GoingFishing

Nice report Yon Gee your brave trying to feed that many off one snapper !!!

Good on you Jeff your just an absolute champ and perfect human being.

Awesome stuff - by all accounts the reef species are loving the rain. All im hearing is those who venture out are being rewarded with some good catch. Be careful of the floating couches ! (Didnt think id ever have to say that for boating 🤔)

That is awesome. Very quick thinking.

Great advice Pickles You would have to have a few loose screws to get out in this weather. No fish is worth risking your life.

You are committed!! Great stuff

The saddest thing about that is the confiscation of that crackingggggg boat

YUM. Great stuff Yowie. Did you get wet

Awesome stuff and some great photos

I suggest you pm Zoran and pick his brains. Cant go wrong ! He is the master

Thanks for the tips fergo. Im almost there - i like the idea of running the lures further back, but im worried they will be too far away from the wash. How far back are you suggesting i drop them?

Thanks Dave - so how do you know when to pitch the skip bait out if you havent sighted the Marlin? haha yes, everything is always easy....in theory Thanks for the tips Gordo - all very useful. Im confident im heading the right direction. My biggest concern right now is perfecting the "tag" or "boating" procedure. ie - what to do with them once theyre at the boat. thanks fellas

Generally speaking - the slimey mackeral will hold on most of the reefs off Bellambi from 15m depth all the way to 60m You shouldn't have any trouble finding them. just move around till you see them on the sounder.

Cracking report Jeff - sounds like a dream day. Can you send some of those fish down south to Shitney please

Thanks Fellas ! @PaddyT i do have a shimano harness and that is the one we used on the JB trip. The blackmagic ones do the same job i guess but more comfort. Almost 7 times the price though ! Appreciate the feedback champ. Ill look into the wind on leaders i think that is a great idea. @Croydon Thanks for the tips, much appreciated. Again like the idea of wind on leaders. I have been looking into the idea of skip baiting but i get worried that it relies heavily on sighting the marlin, which you dont always have.

I suggest you put it out to open suggestions and votes worked well for the pommies on one their new ferries ~ Boatymcboatface

Dont say marlin 😭😭😭😭

Tell me tell me

Thanks Rich - i am confident that my lure selection, placement and action are doing the right thing. Just cant seem to get figure out how to get those pesky bas%rds into the boat! We certainly felt that we deserved that fish ! But by the same token, i stand firm in my belief in that Marlin earned its freedom. That stripey was one stubborn donkey ! Thanks Brendan ! I had used 100% of my messenger space. ive freed up some space now you can try again.

