Ballina marlin

[creeko]

went fishing off Ballina saturday, water was 24.c and a nice deep blue colour found a few livies but only managed 2 slimies headed out to 32 and dropped a couple down ,pulled out a few nice kingies,snapper and trag,got busted up by a few big ones as well.finished the livies so decided to troll a few skirts around for a few wahoo or marlin,skirts were in the water no longer than 5 min when this little beauty marlin jumped on,put on a good show for us.got him to the boat when he took off under the boat with his last run when the line got tangled around the prop,managed to untangle it and boated it very quickly still shaking.on another note the wavebouy is back in place but the fad was still not there.

[creeko]

more photos

[creeko]

still trying to get used to this posting photos

[jeffo]

>:(

[JASE1]

Good eating creeko
what did it weigh
jase

[Spaniard_King]

:'( :'(

[pittymick]

:-Xrelease

[Tony_N]

:-/ :'(

[Jeremy]

pulled out a few nice kingies,snapper and trag
and you had to keep the marlin as well? Must be hungry or alot of mouths to feed :o

Jeremy

[frenzy]

Nice fish paz ;)
Dont forget your mate in potty will come for a run one day ;D
just give us a buzz 8-).

[Smailesy]

welcome to the site mate great fish you were lucky to get him in

[Dr_Shane_Griffiths]

:(

I believe the term they use in NSW is "meat fisho"? Not sure if it means someone who fishes for meat or is just a meat-head fisho. But the former is certainly valid here...lotsa meat there to feed a few hungry mouths.

SR

[gropeher]

Uh Oh,

Here we go again, #::)

[Nobites]

Wow nice fish. I believe Blacks are nice eating at that size.
Well done

[The_Tub]

Hi creeko

nice fish,the conditions looked good to,i went sunday and conditions were the same,looks like small blacks should be like great whites,as it looks like you shouldn't keep one,if i see you at the ramp i'll say g'day

[pearcho]

they look better swimming

[JEWIENEWIE]

What an awesome feeling catching a fish like that but even more awsome would be to watch her swim away. :'(
Jewie

[creeko]

;D ;D

the marlin was 35kg. it was the first marlin we have landed. and it also fed alot of people with none going to waste. and by the way it was very great eating, also heard of another couple being caught over the weekend around the same size. hopefully next pictures will be of barries.

[creeko]

hey frenzy , you gettin any up your way, give ya a call when we next go chasin beakies :o :o

[Mortalkombat]

:'(

[Smailesy]

can someone tell me why this guy is doing the wrong thing by keeping his first billy it isnt elligal and its just one fish well done creeko

[Thunderbird]

>:(

[onerabbit]

Great fish creeko,

is the wave bouy back where it last was??

Muzz

[aussiefool]

Well done Creeko, Top stuff mate glad to see you got amoungst them. As you will see not everyone is against keeping a fish or two.

[Jaffo]

Top stuff creeko there a good chew. Nothing wrong with cracking one on the head. As Smailesy said what law did he break.................. not one

[Wayne_Red]

Nice fish mate, well done
Wayne

[onerabbit]

I held back from making too much of a comment before,

but I think you guys with your >:( :-X :-/ :'( :o smileys are spoilt, these fish dont come into the range of the average punter too often off Ballina, please check out Ballina FAD in saltwater reports to see some more dead marlin...............

I dont think the "meat-head" or "kill & grill" comments are warranted, these are probably the biggest fish these guys have ever caught, or at least the first billfish they have caught, ( I haven't stopped one yet, & when I do , it will probably end up on my wall) ,

How about a bit of tolerance, if we could catch them here all the time, then I may be more like you, but dont bag a blokes achievement when it's a rare thing here,

I've had my say,
I'm going to have another beer now,

Hope I haven't ruffled too many feathers,

Muzz

[jeffo]

i was going to bite my tounge this time. but with an attitude like that i couldnt help myself.

not many get caught there- well if they are going to contintue to be killed for "your wall" then lets hope it stays that way and they stear clear of your boat.

