"Mistress" Cairns Summary and Statistics: Season 2004
Every season is different! This year the Linden Bank fired from the first week in September, things went rather quiet from mid October to mid November and then there were plenty of fish on the Linden Bank in late November. Fishing was also a bit "local"; one boat fishing a spot would be having a ball and other boats one reef north or south would be doing poorly. Next day everyone is at the previous days hotspot, and there's nothing there! Such are the vagaries of fishing. The weather was wonderful. It blew to 35 knots in the first week of September and managed 30/40 knots in the last week of November. Everything in the middle was usually forecast as being 10/15 knots but was more like 8/10 knots except for 2 days when it got above 20.
We met some new friends and welcomed back some of our old ones. It was great to have Dr Gerhard Stanek from Austria on board again. Doc had the misfortune to drop a certain "Grander" when the fish got the wire in it's mouth instead of the bait. Sometimes I wish these fish were brighter and would do the right thing! We had Richard Richardson on board for another week (Richard is a recipient of the IGFA Gil Keech Award for Outstanding achievement in Heavy Tackle Angling - There have only been four recipients of this award!) Richard's fishing partner was Pam Basco, Trustee and Treasurer of the IGFA. What a wonderful week that was. Pam got one about 800/850 about 2 hours into her first day on the reef, and did it perform and provide some close up eye and camera action. Richard evened things up a little later in the week.
We decided to fish with Circle hooks again. Last year our Strike to Tag ratio on Skip Baits (Scaly mackerel & Tuna) was excellent but our ration on Scads (Swimming Baits) was very poor and below what one would expect with J hooks.Well we worked on the problem and modified the technique with considerable success; this year the Strike to Tag ratio on Skip Baits was 56.25% and on Scads 50% neat! We have refined the Circle hook operation to the point where it is real user friendly and the angler takes the rod to the chair in free running drag (almost free spool), clips in to the seat harness and then when everything is comfortable we attempt to hook up. Initially we hook up with 18lbs of drag pressure and the amazing thing is that we got all of our fish inside 10 minutes and only had to increase the drag on 3 or 4 occasions. Even then it was just to keep the fish under control when it was close to the boat.
Overall for Season 2004
| |
Strikes: 59 |
Hookups: 40 |
Tag/Release: 28 |
| 100/200lb |
7 |
|
|
| 201/300lb |
7 |
|
|
| 301/400lb |
2 |
|
|
| 401/500lb |
6 |
|
|
| 501/600lb |
2 |
|
|
| 601/700lb |
1 |
|
|
| 701/800lb |
1 |
|
|
| 801/900lb |
2 |
|
|
| |
Strikes |
Hookups |
Tags |
Strike to Tag ratio |
| Scad |
32 |
22 |
16 |
50% |
| Scaly's |
16 |
13 |
9 |
56.25% |
| Tuna |
1 |
1 |
1 |
100% |
| Lure |
9 |
4 |
2 |
22.2% |
| Runner |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| Sept 24/30 |
16 |
13 |
7 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| Oct 3/7 |
7 |
4 |
2 |
|
| 11/14 |
6 |
5 |
3 |
|
| 16/23 |
11 |
4 |
4 |
|
| 25/27 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| Nov 6 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
| 10/13 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
|
| 15/21 |
12 |
9 |
6 (only 4 heavy tackle days fished) |
The fishing clearly wasn't as good as the last two years but by comparison with any other fishery in the world it was still outstanding. There is some suggestion that the fish spawned early this year and that they were probably there in August, but no one was fishing then so who knows.
Our funniest moment went thus: We had these fish up on the Scad. "On the right!" yells Tiger. Well it follows the Scad and then switches to the Scaly... "On the left!" The fish follows us for at least 3 miles, through at least one "doughnut" and probably a figure 8 but it won't eat. We has put live bait down the centre so it's "left" "right" "livey" "left" etc etc. Brett is in the mates chair on the Flybridge so out goes one of Tiger's Marlin Magnet lures. The fish sees this, lights up and crash tackles the lure... We're on. Only problem is we have 2 feet of 100lb trace, 8 feet of 70lb wind on, about 180 metres of 50lb line and the fish is going straight down. Brett wants to pass the rod down to me but I tell him "you hook it you fight it" or words to that effect. When Brett can see the bottom of the spool it's time to go to "sunset" and it works; the fish comes up dancing and we're after it... The tag's in... now there's another problem: Tiger wants his lure back, which is a hard ask given our terminal tackle, and of course we fail miserably in this task. Estimates of weight vary greatly, from like 200 to 400lb depending considerably whether you were the angler, it was your lure, you tagged it, or like me you were just an unbiased dispassionate observer.
Till next year... tight lines. |
