Our Trip Report to Marion Reef from the 18th October-11th November is as follows:-
Click HERE to check out the Marion October 2006 Pic Gallery.
Click HERE to check out Marion Reef on our location guide.
Unbelievable fishing action is about the only way to describe the 4 weeks of fishing we had at Marion Reef this year. More dogtooth tuna that I've seen anywhere ever before and some absolute monsters in there, like Mr Mogi's 90kg doggie jigged up on the outside edge of the reef. James Moran from Sydney also landed a very respectable 65kg doggie jigging, which was a nice match for his 45kg GT landed inside the lagoon.
The dogtooth were ferocious on the cast stickbaits and poppers, with some 30-40kg doggies landed on cast surface lures throughout the trip. But the numbers of doggies tagged and released while trolling was staggering. One day alone we released 34 dogtooth tuna while trolling from the Nomad.
I'm off the track a bit here, but starting at the beginning, we had a group of Japanese anglers, from the famous Grouper Boys club run by Mr Mogi, in the first week who had a few days fishing the remote outer edge of the Hard Line Reef out from Mackay. The GT fishing around these reefs was prolific with huge numbers of 20-30kg GTs landed while fishing around baitballs of fusiliers. This is an area we'll be doing some dory trip to next year specifically to target the numbers of GTs. Our best day around these reefs saw 32 GTs landed with the largest around 34kgs. Truly spectacular fishing and somewhere well worth revisiting.
We steamed to Marion overnight with Mr Mogi's group and arrived for the first time ever at Marion to find a stunningly beautiful reef littered with sand cays and with even a couple of great anchorages. Exploring around the reef for the first time the GT fishing was a little slow on the first morning, but still a couple of 30kg fish landed. What stood out immediately was the number and size of the Coral trout on the reef. Most trout were 10kgs and they were plentiful. It was obvious that this reef had never seen a popper before as the shallow water lagoon fishing was spectacular to say the least. In the first 3 days at Marion Reef we landed a 90kg dogtooth jigging, along with several in the 50kg range as well as a 45-50kg GT landed by Kenji Konishi from Carpenter Rods fame, a 65kg Maori Wrasse on a stickbait in 2 m of water as well as numerous other big 30kg GTs and doggies on cast stickbaits. Mixed in with this was some very large 25kg Coral Trout and big Red bass as well as green jobfish and bluefin trevally. All this in the midst of 20-25kn of southeast wind for the first 3 days and we had a very high opinion of Marion Reef by the time the Japanese guys left us.
The second week we were joined by David Blanck from the Property Solutions Group in Brisbane with a corporate group of keen fishermen and divers. The wind persisted for the first day but this did not stop David from landing a 30kg dogtooth tuna and a 30kg sailfish on cast stickbaits from the bommies in the lagoon only 2 miles out the back of the mothership. The hot dogtooth tuna bite persisted during this week, and by the end of the week we had tagged and released 135 dogtooth tuna, 56 Coral Trout and a whole host of other species. We also managed to raise 5 blue marlin and a sailfish in a morning's trolling along the big pass north of the mothership, all this in the midst of another 20 or so doggies for the morning.
David's group was the first to fly out with us last year to the Coral Sea and another first this year was their discovery of a good population of crayfish at Marion Reef. The boys collected 16 crays in an afternoon which made for a seafood extravaganza for dinner on the last night.
The overall fishing during this second week was extraordinary and far surpassed the fishing results for this group from last year. The best doggie landed for the week was around 45kgs and this was mixed in with lots of school doggies of 15-20kgs and a reasonable number of big sailfish.
Our third week was the start of another fanatical jigging and popping week aboard the Odyssey. We had Jai, Ek and Tik from Thailand who live to pop and jig. There was also James Moran from Sydney, Andre De Botton from Brazil, Lyn and Neil from Jones Tackle in Brisbane, Steve Kakavas from Sydney(Maybe China next week!!), Arnaud George from France and Roy Allan and Dave Creffield, as well as my father John Olsen along for the week. It was a mixed group with 2 things on their mind, big GTs and big doggies.
