Dec 11 2005
We just finished the trip from Cairns to the Gold Coast, joining Glenn and I were my mentors from previous years on the reef: Capt Greg “Muddy” Edwards from Assegai fame, and his uncle Capt Geoff Ferguson. Geoff is one of the first people I fished with, and is a retired legend of Lizard Island and Cairns. He ran boats such as Cervantes,and Kamari.
We ran from Cairns to Townsville and refueled, then out to one of the not quite secret spots off Townsville. We were anchored up in 200ft of water and waited for the midnight gong to signal start fishing!! With the reef closures in place we had o hang in Cairns for a while so as to be able to catch some fish for the freezer!!
We fished for a couple of hours that night and again in the morning for 4 big coral trout and 12 Red emperors.
Next morning we ran out to the edge of the Swains Reefs and trolled out wide south for the next couple of days. We tagged 2 black marlin the first day, both about 200lb on lures. At 5.30 the next morning we got pounced on by a big black around 700lb, and managed to get a few jumps out of her before the hook fell out. We ran through the Green Zones and continued to fish and spear our way down the Swains in flat calm warm weather. Found some nice spearing at several cays, and managed some nice trout and lobsters for the dinner table yet again!!. From the bottom of the Swains we trolled directly to Lady Musgrave Island, and jumped off a blue around 500lbs in the middle of nowhere.
After a night at LMI we trolled down to the top of Fraser tagging another small black. The water off the top of Fraser was awful, so we ran into Urangan and refueled, then ran south over the next 2 days to the Gold Coast.
Having some time off, and doing some maintenance on the boat over the holidays.
Tight Lines,
Tim Richardson
