Captain Mike Canino, videographer Steve Jam, Allen Rapp, and his son Dave joined me in mid November for my annual trek back to the Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of Australia. This contingent was from all over the United States. Mike hails from Galveston, Texas, Steve is from Dana Point, California, Al joined us from Colorado Springs, Colorado, Dave lives in Dallas, and I reside in Valdosta, Georgia. We were once again in search of grander-sized black marlin.

I had made arrangements for Al and Dave to fish with Captain Bobby Jones aboard the "Ice Man" with his two crewmen Rowdy and Sharky (Glenn Thompson and Christopher Miles). They met the boat in Cairns and started out fishing that area of the reef. Early the next morning Mike, Steve, and I had to fly up to Cooktown, approximately 90 miles north of Cairns, to catch our boat the "Top Shot." There we were met by Captain Peter B.Wright and his crewmen Joey Smith and Tim Mitchell. Peter's wife Erin was also onboard acting as a hostess and additional chef.

After quickly stowing the recently purchased provisions we headed out to the reef, which is approximately a 2-hour run. We started fishing at Lena Reef, just south of the Ribbons, and breaking Aussie tradition trolled lures offshore as we traveled south. The bite had turned off from the Ribbons north to Lizard Island and it made sense to try our luck southward where at least a few marlin were being caught. We encountered no quality strikes with the silence being broken only by the periodic bite from a nuisance small barracuda.We switched to dead bait when we reached Opal Reef and began using the classicAustralian pattern of a large skip-bait short off the starboard outrigger and a swimming scad longer off the port rigger. Except for the occasional "chop-off" from the "razor gang" when we got tight in off the edge this strategy was no more productive than our earlier lure-based effort. It started to get dark after several hours so we ducked inside the reef and set up for the night in the Opal anchorage. We met up with my friend and well-known angler Dr.Tom Irizarry from Puerto Rico for a drink on the mother ship "Kona" after a nice dinner. Then it was "lightsout."
 
 

Joey Smith	Tim Mitchell	Capt. Mike Canino

 

The next morning we started with a refreshing and beautiful snorkel and then started fishing further southward using dead bait. When we reached the Lynden Bank area out of Cairns we met Captain John Phillips on the 31-ft Bertram "Chamois Free" who had kindly brought out a piece of luggage that had missed one of our connections and arrived in Cairns after we had already headed up to Cooktown. JP had just released a 600-pound black marlin shortly before we arrived. Despite working that area for an hour or so we saw no action. We then continued trolling south and caught some small yellowfin tuna that we quickly rigged as live bait. It wasn't long before we lost both of our baits to sharks, large Bronze Whalers that emphatically reminded us why it was much safer in the boat than in the water. We reverted back to our dead bait strategy but continued without success until 3:40 in the afternoon when we had our first marlin strike. She was a 500 to 600-pounder that jumped all over the swimming bait throwing a curtain of water high in the air. She crushed the back half of the scad but missed the hook. The remainderof the afternoon was dead quiet. We met up with "Ice Man" and the Rapps (Allen and Dave) for cocktails at the Arlington Reef anchorage where we spent the night. They had lost two very nice fish earlier in the day after seeing no action their first day on the water. It had rained intermittently throughout the afternoon and got serious about it that night.

We awakened the next morning with rain still falling, intermittently quite heavily. For obvious reasons we elected to forego our planned snorkeling excursion, usually a routine daily agenda item. After several hours the rain let up some so we started fishing. We trolled dead baits south to Jenny-Louise Shoals with little action. Shortly after noon we found some schools of yellowfin and rigged these for live bait, but kept losing them to the sharks. We finally switched back to dead bait out of frustration but had no more success with that approach. As dusk approached we capped up fishing for the day and ran back into Cairns for the night. We decided to spoil ourselves and got a suite at the Outrigger Hotel. We had planned to go out on the town but found ourselves too tired after eating dinner and went back to the hotel and crashed.

The next morning we met at the boat fairly early. Peter and crew had already successfully completed the reprovisioning process and retrieved the laundry. We were joined there by Dr. John Gunn, a marine biologist from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) who was armed with some very sophisticated archival satellite pop-up tags. These devices measured and recorded sunlight angle, water temperature, and depth every two minutes thus keeping a detailed record of where the marlin was located with respect to latitude and longitude as well as where it was in the water column. They were pre-programmed to pop-up to the surface at varying intervals from one to three months and would then transmit the data collected to a satellite circling the earth above. These would be the first such tags ever implanted in the black marlin population of the Great Barrier Reef and therefore had the potential to provide invaluable information about these fish's migration habits, a subject about which we previously had only conjecture.
 
