Dennis, Anthony, Aqua and Iain take Reel Game down to Jervis Bay by sea. Sammy dropped the boys in the water at Botany Bay and then they proceeded southward whilst Sammy went home for an extra few hours sleep.

Dropped the lures in the water off a Chilly Kiama Canyons at around 19degrees. The water looked good and birds were searching vigorously. We checked the weather again and the anticipated Southerly was now off Ulladulla, so we decided to continue South whilst the wind was pushing us down the coast nicely.

We arrived just North of Drum Canyon about an hour later and dropped the lures back in the water. We found stacks of bait and I mean stacks. They were horse slimies too. We circled the area for the next hour for nil result but by geesh did it look good. Will be spending some more time there over the holidays as weather permits. The Southerly started to kick in, so we pulled up stumps and headed for the Calamari grounds for a feed- just got enough for Chrissy dinner!

I must say a Big thanks to Sammy for him sacrificing his day to drive the trailer down to Jervis Bay for us. Its blokes like that that keep you sane in a world when everyone seems to be against you. It was also great to have a day (and a night drinking at the pub after...lol) with a bunch of great mates without all the bullshit that awaited back at home on this evil device called "a computer"...lol. It was a very relaxing experience- and what a way to travel. The run down was spectacular. Reel Game really has found its "comfort zone" with the way she has been set up. It is the best riding trailerboat I have ever been in. It use to come second to another well known South Coast boat, but after yesterday, she now takes prime position in my view.

Band of Brothers Productions are proud to announce that we will be filming and producing a DVD on the Pakula Friendly- for Charity. The DVD will combine both legs of the Pakula friendly into one action packed, informative DVD.

We hope to capture the true spirit of what the Pakula Friendly is about and why it was created- to bring a bunch of game fisherman to one location to catch First Timers a Marlin and support Breast Cancer Research.

Many of us have been touched by this terrible disease, and the reality of it is it never goes away. More MUST be done in order to help find a cure- or at least a vaccine to help the beautiful women in our lives to stick around! I personally have seen 3 cases in my family alone, and I know of many others including Peter's wife Jo.

This year, we are hoping that we can raise enough money to really give the fight against Breast Cancer a boost, with a nice healthy cash injection! That's where we come in.

We will be offering the DVD to all Participants of the Pakula Friendly for $25 each, and then to the wider public for $29.95. Profits will go to charity and presented to them after 12 months of sales.

The DVD will be released in June 2009.

Anybody attending the Pakula Friendly is encouraged to take their own footage on their boats (preferably in High Definition) and hand in their tapes at the conclusion of fishing on the final day. We will be getting as much footage as we can off our own cameras too and compiling it on an approx. hour long, action packed DVD. If history has its place, you can be sure to bet that there will be some spectacular Marlin footage on there along with some memorable tales and stories- which everyone can relate to. We were all Marlin Virgin's once upon a time.

Dennis, Nathan and Anthony meet for the first meeting in discussing the layout and form of the upcoming DVD. The name is discussed as the trip was so fun filled with lots of other fishing besides Marlin fishing, that "Reef Ambition" seems more appropriate. Now the hard yards for Nathan kick in and it's time to get down and get editing!

Let us know as soon as this is done please so I can make announcements on main stream sites such as Fishnet and Pakula etc etc.....

Well what a glorious last 4 days on the Great Barrier Reef we have just had. The weather was marvelous. It was pretty much glass calm every day. It's just a pity that the Marlin decided to go on holidays too!

Once again, we had some great fun on the inner reefs collecting bait and other reefies. Dave managed to score the BIGGEST GT of the trip, at least 25Kg worth of fish being caught and released on a tiny little Rapala deep diver. If anyone knows the size of Dave, be sure to check out the pics in photobucket and make your own comparisons as to just how big this fish was. Joe also managed to land and release his first GT- which he believes is bigger than Dave's, and on an Angler to fish weight ratio, he is probably right!

The Wahoo were on a mission the last few days. Every swim bait which was surgically stitched was quickly chomped by the local "Toothie Brigade". We even skipped a 12KG plus Spanish Mackerel with the hope of a big Black girl spotting it a little easier, but no such like this time. The last bite we had was on Sunday from a mid size fish- but it was not interested in eating. It only came up for a bill whack, and soon as the bait popped off the rigger, it lost interest and despite numerous attempts at teasing it back, no such luck.

We had some great fun in the glassy conditions snorkeling the gorgeous Ribbon Reefs, getting some great underwater footage of the hundreds of fish species that live down there.

