Videographer Steve Jam and I took the long flight to Australia the night of October 29th. We arrived in Cairns in the late morning of Halloween day having crossed the International Date Line. Including my drive from Valdosta to Atlanta and the connection times in the LA and Sydney airports I had been traveling nearly 30 hours when we arrived. Steve and I found a hotel and then explored the town. We had some shopping we had to do before we went out on the reef. After an afternoon dinner we retired early suffering a significant case of jet lag.

The next morning we caught an early flight to Cooktown where we were to meet the boat. We were fishing the Pakita again with Captain Peter B. Wright. He and his mate Joey Smith met us at the small airport. The other mate, Frenchman Guillaume Serrazin, had injured his hand and was taking the flight back to Cairns to see the orthopedist. While Peter and his crew finished provisioning Steve and I had an opportunity to video and photograph the picturesque little outback community before we headed out to the reef. The two-hour trip out was comfortable as the water was flat and gave us a chance to stow our gear. Upon arriving at the Number 5 Ribbon Reef we fished for live bait for about an hour without success and then started fishing for “real fish.” Only an hour after we started we had a great strike on the swimming bait. The small black jumped laterally coming down on the scad with a huge splash and then started swimming away. Peter stopped the boat and I let the drop-back come tight. After bringing up the drag I wound fast to clear the slack but the fish was not there. He came back though as I wound the bait back to the boat. This time I let him eat a long time. Finally I set up on him and wound fast again until he came tight. He took off a little line and then was gone. Even though I didn’t believe he had felt the sting of the hook he didn’t come back for a third try.

I was not used to using the circle hooks Peter was employing for marlin although I had a significant experience with their use for tuna. The tuna hook themselves so there is no special technique required to set the hook. The marlin I had just learned are quite a different story. The technique that Peter and his crew had developed and found to be successful was very different then the approach taken with a standard “J” hook. They were using a long drop-back and Peter would even take the boat out of gear on the strike giving the fish an even longer time to swallow the bait. Then when the time was right or as the drop-back came tight the angler would very slowly begin to wind in order to pull the circle hook back up through the mouth and allow the tip to migrate to the corner of the jaw. The drag was left at the preset 16 pounds until the fish was running solidly away from the boat and taking line rapidly. The angler then would slowly inch up the drag eventually reaching the 45-pound fighting drag position when he was set up in the chair going up to 60 or 70 pounds near the end of the fight if necessary. The solid corner of the jaw hook-up prevented pulling the hook at such higher drag settings and left the fish very healthy and relatively unharmed upon release.
 

Cooktown harbor	Circle hook on a Scad swimming bait

Only a half-hour after I had missed the black we had two 125-pound sailfish come up and flirt with our two baits and the small lure we had out on a bait rod. I actually almost hooked one of them on the bait stick. Finally after missing the bait several times each they went away. It is difficult to hook these smaller fish with the large baits we were using, particularly with circle hooks. The rest of the day was quiet with no more fish seen. We anchored up for the night behind the #3 Ribbon Reef having worked the area between the #3 and #6 Ribbons all day.

The second day we went out wide about 25 miles and trolled lures since the fishing in close had been spotty. One of my new Peter Pakula lures got a haircut from a wahoo shortly after we started trolling. We saw a pod of Sperm Whales in the morning. In the afternoon we ran into a school of working skipjack tuna and caught five of them for bait. We saw no marlin however and therefore went back to trolling dead bait closer to the continental shelf the last few hours of the day.

We started day three with a lovely snorkel. I will never tire of viewing the incredible colors of the multiple species of fish and the coral itself. We ran down to Lena reef and fished that area all afternoon after a lunch of freshly speared coral trout. We fished all day without a billfish strike but did have numerous cutoffs from wahoo and barracuda. Just before we were planning to leave Peter marked a fish on the sounder. We trolled that area aggressively but never could get the fish to come up from its 40-fathom resting place. We finally gave up about 6 p.m. and ran back into Cooktown. Guillaume was waiting for us having got a reluctant “okay” from the doctor to return to the boat. While in Cairns he had picked up the pictures Joey had taken of an 1252-pound black that Apiwat, a Thai friend of mine, had caught on the boat just four days prior to our arrival. Boy did that wet our appetite for a big fish! We had a restaurant-cooked meal that night after a long hot shower and slept in a motel bed.

The next day began with a sense of guarded anticipation. We had gone three days without catching a fish and had experienced but one marlin strike. Once the boat was re-provisioned we ran back out to the reef. It was a slower trip this time due to a heavy chop driven by a modest southeast wind. We emerged at the Agincourt Reef #4 where we successfully fished for scad to use as swimming baits. Fresh scad are much easier to make swim than the frozen ones. We didn’t get started marlin fishing until about 1:30 in the afternoon. After only an hour we had a strike on the scad but the fish was not there when we came tight. The marlin came over and ate the skip-bait though and after allowing a fairly long drop-back I set up on him and he was on! A short five-minute battle brought the small 250-pound black to the boat where he was promptly tagged and released.