 

Mothership at anchor	Setting the drags	The Ice Man

It was raining as we headed back out to the reef and it continued virtually all day. This weather was very unusual for the North Queensland region this time of year. After all it was late spring for them. We had a slow day except for some small yellowfin tuna. We live-baited some of them and kept a larger one for sashimi and grilled steaks for dinner. While our day was less than stellar "Iceman" was having a banner day! They had missed a fish early in the morning but Al hooked a nice 600-pounder about 11:00 a.m. and fought it to the boat. Captain Bobby Jones called us on the radio so we could place one of the satellite tags in the fish. We raced over and they handed the black off to us with a technique Peter had perfected during similar tagging work with giant bluefin tuna in North Carolina. We passed over a tennis ball attached to our leader; they connected their leader to the clip at the end of ours, and then disconnected their leader from their snap-swivel. We then had the fish. She was still quite hot and I had to fight her back to the surface three times before our mate Tim Mitchell could hold the wire. Unfortunately the wire leader broke before we could place the tag. We had several shots where we could have placed a conventional tag but this device needed to be placed so that the light sensor faces upward and requires more meticulous placement. Whatsmore with a value in excess of $3500 we did not want to miss and lose the tag overboard!

They called us back over an hour later when they had hooked another marlin. We took it off their hands more easily on this occasion after the practice afforded us from the first fish. This was a smaller black that we eventually elected not to tag as it had a leader cut in the gill rakes and we were concerned about its potential longevity. Just a few minutes later they were hooked-up again. We couldn't believe their luck. It was another small fish that they quickly got to the boat but pulled the hook on the leader before we could think of tagging it. That was somewhat of a surprise since it was a circle hook. It turned out that the bridle material had become entangled in the leader and when tension was applied to the proximal portion of the leader the bridle would lift the hook point and literally pulled it out of the fish's mouth. Late that afternoon we finally got our first strike on a live yellowfin, but the marlin let the bait go as we pulled tight. She had only had the back half of the bait in her mouth and never encountered the hook. Finally we gave up for the day and met up with Bobby Jones, the Rapps, and the crew of "Ice Man" for a large joint meal at the Arlington Reef anchorage.
 
 
 

Black marlin jumping	On the wire	Ready for release

As we started day five of our trip we considered running up north to the Agincourt reefs since we heard on the radio that the longline fleet had caught and released a few large black marlin there several days earlier. But since there seemed to have been a bit of a bite late in the day the previous afternoon where we were at we elected to stay there and try again. We fished primarily just south and outside of the Trinity opening off of the Houston light and around Houston reef. We tried catching some scad for bait but to no avail. We had a similar lack of success with our dead bait pattern when we fished for marlin. We did catch the odd yellowfin tuna on small jigs and would put them out as a "livie" until they were either eaten by a shark or would fade. Then about 2 p.m. we got a call from "Ice Man" that they were hooked-up again. We ran over to them and this time had a successful handoff without a hitch. I was able to quickly bring the jaw-hooked 500-pound black marlin to the boat and Tim placed the satellite tag perfectly while Joey wired the fish. We finally had successfully placed our first satellite tag and the fish swam off seemingly in perfect health.

About an hour later we got our first bite of the day and this time the hook grabbed tissue as I set up on the fish. She was a healthy 350 pounds and put on a spectacular aerial display for us including jumping right at the boat nearly impaling Steve with her bill as she just missed joining us in the cockpit. He was able to record all of this awesome action on tape making for an incredible video. In addition we were able to successfully place our second satellite tag in the fish before releasing her. About an hour later we got another bite, this time on a "livie." We quickly dispatched the small 250-pounder in less than five minutes. We chose not to place a satellite tag in this fish as it was choking on the bait and seemed in distress.We wanted to release him as quickly as possible to minimize any potential for significant permanent injury and possible mortality. The remainder of the afternoon was quiet and without action. We stopped fishing at about 6 p.m. and returned to the Arlington anchorage for the night. We had cocktails with the crew of the "Ice Man." They had caught two fish also and another boat nearby had experienced four strikes but unfortunately had gone 0 for 4.

