Still not much to report on board Reel Chase with just 2 bites yesterday. One tangled himself in the scaly rig but fell off after 5 minutes and the other, a small fish, jumped off on the strike. Calypso had abetter day with 2 tags also at # 5 while further south Kekoa caught 2 at # 3. Most boats coming up from down south for the Lizard Island tournament which starts this Sunday, report slow fishing. (Kanahoee was in to Cooktown overnight.)

The main interest in the last couple of days has been a group of spearfishermen trying to get a black marlin record. Apparently a number of boats saw them with a 600lber jumping and three divers hanging on to the cord until something broke a couple of days ago, and yesterday they managed to land an estimated 180lb fish. Scary stuff on the outside of these reefs. With the wind again howling at 30+ knots until Friday, we will probably be limited to a lot of bait fishing and some down sea trolling, the good thing is that when it finally eases most of the fish should be stacked up against the reef front for the next round of small tides.

It also may be a long season as the water temperature is way down due to prolonged wind ( 24.0 c) and if the fish need warmer water to spawn, we could be still seeing a lot of fish into December.