The boat is now packed and we are waiting the arrival of our Transport truck. We will be back in Sydney on Saturday night to re-acquaint with family and friends after a successful trip overall. We are all proud of our efforts and can not wait to start compiling the DVD with Nathan, with over 12 hours worth of footage to sift through. It has been a long and hard journey, and we could not have done it with out your support, the support of our sponsors and the phenomenal 6 crew members which make up "The Band of Brothers". I would like to thank everyone involved for their efforts, but in particular Dave, Joe, Chris and Luke. They are both mine and Dennis' brothers for life indeed and we look forward to many more adventures in the future with all of them. Friend like these do not come around very often, especially when in a remote location when you are truly left out on your own.

Now we look forward to the upcoming Whitesands Tournament at Jervis Bay , The Port Stephens Marlin season, then the next BIG ONE.Be sure to check our website fror regular for updates and news about the DVD release dates and what we are up to.

Our Prayers have been answered! This is the report we have ALL been waiting for, and one which we were all sweating on happening let me tell you! Read on.

Firstly I apologise for the late update, but the last week has been hectic. The weather Gods were finally nice to us and gave us a week of fishing the outside edge, so we had little choice but to be out there every day given the poor weather in the past. This gave me limited opportunities to send out updates. This was also unfortunate for my girlfriend who flew up to spend a week with me, but was only limited to seeing me every second night due to us being on the reef...the things you do...lucky for me she is pretty understanding!

We woke up on Thursday morning with full intentions of heading out for 2 days. We ducked out the front to be greeted with a lovely 25knot Sou'Easter...we really were not in the mood to be belted again, so with a good supply of bait already in our ice boxes, we decided to return to port and try again on Friday morning.

Friday morning was an early start as we needed to meet some tidal conditions, so we trolled Osterland again all the way out to the Ribbons- again with some great captures of GT's, Spanish Mackerels and some healthy fresh Scaley's. Check out the pics on Photobucket. We then ducked outside at the bottom of number 2 Ribbon Reef and trolled northward with the sloppy sea. Conditions got better as the day progressed, and so did our luck! At around 2pm, the swim bait got slammed and Dave jumped on the rod and set the hook! We come up tight and a lovely fish of around 500lbs proceeded to tail walk at frightening speed away from the boat. Unfortunately no pics as the fish was too far away...we had over 500m of line out at one stage. The 80W Reel was singing like I have never heard before! We spent the next 20 minutes chasing it down, with both Dave doing a fantastic rod on the stand up outfit and Dennis doing a great job on the wheel. Then, disaster..the reality of "what lies beneath" set in as the fish came to the surface after staying deep, only to be attacked by a pack of sharks..the line was cut in the process, and we were left gobsmacked. Better luck next time.

The next day, we had high hopes and expectations. We knew where the fish were and what we had to do. We started nice and early around 11am (lol, don't you love QLD fishing times! That seriously is earlyish!). At around 4pm, after a slow day, the skip bait got nailed by a fish of around 250-300lbs. Dave jumped on the rod, and within 5 minutes, the fish was tagged and set free! No harness, no mucking around and a nice shiny tag on his shoulder for his absolutely spectacular jumping efforts around the boat. Boy can they tail walk! Look at the pics in Photobucket. Then on the way home, a little 150lb fish right in the entrance came up and was playing with our oversize baits! We had some fun hand lining the baits back to him with a few failed attempts at hooking up before enough was enough. We returned to Port, proud of our efforts after almost one month of trying!

We had a good night sleep then set out again the next morning. The next 2 days were much slower. We only had one bite yesterday, but did not see the size of it. He just made a mess of the skip bait after bill whacking it a few times, so can only assume it was smallish fish. Had some fun night fishing, with Joe claiming a new species as we could not find it in the book. If anyone knows what it is, please share with is.

We are re-stocking our supplies today and will be back out tomorrow morning for our last 2 days out before returning home to Sydney on Saturday, so prob will not get a chance to update before weekend.

Well we finally received some nice weather and had a crack at the outside edge over the weekend. Unfortunately the fish were not as cooperative.

On Saturday morning, Dennis, Dave, Joe and myself headed out in to a blistering 30knot Sou'Easter despite the reports indicating that the winds should have been around 15 knots. it was easily the worst trip we had to the reef yet.

We trolled the edge of Osterlund Reef and got some fantastic footage of Joe fighting an epic battle against a massive 15kg Spanish Mackerel on the Okuma's. He did really well and before long some happy snaps were taken and the fish released-especially following stories from Changa of the dreadful ciguatera poisoning. We then proceeded to the bottom of Ribbon No. 2 after securing a good load of bait supplies and various other reefies. We ducked to the outside edge which was not too bad and trolled amongst many of the other big boats which began congregating around No. 3 where several big fish were spotted, fought and tagged. Capt. Dennis worked the area vigorously and we had a chop off from a Wahoo very quickly. Another Scaley was quickly sent out and we spent the rest of the day working the area hard. Then, at 4:30 just before pack up, a nice fish came up and engulfed the Scaley. Dave picked up the rod and we proceeded to set the circle. Unfortunately for us, it did not come up tight and as we investigated the bait, it was quite evident that a beakie grabbed it and ripped it. Not happy Jan.

