I have been fishing a fair bit with my son Sam over the last few weeks and for the last two days took out my youngest daughter Gemma, who is eleven. Gemma used to be a bit scared of the ocean and had a bad experience in the past getting sick. That is now ancient history as she reckons she is hooked on fishing and now wants to come all the time! She didn't even look like getting sick. This morning we trolled hard bodies first up at Hutchies and ended up with three wahoo boated, two on a blue x rap 30 and one on a halco red and white laser pro. Had another run but dropped it. The bite shut about 7:30 am so I changed to skirted 'Blacks Snacks' in a variety of colours. These have been very enticing for dollies and we boated two average fish with them yesterday around Hutchies.
Today we decided to try some new ground with the skirts and after a short troll the way back lure was taken by a Black. It had to hit the lightest rod, an 850 Penn Spinfisher loaded with 8kg line! Sam fought it really well for over 40 minutes. I don't own a tagging pole and could have tagged this fish on three or four separate occasions as we had it very close to the boat. I wanted to grab its bill and get it in the boat for a photo , but it kept just out of reach veering away and swimming down again. Eventually Sam got it up next to the boat for the fourth time and it was clearly exhausted. Heartbreakingly, just as I was sure I was about to lift it into the boat, the lure just fell from its mouth. It stayed on the surface for a little while before it slowly swam down. Thankfully we have plenty of the action on video and I have taken some stills from the video to post. ( Not the best quality as taken with small digital camera and converted from video.)
We put the lures back in the water and maybe only trolled for another 500 metres when a second Black took a 'Black Snacks' lure right up close the the back of the boat. I told Gemma to grab the rod and she fought the fish really well for quite some time. Some spanner crabbers were watching her and cheering her on. She got the fish close to the boat and it took us by surprise jumping over the motor and falling part way in the engine well. The line, again only 8 kg, slid along under the steering rod for a couple of seconds before sliding out. I think the line was damaged. The black took off with a screaming run and then eventually stopped. Gemma started to pump and wind to bring it back again and the line popped above the leader. The end of the line was quite chafed and frayed. Unfortunately some good photos of the wahoo on the boat were deleted to make space for the marlin video, so we had to take some more at home but they don't look as good dead.
A great day on the water despite not getting the marlin into the boat for some better photos. Looks like I might have to sneak out fishing without the kids sometimes, as when they are on the boat I'm relegated to driver! Actually I really enjoyed seeing the kids have so much fun.
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