FOR the last seven days we have been fishing Beau and his wife Ying, from Hong Kong.
Beau was with us three weeks ago when Cairns experienced record rainfall, so he was anxious his second trip would take place in better weather.
Beau is a keen reef fisherman and to him marlin fishing is of secondary importance; so it was out with handlines as we set a course to Escape Reef.
The weather man was kind to us and our clients were ecstatic with their catches of coral trout and red emperor. Each afternoon we devoted two hours to marlin fishing and ended up with five blacks between 250 and 400 lbs. Our best was a real active 800lb fish that seemed to prefer being in the air than in the water. After a 20 minute battle we managed to release the fish.
Beau’s wife Ying wanted to catch a billfish but was turned off by the size of the black marlin we were releasing, so on the morning of day five I set a course for an area that had produced juvenile blacks and sailfish in the past. Within 30 minutes of trolling lures we were hooked up on a sailfish and after 10 minutes Ying boated her first billfish for a quick photo and release.
Our clients returned to Hong Kong very happy with their adventure.
