Marlin, Mackeral, Dollies and Wahoo off the Tweed

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HI All

With the weather report good for Monday (for the first time in a while) Kev (shadowmaster) rang me up to see if I wnted to go outside for the day. What a question!! . We roped Benny J in as well ,cos someone had to make the traces, and we left the Fingal boat ramp just after 3 in the morning with everything but the kitchen sink on board. The plan was to hit Parmie in the morning for a few spotties then head out wide for some jigging and trolling. We anchored up at Parmie in the dark and started to get the lines out. We had a a screamer straight up with Bennie away. I managed to tangle my line and while I was trying to loosec the foul off mine went in more ways than one . not a good start for me. We boated Bennie's so dinner was sorted. I started tossing a slug only to get the leader knot stuck in the guide, exit one slug. Bennie had chucked in the spinning so I asked him if i could have a go with his rod. He sort of looked at me funny and then said OK but try noe to break anythin.I fliped the slug ou gave it two winds and a spotty jumped on. I gave another 2 winds and he jumped off again. Well maybe I should stick to Jacks and flathead. Benny thought it was pretty funny .We ended up getting two and dropping three before we pulled the pin and headed out wide.
We worked our way out looking for warmer water and bait, we eventually ended up on the 50's. After a jig with only one Bonito to show we decided it was time to troll.
Bennie stuck the first lure in the rigger and I was busy with the second when he shouts;"THERE HE IS!" We look up to see a beakie tracking the lure I was busy putting in the rigger, we all held our breath for like 5minutes but he lost interest and headed away. Two striped tuna followed with no further interest for an hour so we headed towards the 40's and area that had weed patches of weed flaoting around. As we got into the grass the outside rigger goes off and the shotgun. The rigger jumped off and Bennie landed a good size Dollie. We turned around and Kev got another. Third round and it was my turn. Big headshakes no jumping what was it. I had it to the boat pretty quick and it turned out to be a good size wahoo. He gave another big headshake and bit the pakula off. Well that made me fish 3 Roderick 0. It then went a bit quiet so we headed shallower. Another marlin came up this time on the short flatline right behind the transom. It also dissapeard after having two goes at the lure. We continued shallower and found some good bait schools. After a quick chang we dropped some livies into them and I got a pick up. It took the bait slowly on the drop and kept going,I tightened up wwith no reaction from the fish it stayed deep and took line slowly. After 20 minutes and about 250m it eventually jumped and we saw that it was a beakie. Something didnt feel right and we could not get the fis to the boat. I was using the 50lb outfit but only had a SL12 on the buisness end to chase the smaller Billos so didnt want to turn up the svrews too much. This went on for an hour with the fish only jumping twice. I decided to turn up the screws, put the harness on and push the drag up to about 9kgs. I eventually had it at sunset before we got the fish to the boat to find it had the line around the Pectoral fin and I was pulling it sideways. Bennie stuck a tag in it and we towed it for about a km before it finally swam away.
So i suppose I was saving my luck up for the marlin. It was our first for the season and hopefully there will be many more to follow. The fish was about 80 to 90 kg and definately one of the wierdest marlin I have caught .
Thanks Kev and Bennie for a great day on the water, Till next monday.

Good fishing to you all and a very Merry Christmas.

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Kev with his dollie

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Bennie and his dollie

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the Marlin at the boat being tagged

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The fish boatside with a happy ausfissher reviving it, we lay it on its side for the pic and the held it straight up while swimming it.

[fishingnottake]

well done

[land_based]

Thats awesome mate, looks like you had a good trip, well done on the marlin!

[outsiderskip]

well done
looks like u had agreat time fishing

cheers pete

[StevenM]

Nice effort lads

cheers

Steven

[Toppy]

Good on ya Rods!
Dam it tasted so good too, have you eaten it all yet?
cheers
Toppy

[Jay_S]

Excellent work mate


Cheers Jay

[Colorado]

Nice Fish Rod, well done.

There seem to a decent mix of fish sizes out there at the moment with mostly 20-30kg fish then a few around 50-60kg and then a couple at 90-120kg.

Makes you think you should be using 30 or 50lb gear on the wider marks and leave the 16lb for the close grounds.

Keep up the good work mate.

Leigh

[Benno]

Great work Rod.. Sounds like it was a great day..

Cheers Benno

[Bonesy]

Good fish look's like fun . they must have put up a fight

Bonesy [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

[kingcobe]

Good fish there [smiley=2thumbsup.gif] My dad (kingtin) is giving up on all the catties and rays to go for Marlin, dollies, tuna and all those kinds of fish


Kingcobe