You have publically admitted that if you catch one it will be totally wasted by taxemdermy (spelling>?)

Do yourself and every one a favor and when (if you do catch one) revive the fish and let it swim away. then contact me and i will give you the details for a bloke from batemans bay who makes fibre glass casts of just about every fish imaginable. that way every one wins. the fish is free to live and breed and you still end up with a trophy for your wall. and let me tell you they look real, and cost alot less than taxidermy.

[onerabbit]

Sorry if I offended your sensitive nature jeffo,

if you are at all interested, fish taken to the local taxidermist are returned less skin, fins & head, that means there is plenty to eat.

You accuse me of having attitude ................

Mate, I wish to argue with no other AF member & I think you should appreciate the achievement these guys have made, just because you can catch fish like this in your area doesn't mean everyone can.

Muzz

[xtosea]

Give the guy a break, top fish champ, well done and they taste great at that size.
If only you guys with :( >:( really knew, i can tell you of one Longliner off Port two weeks ago got 50 blues all between 80kg and 200kg, they all died, thats just one story out of many that i know, what about the dead fish that lie on the bottom of the ocean floor at a certain Northern NSW town from the Mexicans that come up and dont know how to rescucitate fish! Take a snorkel around there and get back to me!
This guy is well within his rights to take the fish, if it were such a problem fisheries would limit the catch would they not? Just because the fish has a stick on its face, does not mean we should leave them alone! Those that release them, great, it all evens out in the end. My belief is if you care about them so much in every way, you would not fish for them full stop. Cause the pain they go thru in being caught is bad enough.
I personally find it disgusting that you guys take so many BIG Snapper up that way in one session. When i read the posts down here in NSW, i get sick sometimes, but most you blokes applaud that! I dunno sometimes! Each to their own i guess. THere is no need to go off at this bloke just because he kept a marlin, and if he chooses to in the future well thats his prerogative and he is well within his rights to do so.

Kamil

[Mick_Godfrey]

Hear Hear extosea

Can somebody please explain to me the humane part of the tag and realease effort my mate down south did in a gamefishing comp last november, where the estimated 130kg marlin was sent swimming to his own death, profusley bleeding from the gills after having his guts sent back down his mouth. And guess what for..... points. Well done lads very sporting effort there. While we are on it somebody else please also explain the humane part of catch and release a marlin on extremely light gear which has inevitably been flooged to within a whisker of death to get it to the side of the boat for what......points a tag and maybe an name in the records books.............please get serious.
For all those so emotionally involved maybe we should lobby to ban all forms of marlin fishing, kill a few tourist dollars and the liviley hood of some local lure manufacturers, yeah that would run nicely with the closure of moreton bay.

Really guys everyone will have a different opinion and the way amatuer anglers are targeted these days should we not stick together and focus on the larger killers of these species like longliners. Are these reports to be used for seeing whats around in the water or for conveying your own fishing morales and ethics to those who differ then getting bitter and twisted when they react.

Fair go for all i say

Nice fish you got there creeko, i bet it was good to eat, i ate most of my first raw.

[creeko]

Ok well firstly thank you onerabbit, xtosea, Wayne_Red, Jaffo, aussiefool and Smailesy, we were starting to think that we were the worst in the world for bringing home our biggest fish and first beeky. onerabbit and xtosea have summed it up perfect. Could not agree with you more xtosea about all the huge snapper and other huge reef fish that are much older than our beeky that get taken home up north. If we were taking home heaps of these fish i could under stand you jeffo but we are not, and as for your call to onerabbit about his attitude is totally uncalled for, nothing better than to have your first marlin on ya wall. Go onerabbit keep ya line in the water and i hope they swim straight under ya boat, the wave bouy is not far from were it was, you will find it.
One last thing, to all the members that replied with negative replies, you should read xtosea post a few times over.
Happy fishing ever one... [smiley=happy.gif]

