef and had a wonderful dinner with wahoo and yellowfin tuna sashimi for appetizers and spaghetti for the main course washed down with excellent white and red Australian wine.

We started our second day just inside the reef catching Coral trout for dinner with hand-lines. We then put out 4 lures and trolled up to the top of the #7 ribbon reef where we put out the standard Australian pattern of 2 dead baits, a swimming scad off the port rigger and a large skip bait off the starboard side. The water was almost glassy it was so flat, quite unusual for the reef which is usually rough. We trolled all day up to the #10 ribbon reef without a strike. It was hot and almost dead calm. Finally shortly after arriving at #10 we had a strike but the fish missed the hooks. We circled back and almost at the same location got a second strike and this time hooked up. It was a nice fish pushing 800# but pulled hook on the third jump. We then caught a fish about 400# in 5 _ minutes and lost another of 300 # when it came unbuttoned after the second jump. So after arriving at #10 we ended out with 4 shots and one caught fish in less than an hour .That made up for the absence of activity during the first seven hours of the day. That night we had a spectacular dinner of coral trout, wahoo, and yellowfin tuna after pulling in to the anchorage at the bottom of #10.

Day three began with a nice breakfast at the moorage. We then caught some bait behind the reef as we wound our way to an excellent snorkeling location. It was an isolated bommie which arose from the ocean floor and extended to just below the surface. It was loaded with fish of all colors and varieties in addition to innumerable species of both soft and hard coral. After gorging ourselves on the beauty we headed out to the Continental shelf and began trolling north to "no name" reef. About noon we had a nice sailfish flirt with our swimming bait but its mouth was much too small for the 16-0 hook in the scad. The remainder of the day was quiet until late afternoon. The wind picked up so that a nice 2 to 3 foot sea was superimposed upon a 4 foot swell, conditions usually conducive to better fishing. At 5:30 we hooked up to a nice fish of about 600 pounds. After only five minutes we had it to the leader as it fought against about 45 pounds of drag. The mate couldn't hold her though and she took off again and sounded. By pushing the drag to full which was about 75 pounds I was able to coax her back to the surface fairly quickly and she was tagged and released after a total fight of only nine minutes. We were so aggressive with the drag because of the high prevalence of huge sharks in the area, not wanting the fish to get eaten before we could release it. As daylight waned we headed into the moorage behind "no name" reef witnessing a beautiful sunset with Lizard Island in the foreground.

The next morning we had a wonderful swim at the cod hole on the north side of #10 ribbon where we hand-fed giant trevalley and 600 pound potato cod.. We hand-lined for some coral trout without success after that, but it didn't matter since Richard had caught an 18 pounder on the way over while we were trolling for tuna and scaly mackerels to use as skip baits. We commenced trolling for marlin at about 9:30 a.m. At noon we had a small fish knock first our swimming bait and then our skip bait out of the clip without hooking up or even pulling drag. Then at about 1:30 p.m. we had a solid strike and brief hook-up of a fish about 400 to 500 pounds that spit the hook before I could even get the rod to the chair. The remainder of the day was spent trolling without so much as seeing another fish. After giving up for the day, we went into Lizard Island and anchored up for the night since there was no safe moorage that far up on the reef.

After breakfast the next morning we snorkeled the coral garden park on the island and briefly visited the Lizard Island Resort to purchase some momentos. We then ran the 40 minutes back to the reef and began trolling. As we arrived another boat was just releasing a black of about 800 pounds. Having learned that there had been a number of large fish seen further north we had run directly to that area and fished Young and Carter reefs all day finishing up just north of there between Day and Hicks. Starting out at 11:00 a.m. we trolled until 5:45 p.m. without a strike. Late in the afternoon two boats next to us hooked, tagged, and released fish of 900 and 800 pounds. And another boat within easy view briefly had a 1200 pounder on until it pulled hook on the first jump. We actually could see the fish fairly well despite the distance and it was huge. We however couldn't buy a strike. We also couldn't find a safe anchorage up that far so once again we ran back to Lizard Island for the night. Somewhat discouraged we could only look forward to 'tomorrow."

We ran directly to the reef after an early breakfast the next morning hoping to turn our luck around. We started between Day and Hicks where the 1200 pounder had been hooked the previous evening. We worked these two reefs hard all day without so much as a chop-off from the razor gang. We continued south and eventually finished the day at the north end of "no name" reef never even experiencing a strike. We did see one fish working a bait school from a distance but the fish was gone by the time we got there. There was only one fish caught that day by the entire fleet. One boat actually had two fish swim up to a live yellowfin tuna bait and just swim away without even offering at it. There was something very strange going on. The fish clearly were "sport-feeding." We anchored up for the night inside of "no name" with only one day remaining to fish and it would have to be cut short as we had to get back to Cooktown in time to make our 5:30 p.m. flight back to Cairns. It was not looking good for the grander for which I had come!

Our last day on the reef began early. We started trolling at about 7:15 a.m. using lures so that we could cover a lot of water. Within 15 minutes we caught a 40# barracuda and an hour later we had an unidentified knockdown. Shortly after that we caught a another large barracuda. A 300# black marlin knocked down the left rigger bait without snagging the hook just 40 minutes later. After several quiet hours we had another knockdown from a wahoo on the long bait. Then at 1:30 just before we were going to have to stop and run for Cooktown the shotgun bait went off again. This time it was a huge black. It missed the bait twice after knocking it out of the clip, but came back again. The third time was the charm, we had a solid hookup. I carried the rod to the chair and all the lines were quickly cleared by Wombat and Steve. We were just about to start going back on the fish when the line went limp. We pulled in the bait and found the 12-0 hook had broken. I don't know how big that fish was but it was much larger then the other fish we had attack our baits that week and it might have even gone a grand. We'll never know. At this point we had to pick up and run back to Cooktown so we could make our plane. We had maybe had our shot and missed it!