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Our latest Trip Report to Kenn Reef from the 7th-25th September is as follows:-

Click HERE to check out Kenn Reef on our location guide
Click HERE to watch some video action from Kenn Reef
We visitited Kenn Reef as part of our Coral Sea Ultimate Adventure Trips

Summary -
The latest trip to Kenn reef was again a spectacular example of the variety of fishing available at this location. The wahoo action continued at Kenn Reef for the duration of the trip, and with heaps of solid yellowfin tuna, GTs, coral trout, red bass, dogtooth tuna and the occasional marlin thrown in for good measure, it was a spectacular set of trips. The ocean current, or lack of it, provided some interesting learning exeriences during the first 2 weeks, but it certainly did not effect the fishing action, just the species available.

Some of the highlights included numerous 50kg+ wahoo landed, some monumental dogtooth tuna bustoffs, a number of 50kg+ GTs hooked and lost and some very nice sized black marlin in the 300-500lb class size. One of the other highlights was the incredible weather we experienced for nearly 3 full weeks. It never got much over 10kn of wind the whole time we were there.

As well as some exceptional fishing, we also did some exploratory scuba diving at Kenn Reef, and all who experienced this diving were truly stunned at what they saw. Some of the most amazing underwater geography any of them had ever seen.

Report
The trip out to Kenn Reef aboard the Odyssey was nothing short of horrendous for the crew. 30-35kn winds made it an arduous voyage taking some 42hrs from departure to arrival, fortunately for everyone reading this, you'll be flying out and won't ever have to experience that!!!

However, the one thing about Kenn Reef that makes that type of voyage bearable is the knowledge that one of the best anchorages in the Coral Sea awaits, and that some of the most incredible scenery and fishing is just over the horizon. We had the mooring down and were comfortably anchored inside the lagoon on the evening before the first plane load of guests arrived. The sand cay in the anchorage lagoon had grown a fair bit since the previous year, and the lagoon looked just as good as ever.

The first plane load of 5 anglers flew in at around 10am, and the excitement on their faces was clear. After flying out nearly 400nm from Hamilton Island, and over some of the most spectacular parts of the GBR, they were all keen to get fishing.

The first week saw David Keogh bring his son Mitchell and 3 other mates along for the trip. Charlie, John and Lew were all very keen to get into the action upon arrival. David had already been out to Marion Reef with us earlier this year, and is now a confirmed Nomad junkie with his 2nd trip in only 3 months. Stuart Exall, James Taylor, Guy Blay and Alan Broomhead made up the rest of the crew arriving on the 2nd plane later that afternoon.

The first week of fishing saw us head back to some of the regular spots, and the action on big wahoo and yellowfin tuna was seriously hot. I think by the end of the week everyone was happy not to see another wahoo, because after you've caught your 100th wahoo on any variety of tackle, a little variety is a nice thing. We actually had problems getting to the dogtooth tuna because the big wahoo were so thick. Some morning sessions in the gameboats saw our deckies struggle to set a full spread out for the entire morning.

Alan managed to catch the wahoo of the week with a solid 55kg+ fish landed onboard Nomad on the first day, Allan was keen to remind us that even though the fish was not officially weighed, it was larger than the current Australian all tackle wahoo record of 47kg. Aside from the excellent wahoo and yellowfin tuna fishing we experienced during the first week, the jigging for red bass, GTs and coral trout was very good. James Taylor managed a couple of Coral Trout over 15kgs and a few very respectable GTs as well. David Keogh had an encounter with a massive GT in the shallows, only to do all the hard work, extract the 50kg beast from the coral, and then pull the hook under the boat.

One of the interesting things we noticed after a few days at Kenn Reef was the lack of the strong oceanic north-south current which has prevailed on every other trip to this location. There was proving to be a reduced number of dogtooth tuna encounters due to the lack of current, however we stil had some monumental dogtooth bustoffs during the week. The dogtooth tuna need current to get them excited, and the large ledges and walls that they congregate around just don't hold bait when the current is not hitting them. Now we did encounter a good number of doggies, and landed them up to 40kgs, so it was pretty sensational fishing in any language, just not the usual chaos that we had come to expect from the dogtooth tuna at Kenn Reef.

