North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Was 2008 the year for the Billfish or is it that more people are out looking? I personally think that we have a great fishery in the NT and the results from the Darwin Game Fishing Club Billfish Classic were a testament to that.

Throughout the year there has been a few of us and I am sure a few others as well that have particularly targeted the billfish around the Territory.

Garry Quinn, Josh Ker, Ballsy and myself did our now annual pilgremage across to Groote for their Billfish Comp and whilst not having the same succes as last year when we took out the title we still managed a few highlights. Ballsy caught his biggest Marlin whilst I managed to get my first. The fishing was totally different to last year when we couldn't find a Marlin for all the Sails whilst this year we managed 2 and I lost another out of reach of the tag pole.

Whilst the fishing was still good at Groote what really hit home was the fishing on our doorstep here in Darwin. As I mentioned above there have been plenty of secrets held over the last few months with anecdotal stories both tall and true about who got what and where but at the end of the day between the 3 groups that I know well which have been out to target solely billfish the results speak for themselves. 2 Marlin caught, 2 Sails caught along with the usual raised,strikes and misses and this based pretty much on where we thought we might encounter a Billy based on local knowledge and chart reading looking at various contours etc. The highlight personally for myself was my wife's hook up of an estimated 150kg Marlin out from Darwin which she fought for 3 and a half hours before the line parted. The fight went over a distance of 10.4 klms on the GPS over the course of the time. The only photo we got was an image of the beast some 20-30 feet below the boat which makes is difficult to see but I have posted it anyway. We got a number of good looks at the fish including one where it turned 180 degrees to swim straight back at the boat only a couple feet from us as it peeled another couple of hundred metres of 10kg string back off the reel.If that were not enough we managed to hook another only 20 minutes later estimated at over 100kgs. For the first time ever I did not want to pick up the rod after seeing what my wife had just been through but sanity prevailed only for the whole plan to come unstuck while the fish went ballistic at the back of the boat.

As an adrenalin rush I reckon everybody should get out and give this a go. It doesn't matter what size boat you have as most of my hookups were from a 5 meter boat and I know of at least one Marlin which was caught within sight of Darwin itself.

I only hope that 2009 is just as good.[/img]

Good report John,they certainly are a blast arnt they,yes it can mean lots of trolling but if conditions are right and theres lots of bait about its a very good bet ones going to turn up and its something you wont forget and its forums like this that people can share ideas and maybe help someone to catch their first Billy

They are definately there. I love my 100% success rate rate on the billies.