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Our latest Trip Report to Jewell Reef and Lizard Island from the 12th Oct-16th November is as follows:-

Click HERE to check out Jewell Reef on our location guide
Click HERE to check out Lizard Island on our location guide
We visitited Jewell Reef as part of our Coral Sea Ultimate Adventure Trips

Summary -
The latest trip to Jewell Reef and Lizard Island was a resounding success, and has added to a long list of highly successful trips in 2007 for Nomad Sportfishing. Jewell Reef is located to the north of Lizard Island, and is accessed by flying into Lizard Island and then taking a short boat ride north.
We had never fished this area before, so we were not sure what to expect. What we found was one of the most diverse fishing locations imaginable, with giant black marlin, loads of GTs, spanish mackerel, dogtooth tuna, coral trout, red bass, maori wrasse, bluefin trevally and heaps of other species. All up we recorded 31 species for the stay at Jewell Reef, and landed 282 GTs in one week, with the biggest around 48kgs, with a group of Japanese anglers. We landed a number of thousand pound black marlin in the waters around Jewell Reef, and overall found it to provide an incredibly diverse range of fishing options.
So good was the fishing that we have included this area in our 2008 Coral Sea Ultimate Adventures schedule. The variety of sportfish, mixed with the opportunity for anglers to target thousand pound marlin, if they choose, has cemented this location firmly in the Nomad schedule for future years.

Report
We arrived at Lizard Island on the 12th of October, and had arranged to meet one of our guests in the beautiful anchorage on the northern side of Lizard Island. Michael Cobb had requested the use of the mothership, while he fished the waters around Lizard Island and Jewell Reef from his own boat, for giant black marlin. We were to be operating our 36ft sportfisher Nomad, and the 18ft centre consoles for a variety of sport and gamefishing in the area with other guests, while Michael used the mothership facilities.

We had Sam Mehew from the UK onboard the gameboat for the first few days and he was desparately keen to catch a black marlin. Sam was also joined for a few days by Jimmy and Dean from Melbourne, and they spent 3 days marlin fishing with us, and 2 days doing a variety of general sportfishing for GTs coral trout, red bass and the variety of mackerel around the reefs. Sam managed to land a 200lb, 600lb and a magnificent 950lb black marlin in his 3 days marlin fishing, along with heaps of 20-30kg GTs, lots of 20kg spanish mackerel, and a whole host of other species. Jimmy and Dean were concentrating on the sportfishing, but also managed a few smaller 100lb black marlin along with a whole host of GTs mackerel and coral trout. After such a great time, thay have all decided to come back next year with a few mates to enjoy the action.

Our next group saw us host Sam Lythgo and Jeremy De Silva, who had fished a Marion Reef Ultimate Adventure last year. They were interested in the variety of species available, but also wanted to see a big marlin. The marlin fishing was a little slow for the first few days, and in fact the entire marlin season was one of the slowest on record, which is why we were so pleased with our average of 1 marlin landed per boat/day over the course of our trip. But Sam's group managed a number of smaller 100-200lb marlin before geting a couple of 300-400lb fish, and a very nice 750lb black marlin on their last afternoon.

Added to this action was the sighting of a number of mobile bommies, which were a school of 300 or more GTs in the 20-50kg size range, cruising along the edge of the reef. Every popper landed into the cruising mass resulted in an explosion, usually by the time the popper landed. It is amazing to watch how the GTs see the popper in the air and are chasing it before it lands!!

The American invasion started during the 3rd week, with Bob Williamson, Chip Wittern, Bob Stein and Bob Hagadorn all making the long trip from the USA. The fishing for marlin was slow for the first 4 days, with only 2 black marlin landed in 4 days, but the sportfishing action we experienced every morning more than made up for the slow marlin bite. All the guys got to experience the power of a GT over 30kgs, when we again found a large mobile bommie of GTs cruising along the edge of the reef. It was a first time encounter on GTs for all the guys from the USA, and all agreed that they have never expereinced anything that pulled like a GT.

Bob Williamson and Chip had to leave after the first 4 days, but the other 2 Bob's were able to stay on for 6 days fishing, and they experienced some incredible action on the final 2 days of their trip. They had bites from 11 marlin in the last 2 days, and were connected solidly to 7 of these over 2 days, landing 5 big marlin in 2 days fishing. Of the 11 bites, it was estimated that 5 of the fish were over the 1000lb mark, and they managed to release 2 black marlin over 1000lbs, and another 3 between 500-700lbs in their final 2 days fishing. The fish certainly came on the chew for a few days there, and gave us some glimpses of how good the marlin fishing can be in this area.

