November 17 2005
Well I finally have a day to catch my breath and get back online with an update from the past couple of weeks.
Oct 28- Nov 3 we had some clients from the US staying onboard the mothership “The Boss” for 7 days. After a late start and bait fishing the first day from Cooktown. The next 6 days we had a bunch of bites form big fish , and missed 3 over 900 for the week. If there was a way to miss a fish, we found it, jumped them off, pulled hooks, fish missing the bait altogether and even broke line on a real big one. A real disappointing result as we were getting more bites every day than most but could not convert for our anglers. Fished a couple of days with Bennett and Eileen, and tagged a nice small fish for Eileen and had some good swims.
Nov 6 – 10 saw Greg and his wife Michelle staying with us on Lizard Island, and after 2 days of not seeing any fish on #10 , the bite was continuing in the middle ribbons. We kidnapped Greg from the Lodge and made the run to #6 where we fished down to #4. The run was worth it as we raised 4 fish and jumped 2 off, all small fish but there were some nice ones caught around us. We ran into Cooktown for the night and had a great meal with our friends from the Reel Chase. The next day saw us full of fuel and fishing began on #3 and then fished our way up to #6 for the run home to Lizard Island. What a great day, we had 6 bites, tagged 2 fish a 350 and a 550 and pulled the hooks on a another 600lb fish at the back of the boat. Greg was super happy and looking forward to seeing his wife with tales of fish. The last day of the charter Michelle came with us as we again ran back to the middle ribbons to try to go one better than yesterday. We fished from #6 down to #4 and back to #7. We jumped off a small fish on the top of #5 and as the afternoon progressed we fished north up the reefs for a shorter run home to Lizard. As we got to the bottom of #7 the scad disappeared in a big swirl and and a really nice fish climbed out of the water at the back of the boat. A tough fight at 75lbs of drag for 35 minutes saw Glen grab the leader , the tag went in and we cut her off. Had an awesome jump on the leader about 10 minutes into the fight, which Michelle was videoing. We ran back to the island for a great seafood buffet and a good nights sleep!!! Greg and Michelle are already planning next years trip to fish with us.
Mike joined us from Charleston and we have spent a nice week relaxing and fishing. After a couple of days spearing and swimming we fished the top of 3/bottom of 4 and out of 5 bites we tagged an 850, a 400 and had a small fish sharked , which we got the tail back from!!!
Fished our way up to Lizard with no bites, but some bottom fishing and lots of snorkelling the GBR.
Tight Lines,
Tim Richardson