Gday Raiders There is some cracking summer water off Sydney at the moment, reading lots of reports and talking to alot of mates who are boating snapper, pearl perch, trag and kings on the reefs. Offshore tuna, spanish mac have been cought off Sydney and a few marlin. I hope everyone has been getting out there. So........ ive been harboring a secret, and its taken me a while to "get over it". But i think I'm ready to talk about it now. Sorry in advance but this will be a long report (plus questions plus vent plus plus). As some may know i am on a personal mission to catch my first Marlin this year. What started off as a bucket list item has turned into more of.....say, a blinding obsession, a scratch that cannot be itched. Keeping very good tabs on say a dozen or so fishing pages on social media it became clear there was a hot bite happening off JB. Saturday the 27th Feb was the day and i found a crew of 2 more mates to join. There was a tournament happening that weekend so we left Sydney at the eye watering hour of 1am, arriving at Woollamia ramp at 4am expecting to find a crowd. Surprisingly there was no crowd so we slept an hour in the car and dropped the boat in at 5am. I had reached out to local Dave Venn of JB lures on the Friday who is a top bloke and extremely helpful. I spent a good 20 minutes chatting about locations, gear, lure positions, live bait set up etc. By the time i got off the phone i was very confident i had enough info to give us a good chance on the day. The trip out through Currambene Creek was relatively harmless though there were some nervous moments where water depth approached 0.7m. The exit at Huskison was met with glassy conditions throughout JB. We fanged it to the bait grounds and had soon collected a few slimeys but we didnt need many. Conditions outside were just as good. First stop The Banks. Here we dropped down some live baits and like many of the other boats, waited for the Marlin to come to the reef. The number of boats at the banks was metaphorically and literally mind blowing. How anyone can fight a marlin with such a stupendous crowd of boats only 50m apart beggars belief. None the less we spent a good 2 hours here and did not see any else hook or come across any Marlin, though i did hear later in the day some small blacks had showed up at the Banks. There were a few bait schools floating around but certainly not plentiful, again, this could have changed later in the day. We pulled the pin on live baiting at around 10am and fanged it to the shelf to an area called "The Kink". On arrival we saw a boat hooked up and fighting in the distance and another tracing one to the side of the boat. Instant adrenalin boost. In go the lures and the trolling commenced. The Kink An hour had passed zig zagging through some absolutely stunning water, we did find a few schools of bait and tried to stay ontop of them for as long as we can but would eventually lose them. I wanted a trial a method which suggested loosening the drag to less than "strike" then cranking the drag up after the lure had been taken. The logic here was that when the drag is tight the boat in its forward motion there is a risk of simply pulling the hook and lure back out of the marlins mouth. A looser drag is supposed to allow the marlin to turn and swim away, before suddenly having the hook set into the corner of the jaw. Not an exact science but it seemed to make sense and was worth a shot given i have had 5 marlin strikes in Jan/Feb with no hook up. Around midday the first strike came on the Brad J in 8 inch, as the lure got taken i waited about 5-7 seconds and cranked the drag up into fighting drag ( doesnt sound long but when the drag is peeling off at top speed it seems like an eternity). About 30 seconds into the fight the marlin jumped and spat the lure. f%k. But ok, were in the right area. We continue trolling. 130pm comes the next strike, again on the Brad J. I wait 5-7 seconds, tighten the drag and crank the boat into forward gear. The line pops. WHAT.....THE...F%K??? How?........ Guess what. Dumbo Sam didnt reset the drag after the earlier strike so i essentially tightened the drag from fighting drag to almost locked up. Lost the fish AND lost the lure ( which was on its maiden voyage). The next hour of trolling was good fun for the boys listening to me cursing myself. Brad J gone - he was replaced with blue & pink JB Dingo and the trolling continued. 230pm - another strike - this time on the JB Dingo in Lumo. Set the drag, crank the boat into forward, clear the deck. The fight is on. This fish had a good run which was about 200m but we slowly worked him back to the boat. Not a big fish, probably 60-70kg. About 5m from the boat the fish went for a nice jump and spat the lure. Absolutely gutted. Still, it was good fun and got the blood pumping. Its now 3pm and we are NACKERED. Surviving on 3 hours sleep and having been on the water for 10 hours, we were not looking forward to the 2.5 hour drive back to Sydney. None the less old mate Ralph made a joking suggestion to do "one more zig zag". The gamefishos version of "one last cast". We agreed we should do this. The lures had been back in the water less than 3 minutes when to our absolute astonishment the JB Dingo Lumo got absolutely hammered again. This time we saw the fish come up behind the lure and we knew it was not a small fish. By the time we cleared the deck the fish had stripped at least 500m of line. We settled into the fight with what was a very acrobatic fish, a whole hour later we finally had the fish under the boat. To my horror the fish had somehow tail and belly wrapped itself twice and there was no leader left to grab. Not wanting to try and manhandle what i estimated was a nice 150-180kg fish using only the main line off the overhead we tried putting some distance between us and the fish and then trying to swim the marlin to the surface but everytime we got it close it simply dived. With no leader to grab we could not guide its head to the surface. This went on for a solid 20 minutes and i was stumped. How do i get this fish to the surface with no leader to grab? \ Everytime we got it under the boat it was as if we were pulling the fish up by its belly. After another 15 mins and multiple attempts to get the fish boatside the fish went for one last dive, under the boat and swam across the engine. I felt the line rubbing on the underside of the boat and a few seconds later pop. This was about 1 hour and 40m into the fight. Collapse onto the floor of the boat in disbelief, 4 strikes, 2 fights, no tagged marlin. Forearms burning in pain. Arrive at Woolamia ramp 6pm. The G2 Etec had burnt only 70 of the 140 litres in the tank off 13 hours of engine running time. Fantastic! Lesson #1 - Increase the length of my lure leaders - but, will it change their swim action/? Especially for smaller lures say 8inch. Lesson#2 - double and triple check the drag setting of every setup before starting trolling (duh) Lesson#3 - Do some more reading on how to get the fish actually to the boat. What is the procedure? What other options did i have to get the fish up to the surface especially if its belly or tail wrapped. The drive home was interesting with a feel of success but also failure. We had succeeded in finding, hooking the marlin. But had failed to bring it into the boat. If you have read this far into the report, thank you for reading and listening to my rant ! PS - heres a nice snappy we took mid fight. Sam

As always - awesome stuff Jeff !! Sounds like an absolute cracker of a day. You are very lucky to live in heaven up there, wish i was fishing right now !

Thanks Fellas for the feedback. I am thinkin to up the leader to 200lb and see how that goes.

I get that..... but do the laws of "recreational fishing" apply when your not "fishing". What if i am a student conducting research on the growth rate of a specific fish species. is all my research only to be conducted on fish above legal size?

interesting......is there a law that prohibits keeping "undersize" snapper, bream etc in a tank as pets? I thought the size limit would only apply for recreational fishing.

Thanks Fellas @PaddyT Lures are JB Dingo in 8 inch skirt, 200lb OK?