InTheBite

Australia’s Fraser Island Produces Big Numbers

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Captain Brett Alty’s 50’ custom charter boat Mistress is at it again. Upon arrival back at Fraser Island at the end of September Mistress tagged 32 marlin within just 7 days and 3hrs of fishing!  As Yogi Berra, the New York Yankees catcher was as famous for his baseball skills as for mixing metaphors, once said “ This is déjà vu all over again.”

As was reported earlier in In The Bite E-News  Mistress enjoyed outstanding success at Fraser last year as well, tagging 104 in just 42 days during the period late August to late Nov. Mistress fished through early December before returning to the Gold Coast for some much needed maintenance. All told from August through December 2017, the Mistress tagged 128 marlin in 48 days of fishing. An astounding average of 2.7 fish per boat day!

We were on our lonesome for the entire period from August to October, but in November we were joined by three motherships and 10 gameboats all sharing the most commonly used anchorage at Rooneys Point. Among them the Gold Coast boats Caboom, Special K, and French Look 111, plus the charter boat Kekoa. Word of the outstanding fishing had spread quickly.

In late February, Mistress returned to Fraser and fished another 44 days. During this period currents weren’t ideal and weather patterns dictated that most fishing was done around the New Moon.  We generally don’t find the best Moon Phase optimal; rather the week before and after the Full seems preferable.

Nevertheless Mistress managed another 71 tags to bring the total for the year ended 30 June to 199. As we were hoping for a nice round and memorable number –like 200—the 199 was a bit disappointing. How close were we to the magic 200? On the last day of the fishing year we developed the dreaded “Rubber Hook “ syndrome, going one for five for the day. Damn. The 199 marlin tagged were comprised of  150 blue marlin, 30 little blacks and 19 assorted heavy tackle blacks and stripes. That’s world class fishing by any measure. During this period we were frequently accompanied by Dave McMaster a light tackle specialist on Poledancer and we had some memorable social nights.

Then, just to cap it all off, Mistress won the Hervey Bay Gamefish Club tournament fishing against a fleet of 40 odd boats. This time fishing heavy tackle with 9 blues in the 2 ½ days of fishing. We also won this tournament in 2015 catching 15 little blacks on light tackle, and were second on a countback in 2016 to the well performed Sunshine Coast Privateer Kamikaze.

Frazer Island Background

There are some interesting aspects to the fishery at Fraser. The blues and stripes strike very aggressively. With the stripes there was none of the usual Tap—Tap— Tap. The majority just climbed on like a Blue. All the fish were in excellent condition. They were all fat. Much more so than the ones we see on the Gold Coast only a couple of hundred miles south.

There were also yellowfin tuna present ranging from a few kilos to up to 75kg out on the shelf. On one occasion there were so many yellowfin around that they were beating the Blues to the lures. Captain Brett could see blues coming up in the lure pattern, but they were being consistently beaten to the lures by frenzied yellowfin.

A new Giant Black Marlin Fishery on the Horizon?

In June/July we also tagged, and quite predictably lost quite a few, tiny little Blacks. Some vainly trying, but failing to hook themselves on lures were as small as 2kg (5 pounds)! We reported this to Dr. Julian Pepperell (Australia’s preeminent billfish scientists—and one of the world’s foremost experts) who was intrigued because he thought that fish of this size would be probably only two to three months old. If this is the case it means that they were most likely  spawned about February or March. This has quite serious ramifications as it means that there is a black marlin spawning period outside the traditional September to November Cairns breeding period. Julian requested that we keep a couple of the Heads off these tiny Blacks so that he can inspect the oeliths and more precisely determine their age.

If Julian’s initial prognosis is correct it may well lead to another Giant black marlin season, most likely somewhere near Fraser Island. No doubt when we get confirmation of Julian`s estimate we and other long range liveaboard boats will be out in the wild blue yonder doing some exploratory fishing trying to find this new breeding ground.

The 2018 Season

Mistress started its latest session at Fraser with a three day, three hour fishing trip that initially targeted little blacks. After tagging eight, in the  morning of the 3rd day the crew decided to go heavy tackle seeking a Slam. Well the Lady angler, one of the three on board, caught her first blue and then was unlucky to pull the hooks out of a stripe.

On his second trip, Captain Brett decided to fish Heavy Tackle for four days. The Mistress wound up with an absolutely outstanding 23 tags deployed from 32 strikes. All blues! That’s 5.75 blues per day. Fingers crossed  this keeps up!!

On the fourth day Captain Brett actually moved away from his spot and called a couple of his friends in. His sole charterer was worn out from fighting so many fish and his two deckies were worn out from constant work rerigging/ resetting lures and leadering fish. How’s that for a problem?

Now Mistress has done a total of 11 days and 3 hrs at Fraser since the end of September and has tagged 42 marlin comprising 33 blues, eight blacks, and one striped. That’s an astonishing average of 3.72 per day of fishing.

At the moment there are around six  boats fishing at Fraser, among them Brad Dobinson’s Special K and Captain Simon Carossi driving Assegai. Simon also has his Mothership there.