[creeko]

Oh so true zigfreed, you just it the nail on the head, thank you it was great eating, and nothing went to waste. [smiley=laugh.gif]

[Mick_Godfrey]

anytime creeko, bit my tongue a few times on this subject just could'nt let it go one more time ('scuse the pun)

[boodo]

whats the etiqutte with marlin, i know they are a magnificent fish, but just say you are not targetting them and you land a little bloke will it survive the fight, is it wrong to keep a small one, as they are quite good one the plate i hear, not that i have been guilty of sampling one :-?. just curious

[jeffo]

::)

[Smithy]

How about this to placate both sides, a no dead Marlin pictures policy for Ausfish? One site in particular I visit has it in place. Going back to Creeko's original pictures, if he had only posted the one of the fish in the boat and not mentioned taking it no-one would be any the wiser. If everyone did that I think both sides would be happy. I know all the arguments about it being legal to do, the age of Snapper etc., it is just the ethics of it in these days and times. Most probably in 10 years time we won't be having this argument at all as the generation bought up watching Rex Hunt kissing fish and putting them back will be the one posting on here. I know this current generation is miles better than the one before. Times will change. Dead fish pictures look crappy anyway, even if you are taking a fish of any species, look at the picture in the boat compared to the one where it is hanging up, miles better.

On the fish tagging thing, let me tell you a recent story. I tagged a Nannygai the other day on a wreck off Cooktown. This was only in 23m of water yet it came up showing signs of barotrauma. It was tagged then duly released. Upon release it floated and did not swim and show any signs of life. I quickly grabbed the net and recaptured it. As it was allready tagged and undersized I really wanted it to swim away. I swam it for a bit and then let it go and it did the same thing, floated away lifeless. This time I was too slow for the net and it got out of reach. It was in the twilight as well. I thought oh well it might turn up in some Shark guts that someone catches later on or something. Even if the fish floated and someone caught it down wind it would yield valuable data. I wrote it into my tagging book as a release condition 5 - dead, with 1 being swam away strongly. Blow me down if my mate Russ fished the same wreck again 2 days later and recaptured the very same fish alive and healthy along with 6-7 of his mates all sporting little plastic streamers from the trip previous. Just goes to show. What a turn up for the books. I thought it was all over red rover for that poor little fishy. They are strong critters. We caught a Striped Tuna Sunday that had obviously had an encounter with a Marlin as he had scrapes up both side just like Frank's Marlin picture. He was still going strong. I have a million and one stories like these for all the doubting Thomas' that don't believe in tagging. How else do you get data on fisheries other than elaborate research intensive tests and trials.

As for light line fishing, a good angler with a good crew on a good boat that is quick on a fish probably tags them quicker than you guys using 30 and even 50lb line not knowing what you are doing. A fish no matter how injured has some % chance of survival if released but once the donger comes out or the knife goes in it has a 0% chance of living of course. Gamefishing attitudes are changing as well. Circle hooks are having a bigger impact there for the fishes health moreso than any other form of fishing. Some of our tournaments have circle hooks only rules and even the big NSW Interclub attracting 230+ boats has that in force.

As for a fish mount, grab a measurement either in the water if you are releasing or however else if you are keeping then ring your taxidermist and get them to do one for you the same size. Take a heap of pics and they will even try to match the colours of your fish, either showing its stripes or the plain colours.

I hope I have put forward a balanced perspective to the debate.

As Brownie once said "don't destroy what you came to enjoy!"

[samson]

Good fish mate gotta love those bubble rap fillets

Samson

[banshee]

To kill or not kill is always going to be personal choice whilst the fish is legal,the thing that has got me after reading this is the amount of people that claim them to be good eating,a bloke gave me some shoulder fillet a couple of years back after a club outing and I have to say that I've never eaten shit but that piece of fish was as close as I want to come to it.