That was all the action we had for that day. We then ducked in behind number 5 for a rocky night to sleep.

The next morning we were woken by another nasty Sou'Easter despite the predicted 15-20knot forecast. We pushed South and tried to enter the outside edge once more at around 11am and it was a tad too nasty for us, so we trolled all the way back down Osterland- scoring a few nice GT's and some more bait along the way, before docking back into Port for the night.

This morning, once again , the wind was blowing and is forecasted to stay as such for the next few days. We are hoping to get another crack on Thursday and hopefully every day following up until we leave. The fish are there, we just need a chance and we will get one.

Today we had a funny day, setting our crab pots and watching our man'o'war "OFFTAP DAVE" getting chased around the deck by a Mud crab- all caught on film. Be sure to check that out on the DVD, very funny viewing.

Last few days have not been pleasant, with winds reaching 30 knots every day- except yesterday (which I will go into shortly). But the good new is that a weather window has now opened up and will give us a chance at scoring that dream fish- starting on Saturday. I would like to say a special thanks to all those who prayed for that window to open up- we seem to be finally getting a break! Now all we need is the fishing to turn it on for the next 2 weeks which seem promising given the moon phase and reports filtering through from the bigger boats.

Today Joe arrives and will have one day to settle in before we head out for a 2 day stint from Saturday. It will then be another quick re-fuel and back out again, so I may not get to do another report for a week or so, but we will see. If we do score, I will let Nathan now.

Yesterday with only 3 crew and the intention of staying overnight, Dennis, Dave and myself headed out to collect as much bait as we could before Chris and Joe changed over. We had a fantastic day getting plenty Scaley's- one of them a massive 15lbs, GT's, Coral Trout, Spanish Mackerel and various other reef residents. Take a look at photobucket for the latest pics.

The DVD is shaping to be fantastic too. We have some great footage to date which truly is amazing. Also some classic funny moments with Dave proving to be the local larrikin of the crew! His foot movement on the gaff, wheel and rod is something that Benny Hill himself would be proud of! lol"

We just arrived back to Port at Cooktown last night after spending 2 days at sea.

On Wednesday Dave (Offtap) arrived for the swap over with look who had to leave us a week early for family reasons. We immediately put Dave into gear and prepared for an early morning departure given for the first time in a week, the wind forecast was inbetween 20 and 25 knots as opposed to 30! We left Cooktown at around 8am Thursday morning and proceeded to the first reef were we got stuck into a few lovely Coral Trout which were put straight on ice for tucker that evening. The rest of the day was spent catching bait and enjoying the absolutely magnificent surrounds of the Ribbon Reefs. Unfortunately we were restricted to the inside of them due to the howling winds.

At around 6pm, we set the anchor and after a quick snorkel, the anchor was confirmed as wedged solid. The underwater scenery is unbelievable. It really is another world down there. The clarity of the water is surreal. We then cooked up the coral trout and a jobfish. Not long after we were all pretty tired and went to sleep.

The next morning we woke to an even stronger Sou'Easter of around 30knots. We then trolled the ribbons for a bit more baitfish before setting track for home in a very uncomfortable and troughy sea- which was very well navigated by Capt. Dennis.

We are now once again stationed at Cooktown due to the winds seemingly settled in at 30 plus for another week. I really need all you guys to help out and say a little prayer for us that the weather settles and gives us a crack at these Giants. At the moment the outlook is dull.

For those who have not checked the website, there is an update from our first week on there where we did get to encounter our first Beakie (albeit for about 5 seconds) in a blistering 25knot Sou'Easter.on our first attempt at battling the sea on the outer edge.

Well the boat arrived safe and sound ahead of schedule on Wednesday night and we spent Thursday setting her up after she was craned on to our berthing at Cooks Landing. On Friday right on schedule, the wind was blowing like hell, so we spent the day in the river chasing whatever found interste in our lures.....Luke and Chris both did well on some nice Golden Trev's and Little GT's, along with a nice Mangrove Jack.... we also ran into a nice croc sunbaking!

The next day, the wind let up a little (still 20knots plus), so we headed out to the reef and trolled all the way along the glorious surrounds of the GBR, scoring scaleys and some nice macerakl along the wheck o.check out pics. After that at around 1:00pm, we headed out through Ribbon 1 and 2 in some very ordinary conditions. We trolled all the way up to number 5. We had a hit from a Beakie which popped off the rigger with out notice. The bait got crushed and then spat unfortunately, but we ended up a lot wiser!

We then had another hit from a Wahoo which chopped our second skippy. Then at 5:30, we hit it home for the 32mile journey back to Cooktown.

We have not fished since due to strong winds hitting the Coast. Hopefully next few days we will get another window.

Stay tuned for more real soon....