Al Pace and John Kazanjian hail from Canada and they were joined by a good friend Steve, from NY city for a 5 day trip in late October. Al and John had both experienced the delights of Kenn Reef last year, but Al was very keen to land a giant black marlin. We spent most mornings with these guys doing a bit of fly fishing and light tackle sportfishing inside the reef lagoons, and most afternoons trolling the edge of the reef with heavy gear for big marlin.

Some of the flyfishing and light tackle sportfishing we expereinced was truly spectacular, with lots of spanish mackerel, GTs and coral trout landed by all. The first 4 afternoons marlin fishing produced 1 released marlin each day between 200-400lbs, but there were no big girls sighted. This still made for some great day's fishing, with light tackle action in the morning, and the guys getting to see a marlin every day of the trip. We were quite happy with those odds, given the overall slow marlin bite.

The last day proved to be a beauty, with a sensational morning session on mackerel and GTs followed by a very quiet few hours trolling along the edge of the reef, until at the magic time of 3:30pm, it happened. But it was not what we expected. We always run a minnow down the middle of the spread of 2 big baits, to help catch livebait. We always run this on a 50W Tiagra, with 50lb line, because it is quite common to laso land a few small marlin and some big tuna on this rod. When the 50lb rod went off it was a slow run, taking maybe 50m, and then we all saw the tail and dorsal fin of a massive marlin on the surface. We were initially unsure if it was on the 50lb rod, or trying to eat our big skipbait, but sure enough, it had eaten the River2Sea 200mm minnow on the 50lb rod. We run Jobu single hooks on all the minnows, because it helps to land more billfish, but I must admit when we saw this fish connected to a 50lb rod, with a 150lb leader and 120lb wire trace, we did not hold much hope, and deep down the crew were all a little annoyed that the big marlin had not decided to eat a bait connected to the 130lb rod.

We immediately put the drag up over strike, as we knew that going hard from the outset was our only hope. The first 30 minutes of the fight was spent desparately hoping that the fish would surface, and not simply spool us, as this was looking likely a few times. With such high drag settings on 50lb tackle, the rod changed hands many times between Al, Steve and John. We were preparing the gaffs at one stage because of the real chance of a world record, were we to land this fish, but with the anglers swapping, we decided to just film the whole thing and try and release the fish after grabbing the leader.

I think the truth of this story if that we got very lucky, as the fish stayed up high, and we were able to maneuvre the boat to get hold of the leader and bring the fish up for a closer look, before cutting the leader and releasing the fish to go and show off her new little minnow lip ring to her mates. To land a marlin that we were all certain was over 1000lbs on such comparitively light tackle was something quite amazing, and a very special experience for all onboard. Al had been telling us all week that he felt lucky, and there's no doubt that he's a lucky man. I just hope Al brings the same luck back next year, or that he at least finds a way to bottle it and send it over!

Our last week in this amazing reef system was with Mr Mogi's group of Japanese anglers, chasing mainly GTs and dogtooth tuna. We headed further north into the Jewell Reef complex than we had previously ventured, and found a wealth of fishing options better than we had ever imagined. Huge areas of the lagoon rippling with baitfish, and simply thick with GTs, spanish mackerel, spotted cod, coral trout, red bass, maori wrasse, emperor and green jobfish.

The small amount of jigging off the edge of the reef was amazing, with dogtooth tuna, big cod, red bass, GTs and wahoo encountered. But the GT fishing was the highlight for the Japanese group. They described the area as "GT Paradise", telling us they had never seen so many GTs anywhere. The average size of GT was smaller than most other locations we visit(maybe 15-20kg average), but we caught a reasonable number of fish over 30kgs, and a few around 45-50kgs, so there are some big ones around, and there sure is a lot of them. In 5 days fishing with 9 anglers, we released 282 GTs and lost a lot more than that. This number did not even include the proliferation of coral trout, red bass, mackerel, cod, wrasse and jobfish that we encountered.

For anyone interested in a massive variety of fish, and just a plain huge number of fish and lots of action Jewell reef will be hard to beat.

The last few days of our trip were spent hosting Marlin Magazine's Marlin University aboard the mothership, while 3 gameboats worked from the mothership. We had Peter B Wright on one of the gameboats accompanied by Dean Biggles on the Allure and Hayden on the Release. Most of the week was spent running away from a cyclone, but the guys managed a few blacks every day, and Biggles got one over the 1000lb mark on the last day to really entertain the US guests.

All up, this was a fabulously successful block of trips to a unique area. The bookings for 2008 to Jewell Reef are already busy with repeat guests, so if you are interested in catching some giant black marlin or some of the best sportfishing available anywhere, you'd better get busy looking at dates for 2008.

Can't wait to get back there next year.

Damon Olsen and the Nomad Crew.

All material copyright Nomad Sportfishing Adventures 2007