8)Just had a quick phone call from my skipper mate Kim Andersen of New Moon III.
He is heading back out to the Ribbon Reef's off of Cooktown and decided to fill me in with the details of his last weeks charter.

This wasn't the normal Heavy Tackle extended / live aboard charter that is so popular during the prime marlin season but rather a mixed bag - they fished the rocks for prime salt water barra, jacks and fingermark, the bommies & drop off's for G.T.'s, and had a go at the hard fighting dog tooth tuna.

The tides were not the best for the barra, the bottom of the tide (where it all happens usually) was fairly high at just over a metre but they still managed eight beauties over the 90cm mark - that's 20+ lb fish which is great sport on light spinning tackle as well as dozens of smaller fish. Its still closed season for the taking of barra and all were carefully released.

The G.T. fishing however was just awesome - I have written several articles on these gut busting brutes and pound for pound they are up there with the very best sport / game fish on the planet. Using double handed spin sticks, 80lb braid and monster poppers they landed (and released) 67 fish is three days! The biggest nudging 32 kg (that's 70lb). The clients had a grin from ear to ear, and aching arms and backs and a thirst too I might add.

All you do is cast as far as you can, crack as hard as you can - and then fight as hard as you can!

Kim's back into the big blacks today so I'll have to wait for the latest update next week.

Catch you on the water,
Regards, Les.
www.fishingcairns.com.au