Back in the ‘50s, ‘60s and early ‘70s before the Australian Government established a 200-mile (AFZ) offshore fishing zone in 1979, the Japanese commercial fishing fleet plundering a huge area of the Great Barrier Reef. They quickly discovered the southern reaches of the reef off Seventeen Seventy and Bundaberg was just as productive for marlin and tuna as the northern grounds off Cairns and Lizard Island.
The first Aussie game fishermen to discover just how good these southern reef grounds really are, were the professional charter-boat fleet from NSW, the Gold Coast and Brisbane heading to Cairns and back for the spring-time, heavy tackle black marlin season. Because of the long hauls to and from Cairns, these vessels mostly stayed out in deep water for safety and usually only travelled at around 8 to 9 knots to conserve fuel.
This speed was ideal for trolling and having a couple of lures out for a bite made sense to either break the boredom on such a long trip or to even catch a yellowfin tuna or mahi mahi for dinner. Usually what happened though, heading north there was very
