Sunshine Coast Fishing Reports

Now the season is officially over and all of the trophies have been presented to winners we can look back on what was a very quiet year.  The Sunshine Coast was lucky to get an October bite of sailfish, a bite of black marline and sailfish at the Little Ships ground and another during April on the local eight and ten miles.  There were some good days on the blue marlin but no massive bite like in years past.  We are well overdue in that regard.  TV and radio weatherman Ken Brown skippering the 47’ Assegai Megumi experienced the best of the blue marlin this year but then he put in the hours, out on the shelf nearly every good weather day.  All indications are

We are well and truly in the doldrum months for gamefish anglers in South East Queensland.  Most people’s attentions have turned to thoughts of snapper and reef fishing rather than trolling.  The hard core gamefishers amongst us will still be out there trying for blue marlin on the shelf but I think more attention should be paid to the 80-200m depth range and a chance at big blacks and stripes.  Every year a lot of billfish are hooked on the 80-100m line by anglers floating pillies for snapper so they are out there.  I remember fishing for and getting billfish on places like Spot X off the Gold Coast in August.  On the Sunshine Coast any of the bait fish grounds holding bait will produce

Since last month the Sunshine Coast experienced another bonus sailfish bite.  Like the bite at the Little Ship ground the month before, they were mostly 18-25kg sailfish on pilchard schools at the local ten mile area.  Mixed in were a couple of very big black marlin keeping everyone fishing for them on their toes.  The two gun boats of this bite, Ymer, Steve Brooks’ 34’ Black Watch and Sailfisher, BJ Tompkins’ 5.8m Fisher centre console both had seven hour fights on 240kg and 150kg estimated fish respectively on 8kg line for anglers Channon Arbuthnot and Conor Lynch.  Days either side they did rack up three tagged fish days a piece on the smaller sails as well as some days of ones and two tagged.  

Since last month the Sunshine Coast experienced another bonus sailfish bite.  Like the bite at the Little Ship ground the month before, they were mostly 18-25kg sailfish on pilchard schools at the local ten mile area.  Mixed in were a couple of very big black marlin keeping everyone fishing for them on their toes.  The two gun boats of this bite, Ymer, Steve Brooks’ 34’ Black Watch and Sailfisher, BJ Tompkins’ 5.8m Fisher centre console both had seven hour fights on 240kg and 150kg estimated fish respectively on 8kg line for anglers Channon Arbuthnot and Conor Lynch.  Days either side they did rack up three tagged fish days a piece on the smaller sails as well as some days of ones and two tagged.  

Just when we had pretty much given up on getting a light tackle bite this year the fish showed up on the Sunshine Coast.  These fish were a mix of 30-80kg black marlin and 18-25kg sailfish.  Hectares of bait with dolphins and birds signalled the location of these fish with a couple of SCGFC boats having them all to themselves for a couple of weeks before the word got out.  The blue marlin action continued on the shelf with some boats getting multiples and others missing out.   Three tournaments were successfully conducted this past month.  The Little Ship Gamefish Club ran their tournament on their original dates and in some good weather which is lucky for them.  Scheduling it near cyclone season has seen

It looks like we may as well give up on a good light tackle bite this year.  The saving grace is the amount of blue marlin activity on the shelf.  There has been no red hot bite anywhere but most boats putting in the effort have been having two to three shots a day on blues.  The next thing to look out for is if we get a good bite on the other gamefish species like wahoo and yellowfin tuna this month and May.   This past month two tournaments were successfully slotted in with fishable weather.  The Telstra Shop Kawana Waters Sunshine Coast Gamefish Classic was the first cab off the rank.  It was also able to be held on its original dates with