North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

G'day all

Just checked on the results for day 1 in the Darwin Game Fishing Club XXXX Billfish comp, sounds like it was a hard day at the office for the majority of teams, only about 16 Sails raised, 7 hooked, 2 tagged & 1 Marlin lost, not sure of the number of other Billies sighted in general vicinity of boats. Hopefully for the competitors the Billies will be a bit more friendly tomorrow, at least there out there, beats where I am, at work, weather should be reasonable for Friday & Saturday with maximum 15 knot arvo sea breezes. I will update Fridays results ASAP tomorrow night, cheers Balls.

Never seen it so quiet at South Gutter, North Gutter and Fenton Wide - no bait balls, only a few tuna and sardines at Fenton, but not a single flying fish, turtle or dolphin - or billfish - sighted by our team during the day.

The limited action seems to be out wider and at Dundee.

Different plan of attack for us tomorrow - comp is still open for all boats with only two boats having a sail each on day one.

However - tuna schools were en masse two miles off Nightcliff through to Larrakeyah on the runout tide in the arvo - there was school after school. So if you want a tuna fix, try there tomorrow. Who knows, maybe that's where some sails are!

Water temp out Fenton way was 30.5C.

Also saw about a dozen very large dead queenfish floating north-east of the end of Middle Ground

Well done with the reports fellas we are planning to head out Sat.,just hope it livens up a bit but it only takes one Billy to change all that

We fished lorna for zip, marked fish on western side of south gutter sitting deep. Seen 2 marlin at lorn wide n had a strike froma sail there but didnt set the hook. Theres plenty of bigger macs sitting deep under those small tuna schools to.

Matt Flynn wrote: Also saw about a dozen very large dead queenfish floating north-east of the end of Middle Ground

Hi Matt,

Any ideas why?

Have a good day,
Pecheur

Did someone say TUNA? There goes my Barra plans for Sunday if the trouble and strife approves a day of nautical entertainment.

Doors Off

G'day all

The teams had another hard day at the office on day two, 26 Billies raised, 11 hooked, 4 Sails & 1 Marlin tagged, at least one of the fish hooked & lost was reported to be a fair sized Marlin, more Spaniards Gene Tagged for the NT Fisheries which is good for them to spread the sampling areas around. Hopefully with a bit more movement tomorrow the numbers will increase even though its an earlier lines out, update general info tomorrow arvo, all results are subject to tournament conditions being finalized after lines out tomorrow. At least with the results to date every boat is in with a chance if they raise a pod of Billies, cheers Balls.

Cheers for the up date balls....

Thanks for keeping us up to date with the comp.

hit Fenton ,sth gutter and nth gutter today only to have one skipping gar stolen by a big spaniard,fenton wide looked the best first up this morning with lots of small tuna and big schools of some big hering like things rippling the surface ,surprisingly nothing was attacking them,but conditions were fantastic you could have been out there in a 12ft tinny until about 1.30 when the wind started to pick up a bit.

Our team got two of the four sails tagged on day two, we thought we would go back and clean up on day three, but not a thing. That's fishing.

G'day all

Only two Sails & one Marlin tagged today, not sure of how many were raised & hooked today, they are all in the presentation at the Cas sucking psssss at the moment. I will provide breakdown asap, at least one other good Marlin was lost that I know of, like Matt said thats fishing, their hard to find, like lots of bling, hard to hook when they don't play the game & easy to lose most of the time, bit like the other gender of the Human species, cheers Balls.

What is it with billies thats keeps ya comeing back. Malcom florence has a saying somewhere in one of his dvds "fishing for marlin is akin to sitting in the shower tearing up $50 notes as quick as you can" Well hes fark*n right. We fished for 3 days and saw maybe 10 to 15 fish. Had 3 or 4 shots a day, the fish hovered for 2 to 3 seconds behind a bait then dropped. I stuffed 2 fish because of STUPID THINGS(wind knot n not looking).

Well enough of my rant, anyone looking at locking horns with these buggers in the next couple of months get ya sh*t happening things look as good if not better than last build up. We fished a lot wider than i can in my boat. Lorna and the pinnies. The bait is spread from the pinnies to south gutter. Tuna in the thousands and spotted mackies are everywhere out there(before ya hang poop on me that theres none there ask someone who was out that way in the last 4 days) as we witnesed on the first day and the last in the comp. Saturday arvo we found a 2 bait balls with every thing feeding, sharks tuna mackies and 100s of birds. These both happend within a couple of ks of the first day looking at them deep. What happens when billies ball bait up then the rest of the food chain catches up
The shot of the sounder tells the story theres only 2 fish i know that mark like that. Dont be shy and have a good look at the plotter to.

Well as for the answer i must be nuts. But its good to see im not along. Ps hey balls tell them mob good job but take it back to the ski club.

bretto were you out with darren???

shore was the new boats not bad mate as him about the trip back saturday arvo