BEFORE THE STRIKE

Big-game happenings on and off the water

One of the many successful captains to emerge from Cairns, Australia’s heavy-tackle black marlin fishery is Corey Hard, who runs the Aussie-built Assegai 55, Askari. Hard began his fishing career working on a longline vessel out of Cairns in his early 20s until he saved enough to buy a 21-foot, single-screw mackerel boat. Fishing commercially on the Great Barrier Reef taught him a number of invaluable lessons, such as learning how the entire reef system worked and where to find bait when it became scarce. Once he made the transition to charter captain, the black marlin grounds were already second nature to him.