[Pearso]

Great catch mate, including the kingie. I fished up your way over the x-mas break and scored mackeral, wahoo, dollies, pearly pearch and more but no beakies and one thing I observed is that the bars appear to keep the fishing pressure under control. This whole debate is about protecting the fishery (I hope) and there is no way that offshore Northern NSW could be impacted by recreational fishos taking fish within the bad limits in my opinion. As for beakies, very few people seem to keep them regardless of the bag limit and if someone does then that is their perogative. No one seems to care when 3 or 4 big YFT get taken and they are another great gamefish under pressure.

To the guys who want to spend their time throwing stones at this issue, surely your efforts would be better directed at real causes of stock decline (like long-lining). The internet chat boards are designed for people to have their say but calling someone a "meat-head" for taking one fish is out of line.

[Stuart]

I don't condone killing marlin but I don't get on a public site and start dictating to people what they should and shouldnt do. I think education is better than trying to beat it into some's head. I have lived on the Sunshine Coast for over 20 years and spent all that time game fishing. I have been a member of the Sunshine Coast Game Fishing club for many years as well. This club tags tags and releases more billfish than most. In having said that it should be said that this club has killed many marlin over the years, whether it be a bad fighting technique and the fish dies, a poor tag shot the fish dies, captures for possible records, poor fishing styles and techniques. I have witnessed all of these things happen. Every time a person tags a fish you cant be certain its going to live. Even hooking a billfish and busting it off can give the fish a certain death sentence.

If all game fisherman think by tagging and releasing their billfish with out any harm is not only a knob but is kidding them selves. Even holding a billfish can cause great trauma to the fish. Its no different from running a 1500 meter run and then having some hold your head under water for a minute or two. I think those game fisherman who do practice tag and release should lighten up on the guys who take one or two here and their. We are all responsible to some degree for fish decline. Every time we start our engines, every time we wash our cars, we pump tonnes of shit into the ocean on a daily basis. For those game fisherman, please be honest with your selves, can you assure us the public that every fish you have caught has been taged and returned safely to swim another day? I have caught hundreds of billfish over the years and I cant say for sure if they all lived, I did every thing I could to prevent its death but still I don't know.

Game fishing is a sport that requires the skill of an angler to try and stop a fish that is by nature a big powerful speedster. Heavy tackle is by definition trying to stop a thorough bread horse in its tracks. I remember vividly many years ago when I hooked a small sailfish, it made two jumps and died. I also remember the day when I killed my first marlin, I was young and didn't care what other thought. I new I wasn't going to make a carear of killing Marlin. People always dribble crap about letting the fish swim away, you shouldn't have kept it and so on so forth. As I have already said, please give me a guaranty that all fish tagged are still swimming today from your actions or hooking "probably gut hooked" dragging the fish on board for a photo, and dropping back into the water. While doing this you have also taken most of the immune gel from the side of the fishes flank. What about all the 1000lb blacks gut hooked in Cairns each year, most of those guys return legends in their own dream land. Most Marlin publication print photos of blood spewing from the 1000lb marlin mouth, do I see clubs jumping up and down, no. Nuff said from me.

Stuart

[Jaffo]

Stuart well said ,,, well said

[samsy]

Touchy subject, nice catch though Adam. Cant wait to catch my first Marlin. Not sure if i will make it public though. Dont want to be made to feel like a criminal. Than again it is legal, go figure!!!

How's the Supervee going? Is she everything you expected her to be?

[onerabbit]

Thanks for that Stuart,

I think you put a few things in perspective there, I've seen lots of shots of big fish spewing blood, .........but they were released.

Any of you C&R guys prepared to lodge a big stainless hook in your throat & get to live to fight another day, or how about just the tag????

OK, I'm not trying to inflame anyone, I just dont think it was fair to jump down anyone's throat for taking a fish, especially a small fish for the breed, perhaps if a "big breeder" was killed for no other purpose than cat meat or fertilizer, ( or to go on the wall) then people like Jeffo may have had a case.
This obviously wasn't the case,

C'mon all you smiley addicts, lighten up & allow everyone to have their day.

