Traditions destinations include:

Cairns - Lizard Island for the ultimate big game heavy tackle fishing experience in the world

Extreme Outer Reef trips to Flinders, Flora, Holmes and Opsrey Reefs

Marlin Fishing off the Gold and Sunshine Coasts in SE Queensland

South Pacific Tour 2011

CAIRNS - LIZARD ISLAND AUSTRALIA

Light Tackle

Townsville to Cairns is the destination for small black marlin and sailfishing in the months of August and early September. Tackle is primarily 12-20 lb conventional, and fly tackle is also a really fun and viable option, for catching these 40-100lb baby black marlin. the sails run up to 150lbs, which is a bunch of fun on light tackle. As many as 36 small blacks have been caught in a single day!!!

Heavy Tackle

In September 1966 on an exploratory trip on the Sea Baby, Richard Obach, Capt. Georges Bransfords' deckhand, was the angler who caught the very first 1000 lb black marlin. The fish weighed 1064 lbs on 80lbs tackle and was the first Black Marlin world record to come from the Great Barrier Reef. Since this time, more marlin over 1000lbs have been weighed or tagged and released than every other place in the world combined.

The TRADITION fishes the Cairns and Lizard Island areas, including the famous No:10 Ribbon Reef . We roam 150 nm of the Great Barrier Reef grounds for September, October , November and December each year for the Giant Black Marlin. Allowing us to be where the best fishing occurs during the heavy tackle black marlin season.

Fishing can be done three ways:

Day trips for guests staying at the Lizard Island resort (a 5 star exclusive resort 14 miles from the top of No:10 Ribbon Reef)

Liveaboard trips for up 10 days.

Mothershipping with a larger vessel for up to 6 guests. The mothership is anchored behind the reef in calm water and has a full crew onboard to make your stay one of fine food and memories.

The mornings are spent swimming, having breakfast, bait fishing, and spearfishing. About 10.30 - 11.00am we head out to fish for the big blacks. We usually fish till just before dusk and then run back in to the anchorage behind the reef for drinks and dinner in the calm waters behind the Great Barrier Reef.

We practice tag and release with Billfish Foundation tags on our fish, unless the fish is to be weighed. We carry our own IGFA certified scales for any record fishing.

We only use the finest tackle and crew available to make your experience one of excellence. With many regular clients each season, available time is booked already, now is the time to make that trip of a lifetime (or year, as many of our clients do fish with us every year) to experience one of the seven natural wonders of the world - the Great Barrier Reef.

Extreme Outer Great Barrier Reef Trips

Wreck, Cato, Saumarez, Elusive, Bugatti Reef ,Flinders, Flora, Holmes and Opsrey Reef

TRADITION is one of the few boats equipped and licenced to fish the outer reefs of Flinders, Flora , Holmes and Osprey Reef systems. These reef systems are about 100 miles or more from the mainland, and are favourites for us to fish as they do not get much fishing pressure. Poppers and jigging for GT's, more Wahoo than you have ever seen are around at certain times of year, as well as billfish. Great anchorages are available, with incredible snorkelling and spearing - a great exploration trip to places only a few boats have ever been.

Flora Reef is the southern atoll of the Holmes complex east of Cairns. Arriving at the corner of Flora we were attacked by about 8 wahoo, all over 40lb, leaping out of the water in a race to destroy our tackle. In previousyears we fished 30 lb line and must have released over 20 wahoo up to 50lbs and 5 more dogtooth up to 80lbs. When one wahoo was up to the boat, there were up to 8 more free swimming around the boat eating chunks that we threw to them. The ensuing loss of many poppers and jigs was expensive, but damn it was a lot of fun!!!

I have never seen wahoo fishing like this ever before, and that includes San Salvador in the Bahamas, the place to go for big wahoo. I had a guest who fishes the Bahamas for wahoo all the time , and he had never seen them free swimming and jumping out of the water to eat lures. Next trip we are taking heaps of flys, poppers and more jigs to donate to the fish gods, what an incredible place and trip.

Osprey Reef is NE of Lizard Island and has seen very few boats over the years, only 1 or 2 boats go there a year to sportfish!! Sails, wahoo, dogtooth, coral trout and GT's are all call this region home!!!!

If you love jigging, popper fishing and fly fishing for big fast and explosive fish such as wahoo, tuna, marlin,sailfish, coral trout these are the places for you!!!

These trips are available as liveaboard or mothership charters, and I have other boats available for bigger groups.

Marlin Fishing off the Gold and Sunshine Coasts in SE Queensland

The waters offshore of the Gold Coast, Australia's holiday destination, and further north to the Sunshine Coast has great Black and Blue marlin fishing, as well as Striped and Sailfish at times.

With huge areas of canyons only 20 miles off the coast for hundreds of miles, TRADITION is the perfect platform to fish an area known for its number and quality of blue, black and striped marlin, which along with yellowfin tuna and swordfish, gives an exciting opportunity to fish for a variety of species.

The South east coastline has become the world record grounds for light tackle marlin fishing, with about every record in the last 5 years coming from these grounds. Large numbers of black, blue and striped marlin allow lots of opportunities each day to fulfill your needs. There are also some animal blues in the canyons, waiting for some good 130lb tackle to be put to the test.

We can troll lures with hooks, teaser fish and pitch bait with a range of tackle , including saltwater fly, to suit your requirements.

Come and fish with us out of some great destinations, bring the family and enjoy one of these really special places in Australia where everyone can have a great time.

South Pacific Tour

NEW CALEDONIA SURFARI

May-June 2011

The Australian based 50’ custom game boat TRADITION is heading to New Caledonia in 2011. A self-sufficient French territory with the biggest lagoon in the South Pacific, surrounded by a 500km long fringe reef with more than 200 passes. The waves being discovered are being compared to anywhere else in the South Pacific but the nice thing is the crowd factor is very low. And only accessable by boat!!! So NO crowds, just you and your mates. Anchor the big boat, jump in the zodiac and surf.

The reef complex in the southwest corner of the main island are a very long way from shore but are similar to Cloudbreak in Fiji. Nice warm water, so a warm rashy is all you’d need. It’s probably worth throwing in some reef booties for low tide surfing. 4-10 days trips exploring one of the the pearls of the South Pacific, Blue marlin, tunas, jigging, spearing, snorkeling and surfing some incredible places with no one else around. Great anchorages in all weather and the wonderful French influence of Noumea.

TRADITION is the perfect boat for this type of exploration, 20 years for world travelling and a boat purpose built for long range multi day liveaboard charters.