The next morning we awoke again to the sound of a persistent rain. After a leisurely breakfast we recorded an interview with Dr. John Gunn for the TV and video programs. We then ran back down to the Houston light area and started fishing. We had no success all day despite trying lures, dead bait and even live bait. There were not as many birds and tuna schools around as there had been the previous few days. The weather improved in the early afternoon and it actually briefly was sunny and warm. As the afternoon woreon however it once again became overcast. Just before we were about to pull in our lines we got a call from "Ice Man" indicating they had a really nice fish on. We went over and took the fish from them with our now perfected tennis ball handoff technique. I fought the 900-pound black to the boat fairly quickly but the leader broke as Joey tried to hang on to her for the satellite tag attempt. We wrapped it up for the day after that and ran back north to the anchorage.
 
 
 

Capt. Peter Wright	Dr. John Gunn

  The next morning it was raining again but stopped shortly after we arose. After a light breakfast we got an early start and ran outside for about 10 miles and trolled lures. Since this was our next to the last day we wanted to break our streak of relatively bad luck and were ready to try something, anything, different. We trolled south to Jenny Louise Shoals and worked that area for more than three hours without so much as a strike. Wouldn't you know it "Ice Man" had followed us out and had hooked a very large fish on a lure which they estimated at more than a thousand pounds but broke it off after an hour. They then caught and released a smaller fish in which they placed a short-term archival tag under the direction of Dr.Julian Pepperell, also from CSIRO, who had ridden out from Cairns in another boat to join them earlier that morning. We continued fishing at Jenny-Louise for several more hours but had absolutely no luck. We finally gave up and ran back outside when we learned from the radio that "Kanahoee" was hooked to a marlin they estimated at 1100 pounds and "Ice Man" had just experienced a double-header strike. They missed the first fish but were still hooked-up to the second one. All of this action occurred just about a hundred yards from where we had been earlier in the day and had seen nothing. We needed to find some way to wash the skunk smell from our lures! "Kanahoee" broke their marlin off at the boat after a two-and-a-half hour fight and "Ice Man" pulled hook on their fish, which they felt was more than a grand, after thirty minutes. They had yet another strike though before the day was over. We worked that area hard until after sunset but without a bite. We ran back to the anchorage under darkness and joined the "Ice Man" group for a joint meal. While we were the ones that were ice cold, they were on fire! They had five strikes that day, hooked three, and caught one. Prior to this day they had experienced 9 strikes, hooked all nine, and caught seven. For the entire trip then they had had14 strikes, hooked 12, and caught eight with five of their hooked fish being granders. They had experienced more success than the remainder of the fleet put together! In our seven days of fishing on the "Top Shot" we had had only four strikes, hooked two, and caught both of those.

Our last day on the reef was once again wet and rainy. This type of weather is more like that seen in January than November. It is usually hot and sunny, although occasionally windy in November. After running back down to Houston reef we had our lines in the water only a few minutes before our first strike. The 400-pound black ate the swimming bait but missed the hook and swam free when I tried to set up on her. An hour later we had a smaller fish of about 300 pounds come up and scope out our baits. He proved to be a window shopper though and never ate. And just an hour after that we got a solid strike on the skip bait. This time we snagged the fish. As the marlin took off jumping I could see the bait and hook trailing behind her. Even though we had only lassoed her with the leader I was still able to carefully work her to the transom despite a neat boat-side aerial display. We placed a conventional tag in the estimated 400-pounder and she swam away. Only thirty minutes later we raised our fourth fish of the day. This 600-pound black ate the swimming bait but she started jumping right toward the boat as we were trying to set the hook and escaped. Then just as we were getting ready to pull in our lines we got our final strike. She appeared out of nowhere and pulled the scad down hard. As we came tight though she was gone. She had eaten all of the scad but missed the circle hook. We got a fairly good look at her and she appeared to be about 500 pounds in size. "Ice Man"  had tagged a 250-pounder earlier in the day and left for Cairns before us. We caught up with them though several miles from the city when they ran out of fuel.We happily obliged their request for a tow. It seems the fish gods had finally caught up with them and their incredible streak of good luck had run out. Al and Dave Rapp however will not soon forget their awesome week of fishing on the GBR! We on the other hand had found ourselves already looking forward to another shot next year.
 
 
 

Tag crew	Pop-up satellite archival tag

 

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