Muzz

[maxwellson]

mmmmmm....good debate aside from the slinging off....
the real rapist of any marlin fishery are the bloody longliners....
did a 4 dayer off batemans last year and witnessed the mass slaughter of marlin...and i MEAN mass...the figures that were quoted of fish killed varied from 400 to 1000 !!!!!!... they flooded the market with stripes and a lot ended up at the bloody rubbish tip because of the prices.... >:( >:(
on day 2 we saw heaps of freejumpers or what we thought at the time were freejumpers...on a closer inspection these free marlin were actually hooked up to the longline......so we edged closer to the longline vessel and had a look with the binos (it was a very flat day) we saw them taking stripes and cutting off the blues and a couple of blacks.this was confirmed when we came across a couple of dead blues actually floating !!!....
on the 2 days that we saw the rapists we c & r'd only 1 fish each day ,
with the first day releasing 5 and the 4th 6 fish...
cant really say if the presence of the rapists were to blame for the poor fishing on those two days but all evidence points to that scenario..
they were out there under the guise of fishing for yft, but we all knew they were targetting the stripes...
the poor skipper was nearly in tears.....
this story was well documented in bluewater mag by dean butler and a couple of the other writers and even starlo entered into the debate for a brief time...
i personnally kept my first marlin (stripe) and to this day dont know why !!
it tasted like s..t.....but ate a much smaller model many years ago and it was good (black)....

i now release all my breeders of any species.....
thats my two bobs worth..

regards Maxi

[creeko]

well thanks to every one who put there two bobs worth in. I think that there has been some great points made in regards to this topic. Stuart, muzz, pearso and Maxi have finished it up perfect by putting it all into perspective.

I do hope to watch my next beekie swim away :D :D

Thanks samsy, the super V is great, love it.

[rocky2812]

absolutely right about the longliners max. when the hammering occurred off batemans i think striped was being sold for around $2/kilo!! what a waste.

more marlin are probably killed by these guys in a single week than get kept in 6 months by recreational fishos so all you guys having a winge at a bloke for keeping his first marlin should remember that! anglers are not the enemy.

you will probably release your next anyway so well done.

[tunapikus]

Fishing is fishing what more does one need to say i didnt know alot of members knew stock levels for marlin please tell me.......... its a mighty big ocean????? One fish get off u r boats if u r going to act that way seen one like this a month a go same result???bagged out bad

[lumox]

well done better if released. somtimes not possible.

[maxwellson]

just got a report from batemans as im down there in 3 weeks for a week to CPR some more hopefully.......the longliners havent turned up yet......but the marlin have....still a bit hit and miss at this stage but plenty of yellowfin from all accounts, not many bruisers but plenty of little ones (fin)....i will post more info as i get it if anyones interested....
regards Maxi

[rocky2812]

that would be great max!

cheers

[maxwellson]

hi guys,
water is starting to look good and warming up well.....bit of excitment starting to brew down there...lol lol

Maxi

[maxwellson]

ultimate got 1 yesterday....ashleys still confident they will turn up in numbers soon.......
hope hes right

maxi

[maxwellson]

ultimate has got 13 in the last 3 days......its looking great for our trip and ashley reckons its only gunna get better......the hot stuff is pouring down the coast now....and heard a longliner has turned up off jervis bay bastards

Maxi

[Sean]

I personally would release a marlin or most other fish for that matter, But at the end of the day, you know if you are a responsible fishermanor not. for instance, I will not even bother keepeing a tailor for the table, don't like them at all, but will happily keep them for bait. So I think one cancels off the other.
If this is a person who goes out and keeps 3 marlin day after day, he deserves to get a bit of crap, but he catches ONE, his first and keeps it....lets keep it all in perspective. Well done mate hope you enjoyed it, not for me but.....SH*T, I just realised you are not me!! Sean