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GERARD WEBER 'S GONE
FISHIN'
- Cairns, North Queensland. There were many unusual people in
the 503d, recalled Jim Mullaney, later to command "H" Company, of
George "The Fox" Bransford, who pioneered black marlin fishing off
Australia.
Bransford was
instrumental in putting the port town of Cairns on the map for big
game fishing and was a founding member of the Cairns Game Fishing
Club. Bransford was a man of great vision who possessed the
imagination and the guts to follow his dreams and see them come
true. Bransford first visited Cairns in 1943 as just another
Yank paratrooper in the 503rd PIR. He
discovered a wealth of tales about enormous billfish that broke wire
lines and snapped outriggers; commercial fishermen hated the big
animals. Bransford vowed to return one day and catch these giants of
the Coral Sea. In 1963, he sold out of his charter
fishing business in Fort Lauderdale and moved his family to Cairns.
He commissioned a 32-foot, single-engine sportfisherman in
the American style, which he christened "Sea Baby," and
set out to find the sportfishery he knew was there but had yet to be
discovered. On September 25, 1966, Bransford and
deckhand Richard Obach landed the catch that sent the game fishing
world into a frenzy: a 1,064 pound black marlin, a certified world
record on 80-pound test. Bransford devoted the rest of his career to
developing the Cairns sportfishery. Yet, he was known as a man who
could be cagey when it came to sharing his angling secrets. Fishing
great George White is credited with first calling Bransford an "old
fox." The nickname stayed with Bransford for the rest of his life.
In his will, "The Fox" requested that his ashes and those of his
beloved wife, Joyce, be sprinkled together on the Coral Sea.
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