Innersea

Thanks Scratchie. Took your advice, stayed in close and it paid off. Appreciate your help.

Hi All, Took a boat up to Port Stephens over the weekend and managed to squeeze an extra day in yesterday marlin fishing. Tagged a 50kg black in about 70 fathoms off Swansea and dropped another one on the way up. Spent 5 minutes at the carpark to have a look but it was pointless. 28.3 degree water with no birds, no bait and obviously no fish !!! Spent the next day in close and managed 3-3-3 on small blacks. Good fun on 8 and 10kg tackle, particularly when there doesn't seem to be any larger models around. Spent Monday in the same area and despite exactly the same conditions, marking exactly the same bait, using exactly the same tactics as the day before we just couldn't get a bite - that's fishing I guess???

Hi all, Just wondering, with the tournaments coming up, if anyone has had any news from Port Stephens. Last I heard it was to hot on the shelf and carpark with no bait, but there were a few smaller inshore marlin hanging around on reasonable bait. Does anyone have any opinion as to whether this hot current is likely to dissipate over the next couple of weeks. I know no one has that kind of crystal ball just after perhaps, an educated guess??? Cheers Innersea

I agree with finin - obviously without being there it's a bit tricky, but it looks like it has fairly rigid pectoral fins and a slightly smaller dorsal fin (than you would expect on a striped) which are pretty good indicators. The stripes can confuse everyone but even blacks have stripes which can look pronounced when the fish is "lit up". Also agree it's about 70kg. Just MHO though - I could be wrong???

With reports of marlin from last week, expectations were high for myself and a group of mates as we passed through the heads. We decided to drop the lures in a couple of miles short of the 12 mile and continued to head east. The first strike came at about 9.30am when we hit the 90 fathom mark and 23.8 degrees. The short rigger was smashed and the fish took off. It wasn't a marlin but it did turn out to be an 8kg dolly. I'm still surprised a fish that size can take over 100m of line against 8kg of drag. We continued to troll out to about 170 fathoms but no further action so we decided to come back in to around 80 fathoms and zig zag north. The tide change came and went at 1pm and shortly after we saw a marlin jumping so close to another boat that we were sure they were on. Turned out it was a free jumper. Around 2.30 my mates 16 year old son thought he spotted a group of birds way off in the distance. My old eyes couldn't see anything but we decided to head over anyway. As it turned out they were working a baitball right on the surface and within 30 seconds two fish came into the spread but only one stuck. 20 minutes later and we had a nice (approx 60kg) black at the boat. It was revived successful and was great to watch it swim away. The fish were certainly concentrated in the area so we continued to do circles around and not long after we saw another free jumper. We tried to pull a lure in front of his nose and got so close we practically ran over him but to no avail. No further action for the day but it was a great day to be on the water. Marlin was caught in 75 fathoms due east of Sydney heads in 24.1 degree water on a Moldcraft wide range purple/silver over black lure (best $40 I have ever spent).