By mid-morning the bite had shut down and the
boats dispersed. Few birds and little surface activity
was seen through the rest of the day, although
random marlin were still occasionally reported.
A large video screen in the Lae Yacht Club displayed
the position of all boats in real-time. This innovation
came courtesy of Lindsay Swanson, who supplies
GPS tracking systems for local fleets of business
vehicles through FleetraQ (www.fleetraq.com.au).
With a transmitter given to every tournament boat,
the screen chart kept all spectators up to date with
the movements of the teams. All boats except one
were scattered around the FADs and throughout the
Gulf. However, Ray Seeto aboardBlack Label IIhad
a different strategy, which was soon to change the
course of the tournament.
TAMI’S SECRET
Black Label IIis a Boston Whaler 345 Conquest with
triple 300hp Mercury outboards, giving it the ability to
reach distant grounds at blistering speed. As the Huon
Gulf is often a backwater with little current, Ray had
a hunch that the best fishing would be found in the
current flowing past Tami Island, at the Gulf’s north-
eastern tip.
Some of the northbound current in the Solomon Sea
along PNG’s mid-eastern coast spills into the Huon
Gulf, but when the main flow hits the north-eastern
shoreline, part of it bends back to the east and flows
over the 5km submerged ridge between Dreggenhaven
and Tami Island. The ridge rises out of 1600m on the
Gulf side to a general depth of around 300m, with
flat-topped mounds rising up to within 180m of the
surface. On the other side it then plunges back into
4000m within 4km. The upwellings over this ridge had
aggregated large schools of tiny skipjack tuna, and the
influx of baby blue marlin were right with them.
Tami Island is a 52-nautical-mile (96km) run from
Lae, but by midway through the second day it was
clear that Black Label had found the motherlode,
tagging nine blues for the day.MORE CONVINCING
Several boats followedBlack Label’slead the next day,
heading east on the long run to Tami, while others,
daunted by the distance, set out to their familiar grounds
in the Gulf. Keen to help a junior team, I accompanied
young Finn Beirne and his TSS teammates aboardSea
Hawkback to Muddy’s FAD, where we’d enjoyed success
with their schoolmasters the previous day.
With glass-calm conditions and patchy sun, we were
feeling confident, but for most of the day we hooked
nothing. A large school of baby skipjack had taken up
residence around the FAD, ruffling the surface as they
zipped through their micro prey. When the boys cast
lures and let them sink 20m, they also found baby
yellowfin lying underneath the stripies.
With no success, we left the FAD and headed inshore to
a series of pinnacles and reefs, but drew a blank there as
well. Late that afternoon we returned to the FAD, trolling
lures around the skipjack, but this also proved fruitless.
With time running out, we switched tactics, finally
finding success after catching and then bridle-rigging
a small tuna. Trolled around the school’s perimeter on
10kg tackle, it was snatched by a baby blue marlin
within 10 minutes! Blake Hickey had caught the
livebait, so he was given the strike.With 900hp of
Mercury outboards
on the back of their
Boston Whaler 345
Conquest,Black
Labelrocketed into
the lead once the
team discovered the
motherlode of baby
blue marlin at Tami
Island.Finn Beirne fights
a blue marlin on
8kg tackle aboard
Sea Hawk.bluewatermag.com.au 59PNG National Game Fishing Titles