The weather had taken a turn to being close to perfect during the middle of the 2nd week, and this looked like continuing for the foreseeable future. With 5-10kn of light NE wind we began looking for some big critters and we were not to be disappointed. It was Roy who joined the 40kg GT club early in the week with a very solid fish over 40kgs taken from the shallow section of the lagoon. A fantastic effort and a great job by guide Gavin Platz on the driving. Arnaud George was next to join the club with a very solid GT from the northern end of the reef with Scott at the helm. They had lost an even bigger one earlier in the day, but the fish Arnaud landed was a spectacular effort.
Jai was next up with a 45kg GT taken on a silver spinner early in the morning of the 3rd day while fishing with Gavin, and the same team then followed up with another 45kg GT jigging to EK later in the day and a 40kg GT to Tik as well. The Big GTs were well and truly on the chew.
In the middle of the week we had a spectacular day aboard the Nomad with James, Jai, Ek and Tik. The jigging around the western edge of the reef was amazing, it was nearly every drop action and there were a lot of 20-25kg doggies, big coral trout, red bass, wahoo and anything else you could imagine. Between the 4 guys we lost 36 jigs this day, but James Moran also landed a 65kg doggie on a jig, which is a fish he's been chasing for a long time. It was one of those days that just made the whole week, truly spectacular action.
Neil and Lyn also had a ball this week landing numerous big GTs to 35kgs, a 50kg doggie jigging to neil, more 10kg trout than they ever thought they'd see in a lifetime and enough school size doggies to last them until next year's trip.
The fishing in this week was as good as you could hope for with big fish caught every day, and lots of smaller ones to keep us entertained in between.
Our last week at Marion Reef was to be with a slightly smaller group of 8 anglers and a film crew from Channel 7 Brisbane filming a creek to coast show for airing in March 2007. Scott Hillier was along as presenter and in the first hour of fishing with the film crew we had a 35kg doggie eaten by sharks at the transom, and impressive start to the trip, and certainly more than what they were expecting I think! The second day with the film crew was also off to a spectacular start with a triple dogtooth hookup after 20 mins of trolling, followed by a double sailfish attack. Gary Scott from Melbourne was out with the film crew this day and landed his first ever GT, dogtooth, and biggest ever Coral Trout all in one day. The film crew had stopped filming by 2pm as they had more than enough footage for 3 shows after only one day.
Sam, Andrew and Jeremy were aboard Saltaire the next day and had an enormous day of action fishing with 62 strikes for the day including 3 black marlin and 2 sailfish hooked up amongst a horde of small to frighteningly large dogtooth. The guys were totally worn out by the end of this day and they passed out that night after 2 beers each!!
This week also saw truly epic fishing action on nearly every day, and we had 3 consecutive days aboard the Nomad where 80kg dogtooth crashed the teasers and lures and either missed the hooks or busted us off on the reef. We managed to land some 40kg doggies every day, which is pretty special, but also had sailfish landed in consecutive days amongst the doggies. Sam caught his first ever billfish after 2 years of fishing the Gold Coast without luck, and Mal Clews from Mackay landed his first ever billfish and biggest GT of 34kgs all in one day. Both anglers were a picture of happiness!! And on the last morning just to finish off with Jeremy also landed his first ever billfish, a nice sailfish only a few hours before flying home.
The summary of Marion Reef was incredible. Lots of dogtooth, maybe not as many big ones as some other Coral Sea Reefs, lots of Big GTs lots of billfish, some of the biggest trout we have seen anywhere and plenty of crayfish for dinner. Anyone who enjoys sport fishing and catching big fish will love Marion Reef in 2008. Check out the dates for 2008 and give us a call to reserve your places today. It is a very special place where it would be hard not to have fun.
See you out there.
Damon Olsen.
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 All material copyright Nomad Sportfishing Adventures 2007
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