OUR client for the last five days was Steve Tatham from Karratha West Australia, fishing his fourth Cairns marlin season on board Viking II.
It’s day one and we have a great lunch prepared by our deckie “Westey”, then we hit the trolling scene. After an hour’s trolling a big fish crash tackled the scaly mackerel being towed on the stinger. Steve jumped in the chair as he had done on previous occasions and the fight was into round one.
I was backing up at a rate of knots as this fish must have had tickets to a training session of the NQ Cowboys in Townsville. Steve continued to get a drenching and I continued to back up. I knew this was a good sized fish from the time she made her first leap for freedom. Steve was hoping for a grander as I was – it would be our fifth of the season.
The fish was getting closer and Steve, due to his wealth of experience, had no hesitation in applying maximum drag. This magnificent fish was in reach. I took a long hard look at the fish as it was released but could not honestly say it was a 1000lb fish, so I called it 950lb, which I was happy with. I could see by the smile on Steve’s face he was happy to have fought this powerful fish and won.
The weather took a turn for the worse unfortunately, and the fishing became testing. The rest of the week I can only describe as well below average. I can only hope for an improvement in weather and fish for our next charter when we will be joined by Beau and Ying from Hong Kong for their second charter this season.
