Bad_Bubby
03-12-2005, 03:30 AM
With the closure on reef fish still in effect Bazzaman and I went out yesterday morning aiming to troll up a spaniard or wahoo in the ideal conditions 8-). We bagan by trolling some skirts around pixie reef where a little bit of isolated bird action and some good bait showings on the sounder had us optimistic. First fish of the day...a mack tuna to me (incidently my first ever). He went straight into the esky for big red bait ;D. We moved onto the northern side of pixie and spotted a current line moving alongside the shallow reef edge. A subsequent troll through this zone saw Shane's skirt get 'trimmed down' by what looked like a wahoo of at least 15kg. It flew into the morning sky in spectacular fashion, but the drama did not end there.
Upon moving to some inshore marks we continued trolling the skirts only for the same thing to happen to shane again (no fish and destroyed skirt). We stopped to re-position Shane's line, from which point he revd' the outboard moving steadily west to our desired shallow water destination. Suddenly my ratchet screamed, I could see a misty spray where my lure was sitting so I just struck and hoped for the best :o. My backbone rod was well and truely doubled over with line melting off the reel. About 50m out a marlin made some serious air (twice) before running deep and long. Shane began the chase while I frantically tried to maintain the 7kg of drag pressure I had set earlier. I eventually retrieved the 170-200 odd metres I initially lost so things were looking good. It made some runs down deep causing me surprisingly little trouble with TLD25. When I saw colour I had to look a long time before my brain would accept the fact I was winning a fight against a huge marlin on a reel I was using to pull barra out of pylons not long ago :o. Near the surface the marlin looked as though it would jump but it just arced a bit like a tuna for about 5 minutes while Shane got a glove on.
We were both pretty excited by this stage and didnt really consider the reality of trying to control a fish of probably 70-90kg(that I had basically skull dragged to the boat on 24). A few akward turns by the marlin meant Shane was getting limited opportunity to get ahold of its bill. Then at the last moment the lure fell out of place and my marlin sank into the depths :'( :'(. We had mixed feelings about loosing the marlin and proceeded to get into some trevally while contemplating what might have been. My metals were hammered three times during this late part of the trip resulting in two very drawn out fights with a bludger trev and gt. I think loosing that marlin will haunt me for a long time but I am just grateful to be able to experience what happened. Heres the pics of the other fish...
Mack tuna
Upon moving to some inshore marks we continued trolling the skirts only for the same thing to happen to shane again (no fish and destroyed skirt). We stopped to re-position Shane's line, from which point he revd' the outboard moving steadily west to our desired shallow water destination. Suddenly my ratchet screamed, I could see a misty spray where my lure was sitting so I just struck and hoped for the best :o. My backbone rod was well and truely doubled over with line melting off the reel. About 50m out a marlin made some serious air (twice) before running deep and long. Shane began the chase while I frantically tried to maintain the 7kg of drag pressure I had set earlier. I eventually retrieved the 170-200 odd metres I initially lost so things were looking good. It made some runs down deep causing me surprisingly little trouble with TLD25. When I saw colour I had to look a long time before my brain would accept the fact I was winning a fight against a huge marlin on a reel I was using to pull barra out of pylons not long ago :o. Near the surface the marlin looked as though it would jump but it just arced a bit like a tuna for about 5 minutes while Shane got a glove on.
We were both pretty excited by this stage and didnt really consider the reality of trying to control a fish of probably 70-90kg(that I had basically skull dragged to the boat on 24). A few akward turns by the marlin meant Shane was getting limited opportunity to get ahold of its bill. Then at the last moment the lure fell out of place and my marlin sank into the depths :'( :'(. We had mixed feelings about loosing the marlin and proceeded to get into some trevally while contemplating what might have been. My metals were hammered three times during this late part of the trip resulting in two very drawn out fights with a bludger trev and gt. I think loosing that marlin will haunt me for a long time but I am just grateful to be able to experience what happened. Heres the pics of the other fish...
Mack tuna