Sept 18 2007

Arrived into Cairns last night after an eventful day on the high seas. Our Good friend Chris “Sharky” Miles and crew were bringing the new 55 Maritimo up from fishing the Hinchinbrook Tournament when she caught fire and burned to the water line and then sank near Beaver Cay, about 20nm offshore. All 5 people on board had to jump ship in lifejackets and were picked up by passing boats. Fortunately no one was hurt or injured and the whole fleet is relieved that everyone is safe. For some reason the boat (the factory show boat for Maritimo) did not have a life raft. If you have a boat with no raft, go buy one today!!!
http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2007/09/18/6579_hpphoto.php

Back to fishing!!!
We spent a great few days out at Flora and Holmes Reefs , about 100nm off Cairns. We tangled with a bunch of Dog tooth tuna, wahoos and a few yellowfin tuna. We anchored behind the sand cay and had a great nights sleep.

Trolling back to Escape Reef we found the longliners and chatted to them for a while. They had found a couple of whale sharks and caught some nice tunas off them up to 80 lbs.

We were about 20 miles north of the whale sharks and found and nice flock of birds which we got a few tunas off. We were fighting on and the tow camera was sinking down and all the little yellowfins were swimming around looking at the camera. when we started up after catching that one we were puttig the lure back out and as it fell past the camera a nice fish around 60lbs grabbed the lure on the 30 in front of the camera. We ended up breaking this one off after a long fight on 30lb.

That night we stayed behind Escape Reef. We trolled into Cooktown and dropped off our bait. The next two days we trolled out to St Crispins Reef and yesterday into Cairns.

The marlin have started to come in, but not in any numbers yet. A nice 700 lb was caught up the top end a few days ago, and the couple of boats fishing in the middle have been seeing a couple of fish a day. With the wind picking up later in the week and the water being a whole degree warmer than this time last year. So everyone is keen to get started with their seasons over the next week.

Check out our openings for this season.

Tim

www.TraditionCharters.com