Kenn Reef 2006
Click HERE to check out Kenn Reef on our location guide.
We stopped at Wreck for a day before Kenn on this voyage. The trip out to Wreck Reef onboard Odyssey was a little rough, but towing the 35ft sportfishing boat, Saltaire was not a problem. Our boats and crew arrived at Wreck Reef the day before our first plane load of guests was due. The afternoon before the guys flew in we checked out the western end of Wreck Reef for a few hours and Ed and Simon found a doggie estimated at around 100kgs as well as a 40kg yellow fin tuna and a stack of wahoo, all in just 2 hrs fishing. This was a sign of things to come.
Scott Mitchell had organised a group of keen fly fishermen for the week of the 17th-23rd September, and doggies, wahoo and anything else big were all on the cards. This was to be our first group of serious fly anglers and everyone was excited about the prospect of chasing these big fish on fly. We also had a couple of South African fly anglers along for the trip. Brett Mannix and his mate Phillip Schutte were from Frontier Fly Fishing in South Africa and were keen to sample the delights of Kenn Reef.
This trip was also the start of our GT and Dogtooth Tuna tagging program. NSW fisheries has supported our request for a tagging program in these remote reefs and has supplied us with an initial batch of 300 tags to start some real research into the life cycles and ranges of these little understood species. Scott Bannerot is part of our crew and also a very well respected marine biologist, and he is heading the research into these species.
Our first few days of flyfishing were very productive, and the first afternoon produced 2 nice sized wahoo on the fly to Ian and Scott. The flyfishing in the shallow lagoons was also producing excellent results with a lot of bluefin trevally, long nosed emperor, red bass, coral trout and other reef critters hooked up. Landing the fish in the shallows on fly proved rather difficult, and there were some serious losses in the fly and line department.
The wahoo were definitely on the chew around the edges of Kenn Reef and there were some huge doggies mixed in amongst them. We had decided to flyfish from the 36ft sportfishing boats by towing a variety of surface teasers, but also used a single deep diving minnow with hooks to act as a teaser and actually catch a few fish in the process. The action of bringing in the hooked fish often saw a lot of followers come to the boat and gave the guys a great shot on fly. Simon and Tim on Saltaire found a few huge doggies in the first couple of days, with the best going around 80kgs on a trolled minnow.
On Nomad, we had a morning with the South Africans where we raised 3 blue marlin, 3 sailfish and a number of wahoo and dogtooth tuna. The fly did not stay connected for too long on any of these opportunities, but there were a lot of fish around.
As the week continued there were many more wahoo captured on fly, with the best going a touch over 30kgs on 10kg tippet, quite an impressive effort from Robert Breese, and well done on that fish. The dogtooth tuna were also starting to become a reality on the fly and we landed 8 doggies on fly for the week from around 30 shots. The biggest doggie landed was by Scott Mitchell and went 26kgs on 10kg tippet. Well done to the guys who landed dogtooth tuna on fly, this puts you into a very small group of anglers in the world who have landed one of these rare fish on fly.
The second week also started well with a mixed group of anglers from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the USA. We had 2 Canadian flyfishermen onboard and Al Pace started the first morning by catching his first ever wahoo on fly. It was a beaut fish of around 25kgs on 10kg tippet and was Al's biggest capture on fly.
The second week was the week of the dogtooth with 14 doggies landed over 40kgs for the week, and a couple of cracking big fish going close to 80kgs landed aboard Saltaire. We also started cracking onto a new fishing technique this week involving trolling stickbaits for everything from marlin to wahoo, doggies and coral trout. We even ended up slow trolling stickbaits way out the back of the boat in 5m of water for red bass and coral trout. This seemed to be a way to make catching 6kg Red Bass even more difficult than it already is.
Dermot Maxwell from Sydney had a chance to cast to a 50kg GT cruising in 1 metre of water in the SE corner of Kenn Lagoon, but unfortunately the fish declined his offering of a well presented stick bait. Bill Young of Australian Rugby front row fame was with us for the week and was unlucky to pull the hooks on a big GT in the middle of the week. The red bass, coral trout and GTs were on the chew in the lagoon and there were some excellent trout landed up to 12kgs on poppers. The best red bass landed for the week went around 9kg pulled out of 3m of water in a lagoon, truly spectacular fishing. The best GT landed for the week was around 28kgs from the lagoon shallows and Graham Cunning was the lucky angler. He also lost one around 40kgs on the reef edge.
Our last week at Kenn Reef started with the first ever group to actually fly all the way into Kenn Reef by Floatplane. This was the first time ever that a seaplane had landed at Kenn Reef directly and it was cause for celebration. Due to some logistical issues we had been flying into Wreck Reef and driving up to Kenn overnight. This was far from ideal, but this is all a thing of the past with 2 floatplanes from Hamilton Island now being the standard method for us to access all the Reefs we visit.
On the third week we had a couple of Kiwis and a group of Aussies out to do battle with anything and everything. George Johnson, Mark Jamieson and John Lucas were on Saltaire on the 2nd day of the trip and released 55 fish for the day comprising of 35 wahoo and 20 yellowfin tuna, the smallest fish for the day was around 20kgs, and the biggest was a yellowfin around 45kgs, they also raised 2 marlin and caught a dogtooth tuna.
The first 2 days aboard the Nomad saw Daryl Young and his group of 4 release 16 species of fish, all of which were first time captures for them. These included wahoo, dogtooth, yellowfin, green jobfish, red bass, coral trout and many more species. Nomad also had a morning on the wahoo and yellowfin where 32 big wahoo and yellowfin were released before lunch. The bluewater action was nothing short of spectacular.
Towards the end of the week we had a day on Nomad where we released a 200lb black marlin just after a double hookup of a 45kg sailfish and a 28kg dogtooth. We raised 6 sails and 3 black marlin on that day. The very same morning, Saltaire released a black marlin of 200lbs on a trolled stickbait. This was a world first capture. To make it even more amazing, the marlin spooled them on a Stella 10000FA spin reel and then after it broke off continued to jump around the ocean, so they backed down, grabbed the end of the line, tied it back on the rod and proceeded to catch the fish. This was all done by George Johnson who is 72 years young!!! Too amazing not to be true!!!
The final day aboard Nomad saw Mark Jamieson hooked up to his first ever black marlin on a belly flap of tuna skillfully dropped back to a non commital fish by deckie Ed Lester. This was a black marlin of around 300lbs and it was hooked up in 35m of water and we could see the bottom for the whole fight. This was truly spectacular and something we will long remember.
To finish the week, Dave Creffield managed to land a 35kg GT from inside the lagoon in very shallow water, a truly spectacular effort in the rough country and a fitting end to some of the best fishing you could ever hope to see anywhere. Can't wait for the next trip. Check out the picture gallery for full trip details.
See you out there.
 All material copyright Nomad Sportfishing Adventures 2007
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