Just two hours later when we had reached the ridge a big fish struck the swimming bait knocking it out of the clip. When I wound tight he was briefly there and pulled off a small amount of line but was suddenly gone. Then the other rod went off. I ran to the other side of the boat, grabbed the rod, set the hook, and jumped into the chair. The marlin showed her huge head briefly and then ran hard away from the boat. Peter turned the boat and chased her down as I retrieved line. Because of his superb aggressive boat driving there was never more than 150 yards of line in the water. After a 12-minute fight at 45 pounds of drag she was at the boat and mate Joey Smith was wrestling with her on the wire. She put on a bit of an aerial display on the leader for the camera right at the transom. Within a few more minutes she was tagged and released. The 900-pounder swam away strongly. She like the first fish had been hooked in the corner of the mouth and was none the worse for wear after the ordeal. Therein lies the beauty of the circle hook.
 

Small black on the wire	"Pakita"	Apiwat's 1252# black

Thirty minutes later the scad went off again. This proved to be a black weighing not more than a hundred pounds. He was tagged and released in about 4 minutes. This was the smallest black marlin I have ever caught. A half-hour later the scad was knocked out of the clip once more but the marlin missed the hook. He went over and knocked the “Queenie” we were using as a skip-bait out of the clip as well but missed the second hook too. This time though he came back for a second helping and after allowing a very long drop-back I successfully hooked him. Five minutes later we had tagged the 250-pounder. We fished another 40 minutes but it was getting dark so we ducked inside of Opal Reef for the night. What a great day! We had caught 4 black marlin in just over four hours of fishing with one being a real quality fish. And all four were hooked in the corner of the mouth. We had gone four for five on circle hooks.

Our fifth day on the reef was slightly windier. We trolled lures up to the Agincourt reefs without a strike. There we fished for bait for several hours and then had a great snorkel. At about 1 p.m. we started trolling dead baits. At 1:30 we hooked a 750-pound black and tagged it within 12 minutes. It gave us a great acrobatic show on the wire, which was wonderful for the video we were shooting.  Later we caught some skipjack and tried live baiting for a while but to no avail. We went back to our standard dead-bait spread but had no action until about 5:30 when we had a knockdown from another nice fish probably in excess of 800 pounds. She managed to avoid the hook however. Several other fish were caught around us that were in the 700 to 800 pound range. So although we didn’t have the numbers of fish we had seen the previous day, all of the fish we had seen were large.

The next day we missed a 300-pound marlin on the skip-bait shortly after we started fishing. Things went dead for several hours. Hearing on the radio that some fish were being taken further south we switched to lures and trolled in that direction. We had a fish knock down the Moldcraft pink and white magnum twice without catching iron. After we reached Linden Bank we switched back to dead bait and had a shark cut us off after eating the scad. Shortly thereafter we hooked and caught a 325-pound black on the skip-bait. The fish was tagged and released in about 5 minutes. An hour later we had a brief hook-up of a small fish that came unbuttoned as I got in the chair. When we checked the bait we found it unmarked. The fish had been tangled in the wire and had never gotten close to the hook. Then we caught another 325-pound very acrobatic black in about four minutes late in the day. We stopped fishing early and went to the more protected and comfortable south Opal anchorage for the night. There was quite a squall line on the horizon so we wanted to get situated early.

Day seven started with the capture of a 60-pound wahoo on a lure early in the day that made for great table fare that night. In the mid afternoon Captain Wright saw a large free-jumper but even though we worked the area hard we could not entice her to eat. Late in the afternoon a 300-pound black grabbed the swimming bait and ran off a modest amount of line only to come free as I got in the chair. The bait had simply pulled apart and the fish had never had the hook in its mouth at all. Even though I had allowed a long drop-back it had not been long enough. We had no more action and pulled inside of Hastings Reef for the night.
 

Guillaume	Joey

As our eighth and last day of fishing started we were praying for the giant that had eluded us the previous 9 years. We started by trolling lures southward toward the bank after a lovely morning snorkel. We had a strike on the Pakula chugger shortly after noon and the fish pulled off 100 yards of line but came undone on the second jump. Peter saw another large free-jumper but this one had lockjaw similar to the first we had seen. After reaching the Jenny-Louise Shoals we switched back to dead bait. We had moved further south to get away from the large number of boats that were on Linden Bank and the sharks that were eating all of the quality fish that had been hooked there the previous few days. The wind was calm and it was a long very hot and humid day. Finally at about 4:15 p.m. we had a strike on the skip-bait. The fish was not there when I wound tight but kept coming back and on the third try I was able to hook her. We were able to tag the 500-pounder in a surprisingly short 4 minutes. She did a great deal of jumping just off the transom that made for great video footage. Reluctantly we wrapped up the day at about 5 p.m. and headed back to Cairns. Even though I still had not captured my grander our trip had been very successful. I had caught 8 black marlin in eight days including fish of 500 pounds, 750 pounds, and 900 pounds. Not bad!
 

Videographer Steve Jam	Peter's wife Aaron

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