Need Fishing Rec's for Melbourne, Australia

[Hroonk]

Are there any world travelers on here who can recommend someone for fishing out of Melbourne, Australia? I'll be traveling there for work 8 - 18 Oct. From what I've seen, it looks like the NE corner of the country is where most of the charter services are based out of. Would love to target black marlin, but have only found a few head boats targeting snapper through web searches.

Thanks,
Larry

[Natty Boh]

You want to travel from Melbourne up to Cairns (pronounced "Cans") to go after black marlin. My brother and father fished there in late September nearly 10 years ago for one day. Each released a 400+ lb black marlin. Unfortunately, they couldn't remember the name of the boat, but that was considered a pretty epic day at the time. I understand there are plenty of boats in Cairns and that is the place to be the time of year you will be there.

Here are some websites that I came accross while trying to figure out the name of the boat they took:

http://www.australianmarlin.com/marlin.htm

http://www.australianfishingexpeditions.com/

[tetepare]

Snapper fishing in October in Melbourne is pretty good. The Snapper come into Port Phillip Bay to spawn in the spring.

No game fishing down that way until the bluefin run again in the new year and even then you have to drive a fair way to hit it up.

If you only have the weekend off Cairns might be a bit far as there are not as many flights. Try South East Queensland. Sunshine Coast to be exact. Fishing out of mooloolaba. If you knocked off work on friday at 5 you could be on the 7 pm flight to brisbane. Grab a hire car drive 1.5 hours and fish sat and sunday heavy tackle for blues or inshore for sails and chance of a black (they run abit later). Grab the flight backat 4.55am on monday or 7pm on sunday.

Mooloolaba has great marlin fishing for all billfish. The current is flowing and blues are being caught up the coast. even heard of a boat loosing a 300kg fish on the trace last weekend (1oo miles south of there). Mooloolabah has a very safe nearly all weather bar.

For charters try http://www.outsideedge.com.au/ http://www.flatdogcharters.com/ http://www.sqcs.com.au/ All these guys love billfishing.

You could do the same out of the gold coast and you could fly direct there or drive 1 hour south from brissy however the fishing up north is heaps better in my opinion, there are alot of charters out of the goldcoast however i cant recommend one to you as the good guys are up at cairns fishing for blacks at that time. for flights try virginblue or jetstar. Just make sure you use there web check in and don't book the last flight of the night as you might find your self bumped or flying the next day.

Also you could try http://www.bsfac.com.au/ this is more of a club boat but they do do some chater work and browny is very well regarded for the blues.

Hope this helps

[Hroonk]

Thanks guys! Great info...I'll be checking it out!