Marlin, Wahoo, Spaniards, Spotties. Last 4 weeks of fishing

[fishfreak01]

Hi all,

It's been ages since I have posted anything sow I thought it is my turn.

I am on the site 4 or 5 times a day on my iphone at work which really helps with the boredom and helps me when planning my next trip,

Anyway let the story begin.

Last year I had trouble with my motor and had to be towed in twice, I couldn't afford to get it fixed so I put it storage in the back yard for the next 10 months. finally I had had enough and got her fixed and now we are back on the water fishing again.

Over the xmas break, I had some mates come up from sydney who had never caught a mackerel before or anything bigger than a bream, I wasn't that confident for them as the northerlies had been blowing for weeks and the water looked that horrible green colour and cold, the macs hadn't turned up yet and my mates were going home in a few days.

Our first trip was on Wednesday the 6/1/10, we were heading to palmy from the seaway and noticed a few birds at Mermaid reef, so we went in for a closer look, there were only 5 other boats anchored, so we decided to have a quick troll around to see what was around. I put out a large Xrap black and purple colour and a medium Xrap green colour, within 5 min we had our first 8kg spanish mackerel on the black and purple Xrap in the boat, after a few photos and the fish in the esky, out went the lures again, within 10 mins we were on again this time on the smaller green Xrap, a fish of the same size was safely in the boat, we started trolling again, out went the lures and another spaniard the same size hit and was boated safely.

The bite lasted for 30 mins from 8.00 to 8.30 and then shut down, they were all happy with what we caught so we trolled back to the seaway along the 24s with no more luck.

The next day, Thursday 7/01/10 my mate was down from Brisbane and wanted to catch a spaniard as well as he had never caught one, so back down to Mermaid again, only this time there were 35 boats, the news was out that the mackerel were on. We started trolling again with the Xraps and started getting some small bonito, so in come the lures and we switch to live bait rigs, we pin it through the nose and put the treble near its tail and sent her away ( it's funny how we always refer to the fish as a she ) trolled for only 5 min and had another 8kg spaniard in the boat, we caught a few more small bonito and started trolling another live bait again only to have some idiot troll over my bait and hook up on his propeller, so we decided to try the 36s for some dollies, but unfortunately no luck.

Monday 11/01/10 back again to mermaid with my son Leon and a mate from work, there were about 25 boats there again so we anchored up and floated out 1/2 pillies, we had 11 hits but only managed 3 fish for the morning. The boat next to us couldn't do anything wrong and bagged out within 1/2 an hour and left, at least we came back with fish.

Saturday 15/01/10 was the start of the light tackle comp which I didn't fish in this year but went out for marlin anyway. We had a mate come with us as he had never seen a marlin caught, so we went straight out to the water tower and trolled lures for the next 3 hours with no luck. My mate had thrown up 4 times by now so we decided to head to Mermaid for some spotties, we got there about 10 am and found everyone leaving.

The water had so much floating crap that looked like cornflakes and was dirty, not what you want for mackerel fishing, so I thought. We anchored up anyway and started floating 1/2 pillies out again, for the next 3 hours we had the fish all to ourselves we bagged out by 1.00pm and left them biting we got busted up 13 times and left with 15 spotties to clean between 3 of us. My mate still managed to catch his share of fish and provide the next round of burly after ever fish, now thats team work.

Wednesday 20/01/10 back to mermaid with a mate from work, we got 2 spotties in 3 hours and had to leave for work.

NOW THIS IS WERE THE FUN BEGINS.

Friday 22/01/10 headed straight to the 50s for some marlin as I heard they were on the chew and also saw kitty kat report on thursday, as soon as we got to our mark there were 7 other boats live baiting all doing the same drift. One boat was already fighting a small black, the sounder was alive with bait, slimmies were flicking on the surface, IT LOOKED FANTASTIC, if you could write a book on what to look for when game fishing, this was it, the perfect conditions and the perfect day.

THIS WAS THE PERFECT DAY.

We started our drift by collecting a string of big slimmies, we bridled rigged them and sent them out on circle hooks. We started our drift and when we got to the edge of the bait school, the reel started to slowly run, we gave it a bit more drag and as soon as she was tight we set the reel on strike and we were on, a small black starts to jump all over the place and my leader breaks 5 mins into the fight.

2nd drift, livies goes out, hit the edge of the bait school again, reel starts to run, hit strike and its my mates turn on the rod, he fought a small black for a few mins and the leader pops again. Bugger.

