NORTH Queensland received a record 359 millimetres of rain in just 48 hours last week, which smashed the 1964 record by 86.6 millimetres.
Last Tuesday night we had cyclonic-like rain behind the reef and winds of 45 knots plus, or as one of my deckie’s best described it, “It reminds me of an old girlfriend, wild, wet and windy.”
We have been on the Mothership MV Atlantic Princess for the last week with my partner Beau Kuok (Mr Shangri la). Beau loves his reef fishing, and anchoring in 30 knots of breeze, and trying to get on the right spot, puts a whole new meaning to the words “boat driver”.
My crew Wassa and James, did an excellent job on the bow dealing with the anchor in sometimes gale force conditions, in contrast to the picture postcard conditions we have experienced for the last few weeks.
On the marlin scene only a few boats were venturing out, and by the radio talk marlin captures were few and far between. The strong southerly current has turned north as it was last year, but we hope over the next few days as things settle down, it turns back to the south.
On the occasions we did get out our small effort managed to get Beau three marlin, and of course a nice lot of trout and red emperor to take home.
Up until the weather turned lousy, the marlin fishing this year has been better than last year, with more and better size marlin, so with that in mind we headed for Cooktown to change over charters. Phil Perry and two of his mates, all from WA, are here with us for the next six days and the weather man has given us the thumbs up. Stay tuned!
