The first eight days in November were dedicated to another attempt at catching that elusive grander marlin. Bobby Unvert and I flew into Cairns, Australia from Los Angeles. We were a bit spent after the 14-hour flight but still had enough energy to catch a charter up to the famed Lizard Island that afternoon. It was Halloween night and wouldn't you know it there was a big party at the Marlin Bar. Fortunately Bobby and I had enough sense to call it quits early and got some rest in preparation for the week on the water that lay ahead.

 We were fishing with the legendary Captain Peter B. Wright on his new boat the Pakita (a 43-foot O'Brien). We had quite an international flavor on the boat with first mate Hamish, a Scott, and our French second mate Guillaume. We ran out to the Cod Hole at the top of the Number 10 Ribbon Reef and started the day with some snorkeling and filming. We then trolled lures about two miles outside of the drop-off the majority of the day. Another game boat was trolling inside of us as we listened to the radio to try to locate the fish. The Lizard Island Halloween Tournament had just ended and the fishing had been slow. The Lexus Tournament had been held off Cairns just a few days earlier and they had done somewhat better so we headed south to that area. We trolled Moldcraft wide-ranges and magnums using two rigger-baits and a short flat line down the middle. Upon reaching the middle ribbons we switched to the more classic two dead-bait pattern. We experienced a few chop-offs but did not see a "real" fish. That night we anchored behind the Number 5 Ribbon Reef. The weather was beautiful and surprisingly hot for this time of year and the water unusually flat.

 Late in the afternoon of our second day the weather started to change. The wind switched to the southeast and eventually reached 35 knots with 18-foot seas. It was genuinely rough all of the third day. We finally got our first marlin strike in the afternoon of day three. It was a small black that unfortunately broke the leader on the strike as the wire had twisted over on itself in the rough water. The remainder of the day was uneventful. Fortunately we found a well-protected anchorage inside of Hastings Reef that night allowing us a comfortable sleep despite the howling wind.

 We started fishing on our fourth day with increased hope expecting the strong southeast wind to have driven a body of fish in toward the reef. The water remained rough all morning but began to lay-down in the afternoon. Peter saw a "tailer" as we trolled up-sea, turned the boat, and skillfully presented the baits to the fish. The large gray shadow came up on the swimming scad but quickly lost interest while totally shunning the Queenfish we had out as a skip-bait. We pulled in the "Queenie" and replaced it with a small Bonita. The 600-800-pound black marlin came up and aggressively grabbed the new bait immediately. I allowed a very long drop-back since this bait was armed with a circle hook, locked up, and wound hard. The line came tight but the fish spit the bait almost immediately. Later that afternoon we caught and released our first marlin of the trip, a small black of about 200 pounds. And shortly thereafter we came across a baby whale shark that stayed with us long enough to get some good film footage. We wrapped it up early and ran into Cairns to get additional supplies for the remainder of the trip.

 The wind blew hard out of the southeast the next two days and nights. We fished the Euston and Fin Reefs as several boats had seen action there. In the afternoon of our seventh day we found a lot of birds working a rapidly moving school of tuna. As we trolled around the school we hooked a 7-pound Bonita that we quickly bridled as a live-bait. Not more than five minutes passed before an 850-pound black marlin inhaled the bait. This was a very strong fish that gave me an extremely tough fight. We had the marlin to leader three times before we could hold her. We were eventually able to tag and release her after 1 hour and 40 minutes for the better part of which she fought against 60-65 pounds of drag. Although somewhat tired, she swam away strongly appearing very little the worse for wear. An hour later we caught another black marlin of about 450 pounds again on a live bait. This was a much easier fight lasting only eight minutes before the fish was sporting a new tag.

The eighth and final day of fishing was slow for the first five hours. Then we hooked a nice 250-pound black that gave us a beautiful aerial display before being tagged and released after about six minutes. An hour later another small fish followed our baits for almost 30 minutes before disappearing out of sight. We changed our baits multiple times and the marlin would light up and come screaming right up to the bait without ever taking it. Then just fifteen minutes before we had planned to stop fishing we hooked a 600-pounder that took off toward the sunset. As Peter tried to narrow the angle while running on her a great deal more line escaped than we realized. And five minutes into the fight we broke line. She had turned back toward the boat creating tremendous stress on the body of the arc in the line causing it to part. It was as if the fish wanted to let us know they were still in charge.

 After discussing the reason for our failure we capped up and ran back into Cairns. Our trip was over. We hadn't had spectacular fishing and nowhere near as good as we had experienced here in the past. And Peter said this was the worst season he had ever seen, this being his 31st year on the reef. It still however was a successful trip. We had seen 10 black marlin, hooked eight, and caught four, one of which was over 800 pounds and had given us one hell of a battle. That fish alone made the trip worthwhile. That is why we had come and that is why we'll be back.