The day is here – the first day of fishing of the Lizard Island Black Marlin Classic. Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for the fish-by-fish updates.  There were very few boats fishing yesterday and so it will be interesting to see how the fishing fares after a quiet several days on the Ribbons with the ongoing blow switching the current and cold water on the edge.

A few reports that have come in include an update from Capt. Billy Billson’s Viking II who finished their 6 days with Graham Mitchel for 7 fish, including one nice one. This puts Viking up to 34 fish in 25 days of fishing, and enjoying the season!

Also, I have the full story of the big black marlin encounter off Townsville (Myrmidon Reef) from Renee who fished with and on Micky Dykstra’s Reel Crazy. Renee says that the trip started well with a 50kg sailfish tagged and released for Renee, which come about whilst they were trying to catch some baits. Later the next day, just north of Myrmidon they ‘hooked’ (lassooed – you can see in the pics) a very nice black that Mick Meiers (who was also onboard) called for 1100lb. Mick Dykstra (yes he is the skipper) found himself in the chair, and amazingly after 3 1/2 hours into the fight (3 hours on sunset drag on 130lb) the chair ripped out of the floor!  Luckily no one was hurt and shortly after this the line broke with the fish only approx 40foot under the boat.

Click on the image to scroll through – 3 photos.

And a catch up report from Marlene Hicks and Topless wh otagged & released a small fish 250lb lower end of Ribbons on the weekend.