I imagine that once again there will be a fleet descend on Fraser in November. Some of the Cairns charter boats have announced their intention to come down. There will also be boats from both north and south making an extended visit around their Hervey Bay Gamefish Club Tournament attendance (Tourny 16th  to 19th Nov).

There are plenty of fish for everyone and I expect that as we fish the area more we will all learn more and enjoy an even greater level of success. As if it’s not outstanding already.

For more on the Mistress operation, or to book a trip, check out their website: http://www.fishingmistress.com/

 

Two Small Hooks are Better than One Big Hook

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By Capt. Peter B. Wright

Several years ago I did a boat trial on a new Hatteras for Motor Boating and Sailing Magazine. I knew the captain, Pete Grosbeck, had a great reputation in California, but I had not yet gotten to know him personally. What he taught me that day in Mexico, has helped me catch hundreds of billfish and win copious amounts of money in tournaments all over the world.

I deliberately did not write about it, until now! Over the decades I have passed on this knowledge to many of my anglers and deck hands; I really don’t consider it to be a secret anymore (sorry Pete). When I share this information with new customers, or crew members, who have not yet used the tactics that Grosbeck taught me, they are usually skeptical. Once they see the success that comes along with the unusual set-up, they always put the rig into their own bag of tricks.

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After I climbed through the boat and tested its ability to dance, with me at the controls, Captain Pete asked me if I wanted to catch a couple of sail fish. Of course I did! He handed me a light, 20 pound, outfit and a huge, plastic headed marlin lure with multiple skirts! I blinked and said, “I can’t catch sailfish on that!” He replied, “Do you want to bet?” in a tone of voice that put me on guard immediately.

He was way too confident in what looked like a ridiculous set up for me to bet any real money. I knew Pacific sailfish were larger than the Atlantic ones I grew up on, and I had caught several, large sails in Australia by that point.

At the time, I rarely used lures as large as the one Pete had handed me, even on full grown blue or black Marlin!  My hookup ratio was not high enough using large lures compared to smaller lures. Only after using Grosbeck’s lure was I able to realize it was the hooks, and not the lure size that made the difference.

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I could not believe a sailfish would even try to eat such a huge artificial lure. If it did, I was sure that the hook up ratio would have to be at, or near zero!  Little did I know that in a short period of time that day, I would have 5 strikes from sailfish, and tag and release 3 of them! I was amazed! When I carefully checked out the hook set that Grosbeck was using, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. He was using 2 small and short shanked “J” shaped hooks, sized about 5/0.

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I can best describe them as being similar to what we used during live bait fishing for small Florida sailfish before switching to circle hooks. I tested the hooks on a line testing machine and it takes right at 100 pounds of pull to straighten one out. Each hook was on its own individual leader, and the hooks were not completely inside, or outside, the skirt’s tail! The skirt just barely covered the eyes of both hooks! It was an IGFA legal set up! Each leader had a loop eye and the main leader passed through the eyes of both leaders.

Years later, while, trying to catch Fonda Huizenga her first world record spearfish, we would catch a 300 plus pound Big eye tuna, and tag an estimated 500-pound blue marlin, which became the first Atlantic blue marlin ever to wear a satellite tag! We finally got the Ladies Spearfish Record late that day!  All the fish were caught on IGFA 50 pound class line, with the Grosbeck hook set on small Mold Craft “needlefish” lures!

I have won several tournaments using that same set-up. Including the Dunk Island classic, a 12 pound IGFA class line competition for Sailfish and Black Marlin, for three consecutive years.  We might have won it 4 years in a row if I had not made a silly mistake!

Trailing my old deck hand, Laurie Wright, by 3 fish on the last day, I figured there was no way we could get 5 releases before Laurie got at least a couple more.  Sailfish and small Black Marlin tagged and released were worth something along the lines of 35 points each.  Marlin over a certain size could be gaffed and boated, and were worth a point per pound of body weight.

I knew we could catch a decent Black on 12-pound so we went for broke and ran outside the edge of the reef to where the big ones lived. Almost immediately we got a bite!  Instead of being worth 5 sails or small blacks the fish we were fighting on 6 Kg. line was a full grown female in excess of 800 pounds! And worth a point a pound!

If we could catch her, we would win by a mile! My mistake was in not changing from the 80-pound test leader we used on the little blacks to something much heavier! I managed to get the leader to Doug Haig over 10 times! Each time he pulled as hard as he could, without breaking it, then dumped it, turned to me and said “Sorry Pete, I was going to break it.”

“Great job Doug,” was my reply. “We still have her on!” We were never able to get a tag on her and get the release points but it was one of the best fights we ever had! Whenever I show amateur crew members and anglers how to use the “Grosbeck Rig” I tell them to always use heavy leader and go fast.

One new friend called me up recently and told me “It works!”. “What works?” was my puzzled reply. “I got my wife her first sailfish, then we hooked another one! But it was not a sail. It was a marlin right here in front of Stuart. We messed up trying to tag it and broke the leader at the boat.”

THANKS AGAIN TO PETE GROSBECK.