Greenie was hooked up, Sea probe were on, Never mind was hooked up as well, we saw marlin free jumping, I had never seen anything like it before.

Back to the bait school and out go the livies again, we looked on the sounder and saw 2 huge arches dividing the bait school, I have never seen anything like this before and what happened next was something I will remember for a very long time.

3rd drift and this time I'm on the 8kg rod. The reel starts to screem and this huge fish starts jumping all over the place, the other rod comes in the motor starts and we are of chasing this fish, for the next 45 mins, this fish gave us the best performance any fisherman could ask for, it spent most of the time flying through the air and jumping all over the place. I told my mate to snap as many photos as possible on my new nikon D90 and I will corect them on my computer if the horizon was crooked , lucky I had set the camera on sports mode before I hooked up as he has never used a DSLR camera before,

Greenie was next to me snapping photos, but we eventually left him as we were chasing this fish all over the place. The fish went down deep and we tried changing angles to try to lift her, but on 8kg line its damn hard. After 45 mins the line popped, we really didnt care, we had heaps of good photos, good fight and we were going to let her go any way.

Back to the bait, 4th drift, livies out again and by now I'm am starting to run out of live bait rigs, we hit the edge of the bait school when the 15kg outfit goes of. I have never heard a reel scream as much as this TLD on 5kg drag, i started the motor and chased it, after a few more blistering runs a huge wahoo comes to the surface, I gaffed it in the head and struggled to lift it in the boat. My mate Barry is a big boy and strong as well, he sruggled to lift it for the photo. Our scales stopped at 30kg so you can guess its weight.

By now it was 1pm and my mate had to be back at Brisbane by 4pm, we were happy to call it a day. A DAY WE WILL NEVER FORGET.

We had 6 hits, 4 hook ups on marlin which we never landed and 1 huge wahoo.

Barry had never fought a marlin before, caught a spaniard, caught spottie mackerel or even a wahoo and we got all those fish in 3 weeks in 3 trips.

Sometimes everything comes together for that Great Xmas break. I would love to say that was my Xmas pressy for him, but I dont think I had that much to do with it.

Sunday 24/01/10 out again to the 50s, but unfortunately the bait has moved, tried a few different marks, but no luck.

Thats fishing.

Fishfreak

[fishfreak01]

Here are some more photos of that perfect Friday.

[supertinny]

Great photos. Great read.

[nofrills]

Awsome Pics

[Smithy]

What was going on that you were popping leaders? What size are you running?

I think Reelaxation which is the boat you fish on usually got one beside us at Spot X during the tournament.

Nice hoo and good pics all the same. Pity the others got off.

[Te Whiti]

They are some of the best photos I have seen in a while.....Keep up the good work Fishfreak.

[thelump]

Some great shots there. Nice Hoo as well. Bet it made the 10 month wait worth while

[business class]

Great Pics there mate, Also a nice size Black u had on...... Pitty about the leeders Poppin..... We only use 80 to 100lb so it seems strange they were poppin....... Great photos and a great read.

Cheers
Matty

Also nice size hoo there bud

[fishfreak01]

What was going on that you were popping leaders? What size are you running?

I think Reelaxation which is the boat you fish on usually got one beside us at Spot X during the tournament.

Nice hoo and good pics all the same. Pity the others got off.

Smithy, we were using 100lb leaders and they came back looking like they were sandpaperd through. I can't explain it.

[Spot82]

Awesome pics! Sounds like a great day on the water!! I was a bit disappointed my first one didn't do much jumping, so didn't get any good action pics.

Thanks for the report and pics

Anthony

[two dogs]

hi fishfreak thanks for taking the time to put in up a report like that... if you dont mind sharing how do you rig the half pillies for the macks

[rc@hinze]

Great report and great photos fishfreak thanks for taking the time to post, you got some good info in there for us. - cheers Richard

[Leighton]

Great read, great pics.
What lens are you running on the D90?

[siegfried]

Smithy, we were using 100lb leaders and they came back looking like they were sandpaperd through. I can't explain it.

Try Momoi hard leader(100-150) on lighter gear with extended fight times it tends to wear through on the lighter stuff those little fillas have the sharpest (abraisive) bills,not much you can do about it exept beef em up and presentation will suffer

[Midnight]

What a great day out! Nice report mate and photos of a lifetime! Well done!

I use Momoi Marlin Ultra Hard and it is exactly that! I like it.

Cheers,
Myles