Our 2006 season began in late September and ended in mid November - shorter than we would have liked due to family commitments - but nevertheless very successful. We fished 40 days and caught 32 Black Marlin, 9 of which were over 800lb and 3 of which were over 1,000lb. The largest was well over 1,100lb.

Best of all, we and our charters had a ball.

CP entertained us with tall tales from the distant past and showed us why he is still regarded as the best of the best wireman in the business.



Charles talks about the 2006 season here.

Young Elliot, in his first season, came of age as a game fishing deckie and, under CP's direction, wired several nice fish. His enthusiasm saw him filling the freezers with all manner of reef fish from his early morning and late night sessions.



Watch Elliot with his tame GT



Elliot talks about the 2006 season here.

For our female audience, Elliot can be contacted on +61-403-590-322.

Captain Jared proved once again he is right up there with the top GBR skippers, consistently putting us in the right place at the right time and maintaining a very high capture to hookup ratio.

And every dish was licked clean throughout, so I assume the food met the high standard we aspire to.

Bring on 2007...

With our season a short one due to family commitments, we headed south for our final quest. It looked like we might go unrewarded when we came up empty handed on the first two days. However, all good things come to those who wait and mid-afternoon on the third day we hooked up.

This was a truly beautiful fish. At around 900lb, it did everything a Black Marlin is supposed to do. So much so that CP remarked that it had probably been caught before and had learned the ropes.

It took line, jumped all over the ocean, went deep and fought hard for about 40 minutes.

Young Elliot displayed a new found skill as a photographer while simultaneously steering the chair.

This was my 19th marlin for the season and it looked like I had ended on a good one. However, having previously declared the season over on Sunday evening and heading for Cairns on Monday morning, we elected to have a quick fish on our way south. We caught what we called the Airport Marlin - the one on the way to the airport - and although he was a virtual baby at 150lb, he made it 20 for me for the season.

Tim and Tab Bainum from the USA joined us for our next charter, three days out of Cooktown. This was Tim's second trip to the reef and he was keen to see son Tab catch his first Black Marlin.

We headed north on reports of a good bite and picked up a 200lb fish off No 9 Ribbon Reef almost immediately.



Watch the Video

Unfortunately, this trip saw our luck turn. Over the three days we saw over a dozen more, hooked up to several, yet were unable to catch any more. Sometimes the marlin get lucky.

We got two fish around 200lb and then on Friday hooked up to another big one which we called at 800lb. As it turned out, the fish was hooked in the tail and as a result was able to put up a remarkable fight. She jumped spectacularly, stripped off several hundred meters of line and eventually headed for the bottom. Unfortunately, while the tail hook gave her freedom to fight it made life difficult for her when she eventually tired as she was being lifted up tail first

She arrived at the surface exhausted and required resuscitation.

We quickly got a rope around her bill and towed her slowly for 20 minutes until we could see she had recovered.

She swam down to the Fighting Chair Saloon, no doubt to relate her encounter with the crazy fishermen on Shaka.