The incredible weather at Kenn Reef continued during our 2nd and 3rd weeks and the numbers of massive wahoo and solid yellowfin kept on biting. We had a few sailfish landed during this 2nd week, and also some better dogtooth tuna fishing, but the current was still not running. One of the very interesting things that one of our guides, Liam Macdonald observed during the 3rd week was a congregation of dogtooth tuna on one of our favourite shallow water dogtooth spots. All of the boats had been seeing schools of doggies marking on the Furuno sounders and we all knew they were there, and some big ones, but they were just not biting, we believed due to the lack of current.

Liam was marking schools of big fish on the sounder, and put a mask and snorkel on and ducked over the side for a look, with 50m visibility he could see a pack of 30 dogtooth tuna ranging in size from 25-100kgs calmly swimming around under the boat, but completely disinterested in anything that was going on. Liam dropped down a live green jobfish which they had just caught, and he watched in amazement as the doggies just swam around looking at the jobfish. Liam did have one jobfish eaten that afternoon by a big doggie which busted them off on the reef, but the old saying of no run no fun certainly was holding true for the dogtooth tuna. As we suspected, there was no lack of massive fish there, but they just were not interested in eating with the lack of current. This lack of current was very unseasonal, and something we'll probably not encounter again, as it really is rare for the current not to be running in spring in these areas, but we certainly learned a lot about feeding triggers for dogtooth tuna.

Some of the other highlights of the last 2 weeks was Peter being hooked up to a 400lb black marlin for 2hrs only to pull the hook under the boat. Tony was connected to a couple of massive GTs in the 40-50kg class and had one bust him off and another just fail to hook up, but he did manage to land a 30kg beauty on the 3rd last day of the trip. Of course the wahoo and yellowfin tuna action was a huge highlight of the trip. The wahoo fishing was as good as anywhere we've ever seen, and we even managed a few on fly for Bruce and Shaun who had come over from South Africa. Most wahoo sessions involved us spending only a few hours trolling for 20-30 wahoo releases on jigs, stickbaits and trolling. One of the most enjoyable ways to catch wahoo was to troll until you found the pack and then cast stickbaits and jig for them. This resulted in some huge tackle losses, but also a massive amount of fun on some big wahoo in the 25-40kg size class.

We finished this block of trips by travelling 75 miles to the NW of Kenn Reef to fish a remote isolated seamount and associated reef complex for the final 2 days of the last week. The seamount comes out of around 3000m of water to form a small plateau on top rising to around 40m from the surface. Now, we've experienced some incredible fishing in the Coral Sea, but the day at this seamount was well and truly amongst the best ever. The current was raging from the north to the south and the pressure waves on the shallow part of the palteau were incredible, we could not believe that only 75 miles away at Kenn, the current had been still for weeks!! Amazing stuff! The action on massive wahoo, and big yellowfin tuna in the 30-50kg size class was truly epic. From the moment we arrived until the time we departed it was just chaotic action all day without a single break in the bite. There were tens of thousands of birds wheeling and diving, there were 100kg+ yellowfin jumping clear of the water, there were tailing billfish, and I can safely say I have never before seen a patch of ocean so alive. The fish were simply gourging themselves on small squids, crustaceans and baitfish being washed up from the depths around the side of the seamount.

However many rods you put in the water, that was how many hookups you got on wahoo or solid yellowfin tuna. We would often only put one rod out and as soon as the reel was clicked into gear it was nailed by whatever fish were in the area. We could not get to the big yellowfin or the billfish because the yellowfin and wahoo simply nailed everything that hit the water. I have no idea how many fish we released that day but it would have been well over 100. We landed at least a dozen 100lb plus yellowfin and also landed a wahoo which would have been in the mid 50kg size class, truly monsterous!!

There's really no words to describe how good that day was, so I'm going to stop trying, but however good you can imagine it was, I'd reckon you could double that and you'd be close to the mark.

Our last day of the trip was spent near the Reef complex 20miles south of the seamount. The guys had decided they needed a break from the seamount as they could not physically handle another day like that. Unfortunately for them, the fishing was nearly as good on the northern end of the reef complex. We had 4 black marlin hooked up, mahi mahi, more big yellowfin, and more big wahoo. But the highlight of the last day was the spectacular GT fishing in the shallows near the mothership. Due to the raging ocean current, the GTs were really on the chew, and there were again some monsters lost, but some very respectable 25-30kg GTs landed.

Overall, Kenn Reef again confirmed itself as one of the best locations imaginable for a variety of species. There's not too many other places that offer the incredible mixture of species available at Kenn Reef, and the incredible scenery, great diving and excellent anchorages available at Kenn just further add to the appeal of this location.

Can't wait to get back there next year

Damon Olsen and the Nomad Crew.

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