Steamed out of Mooloolaba shortly after 3.00 am...quite a few boats at the Ramp so it appeared that many others were taking advantage of this spell of good weather. Crew this time was Jason, Lance (dad) and Nathan (young bro) Bird
4000RPM and 42klm hour saw us pull up on our Northern Mark after 1 1/2 hrs of reasonable travelling...only found angel gear a couple of times and the boat launched and landed softly...jacking the motor one hole has certainly changed the attitude of Flamin' Riptide.
After figuring out which was we'd be hanging we anchored up and were shortly swinging on the pick.
Nathan was quickly into a good fish, the 24kg live fibre/tld25 combo working well...nicely loaded up....blast dropped it...I quickly explained the boat tax rule to the new crew that anyone who drops a fish like that has to provide a carton of crownies to the Skipper
Lance hopped in with a good moses perch, then he was in with a nice snappery thing...by the time he got it up it had maggots on it...but at least he didn't drop it...nice fish. This mark has given us some beauties over the last couple of trips and expectation was rising. Nathan got smoked by something huge...thats 2 cartons mate..and I'm sitting back giving heaps and Jason is keeping his head down.
Just before first light we saw a huge billie free jumping some 150 metres to the Starboard...what a sight, man they are georgeous fish...can't wait to get one of them beauties on.
I had a good take...but no hook up (so therefore no carton - did i tell you - skipper makes the rules for boat tax
and its all gone a bit quiet..so we start the work of burleying hard.
I've sent down a huge arrow head squid on the Penn/Rovex...this bait has huge fish written all over it...Jason does similarly on his 15 kg Snapper outfit. We're floating the baits down...Jason puts his rod in a holder to get a drink...in the next second as I was watching the rod tip...It gets whacked, the drag starts to scream...I've turned to let Jason know he's on...he's now jumping for the rod and one word comes out of his mouth "Billfish" and this Black smaller than the one we saw earlier puts on an impressive ariel display and is heading for the coast at a great rate of knots...this thing peeled off 250 metres in a blistering run of eight consecutive jumps and lunges...man what a sight. Lance, Nathan and i quickly up the other lines to give Jason all the space he needed.
Lance then goes off to make the pumpkin scone dough, Nathan whips the cream and gets the rasperry jam and I put the billy on for a brew so we can enjoy some devonshire tea while Jason was playing with his new friend...he kept calling it mate...come on mate...come here mate...not that way mate...don't go for the anchor rope mate...For hectors sake (we are using censored media here) mate come here...you're mine mate!!!
Seriously...this fish had some go...and Jason is chasing it all around the boat. Thank goodness the Rip Tide has such wide gunnels it almost functions like a walk around and Jason took advantage of that when the billie took him for a walk around the boat.
Another series of jumps and then another...I'm amazed at the stamina of these fish...
At around the 30 minute mark the banter was really running thick, we went back for our second batch of scones and this time it wasn't squid mucous hanging from the right ear of the Bird Man, he was actually sweating...and this fish is no where near beaten and had gone deep.
A couple of side to side walks and the fish is now starting to tire, the circles are getting smaller, and Jason pumps it to the boat. Nathan grabs the bill...the fish is belly up totally spent, Birdy likewise...see the pic...he's had it
We grab a couple of quick photo's for the brag book, then spent the next 40 mins trying to revive the fish off the rear of the Rip Tide...Dave that rear pod is an excellent platform for this kind of work....We cranked up the deck wash pump in the mouth and did everything to get it to swim again, but unfortunately it had died...we were all pretty disappointed. It took the shine of a fantastic duel between man and fish...it deserved to live.
The Black was just over 7ft, tail to bill end and estimated somewhere around 55-60kg.
We reflected on it, that perhaps the way to really go for these beasties is with some serious "come here" gear so the fish doesn't knock it self out so much so will have a better chance for survival.
We drown a few more baits but its gone pretty quiet...so we decide to troll down to another mark further south but its all pretty quiet.
We shot out to a mark at 90 metres east of mid north banks and found a school of pearlies that were hungry and they were solid 40cm fish. we pulled 15 or so of these, and at 11.30 decided to call it. We Trolled across the top of the banks to East Bowling green, raised another Billie but no strike...then headed home at 4000rpm and 46klm/hr to be home in an hour.
Had a great day with the Birds, some memorable moments with the Flamin Riptide's first marlin...Lance christened the deck with a beer when we got back during clean up.
Pics to follow
Till next time
Rhys
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but you would have saved a lot of time and energy by pulling the anchor and chasing it down. At least Jason will have something to brag about in the next B&B. 
