Professional Boat Care is often asked by its customers to deliver their boat north or south for that special holiday. I never tire of cruising the eastern seaboard of Australia, but it can often be frustrating for a fisherman like me to not have the time to fish some of those spectacular locations you drive past – but not this trip!
With owner Jim Stening, and his equally keen fisherman brother-in-law, Rob Wilkins onboard, the brief was to fish the ‘hotspots’ along the way, to our eventual destination of Hamilton Island.
The Gardner Banks east of Indian Head, Fraser Island are a renowned bottom fishing location and their relatively remote location means they do not suffer the same fishing pressure some of our local reefs endure. Arriving around midday meant we probably missed the ‘hot bite’, but we still managed to put enough reef fish onboard to feed us for the 5 day passage.
The next keenly awaited destination was to marlin fish the top end of Breaksea Spit, which is a massive sandbank running for some 18 km north of the island. Again, it’s a fairly remote location, and a known marlin hotspot with the adjacent Continental Shelf dropping away to over a kilometre deep. If you were a marlin, you would hang out here! Beautiful navy/purple ocean water pushing up into the shallows of Breaksea Spit which is loaded with bait fish schools. These baby Black Marlin are the result of the spawning season which occurs every year along the Ribbon Reefs between Cairns and Lizard Island. The juvenile marlin make their way south, growing rapidly along the way, to as far south as Port Stephens before following the currents out into the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Eventually returning as larger fish off Cairns again – this is what the current understanding is anyway.
Interestingly, the previous two years of wet weather produced by the La Nina system resulted in virtually a non exsistant baby Black Marlin season. However, with the El Nino system now back in place, here come the marlin!
We experienced some 16 strikes, had 7 on and caught and released 4. To put it in perspective, that is more baby Black Marlin action in two hours than I have experienced in the past two years! Needless to say, we were totally ‘stoked’!
Some other highlights included snorkeling the reefs of the Bunker Group east of Gladstone, and of course dropping into Percy Island to look at the A-Frame on the beach with all its momentos, is always fascinating and entertaining.
If you have ever thought about moving your boat north or south for an extended holiday we’d be happy to discuss options. We are very lucky to have such an amazing coastline and as Jim said when we arrived – ‘you really need two years to explore all of this coast!”
