Sydney North Marlin 10th january

[zen801]

Hi raiders,

Long time no post. Four of us went out on Sunday early looking to go wide and chase dollies.

We had no trouble getting yakkas at Balmoral then headed straight out to the Sydney fad. It was dead and the water was putrid so moved onto the Long Reef wide area for the same result. Decided to head east towards the shelf and motored all the way out there for nothing. Water was blue and warm out wide and that was encouraging. No bird action or bait balls noted. Highest temp noted during the day was 25C.

The day wore on and we started to feel discouraged so stopped and re organised the spread. Took the skirts off the corners and replaced with divers. About half an hour later the bedlam started with the good old words "marlin in the spread". Snapped out of my dream state to see the marlin going from lure to lure. Looked at the divers but was interested in the skirts. He hit the the short rigger and the tiagra started singing but he dropped it after maybe 20 seconds. The crew were crushed but we decided to set the 50 again in the outrigger and keep going. Within a minute or so he was back having a go at anything he could see. This was a seriously hungry marlin. He hit the day Daiwa spin outfit on the long rigger and it screamed off. The crew did really well to clear the decks and Cam was onto his first marlin. It jumped all over the place out wide and we started to get worried we would get spooled so we decided to chase it down. About 15 min into the fight i couldn't believe it when i hear one of the guys saying "fish trap" and i look over to see we were in big trouble. Of course shifty old marlin wrapped around the buoy rope. I thought well thats it another one to good old Murphys law. I got on the wheel and started backing around the buoy and to our amazement the line came good and the marlin headed away and went deep. The fight lasted about 30 minutes or more and we wore him done and he eventually came up perfectly on his side on the starboard side of the boat. We traced him and grabbed his bill and put a temporary rope around his tail. Kept the boat in gear and we all had a good look at the beauty. He was hooked on his bill and the hook came away without even having to really pull it out. We got some pics and eventually realised him to see him swim off tired but alive. Great to get that result and all four of us worked hard for the result. Gotta say i was very impressed to see him landed on the Daiwa catalina with 80 pound braid. Cam did real well to handle the beast. Thanks to all but especially Captain Bretto. Cheers mate.

He was caught in approx 90 fathoms with water temp at 24.8C at 1pm.

Mike

[plankton]

Great fish Mike well done. The colours of that fish is amazing and so is the water!.

[Scent Blazer Lures]

nice one, great photo

Edited January 13, 2016 by Scent Blazer Lures

[brickman]

congrats to the angler and well done to the crew

[Scratchie]

Well done mate. Always great to be a part of that experience! It makes the beer on the way home taste even better!

Cheers scratchie!!!

[NaClH2OK9]

That's a great result after having to push on locations.

Beautiful photo.

[Moonshine]

Well done!

[MV Sunray]

Awesome result well done [emoji106]