Year in Oz

[BigPhil]

Hi,
Just on to gather up info for a friend of mine who is a keen boat angler.
He is taking a year out and is off to Australia, he is wondering about fishing for some of the big specimens out there.
He had a great white in his sights but has been informed that you cannot fish for them anymore...
He has had bluefin tuna around 500lb just a mile or two from his home in NW Ireland before, and i think he is kind of after something bigger if you get my drift!
Any info on charters and fishing in general would be greatly appreciatted. he wil be travelling all over the country...

[rocket]

Try asking here.
http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/index.php

[BigPhil]

thanks rocket, i have passed it on to him!

[lucky]

Here's some links...

http://www.sportsfish.com.au/Default.asp

http://www.fishingaustralia.com.au/

http://www.fishingmonthly.com.au/pages/home.html

http://www.shorefishingaustralia.com.au/

[PanamaJack]

It's a huge country with opportunities for 'one or two' big fish.

The classic, if your friend has a deep enough pocket, is probably the Black Marlin run (our Autumn) on the Great Barrier Reef. Granders, 1000lb plus fish, are encountered every season. But then two of our Club members fished there last season, prime time with top notch skippers, and the best they released was two 600s, the others were small male fish. Anyway, that's fishing.

For Sharks - Yes, you're not allowed to target Great Whites any more. Most of those were encountered off South Australia, although there was an interesting run of fish around to Western Australia where they apparently 'mixed' with fish from South African waters. Breeding or feeding?

For big sharks on a more modest budget though your friend might want to target, particularly Tigers, from New South Wales to just a little north of Brisbane in Queensland. They've had fish in that area to nearly 1800lbs, with one of 1364lbs on 30.

They also encounter big Blue Marlin off Brisbane.

That's just a brief resume of the larger fish, but read through those links the others have identified. There're a whole host of other opportunities in Oz.
Dave

[BigPhil]

excellent information guys, much appreciatted!