Blue Marlin Off Sydney

[achilles]

Headed off sydney yesterday in very sloppy conditions.....plan was to fill up with livies and head to the wide FAD early, troll to browns and back again...

For once we did as planned....nothing at the FAD although other boats were hooking up. Dollies were there but not in big numbers...

Trolling towards Browns we set a nice spread of 4 lures. 2 12 inch skirts and 2 8 inch skirts...We were about 5 km off Browns when we saw a stalker in our trail....

This is our first time marlin fishing and one of the most increadable things i have seen in all my life of fishing...The marlin hooks left and hits the 8 inch skirt to which we only had 10kg gear with a shimano torsa reel....We werent planning for this but we had the fish on for a good 10min with a great arial display until it spat the lure....

A little dissapointed we headed to Browns and did a u-turn back to the shelf for no hits and back to Browns...second run back to the shelf we get a hit in the same area 24.9 degrees on the edge of the shelf...Big splash on the surface and down it went...hit the other 10kg outfit on a tiagra 16....handled the fish well but line capacity was the biggest issue...fished pulled us for 5km and we got it within 5m of the boat after 1hr....the fish went under the boat and we lost tension......also lost the fish...

Bring up the line, double and wind-on still the but no lure and leader.....snap swivel was open and staightened?????????? bafling

The only thing we could think of was that it was not clipped in properly.....

Overall a very exciting day for our first marlin outing probably be back out next weekend.....

[achilles]

we had 2 50w with 24kg but with 12 inch skirts.....i think the 8-10 inch are more effective...

dont know the size of the fish but they were blue marlin....probably 80-100kg

[TonStar]

Assume report.

Any room for one more on board next week?

[mikeh191]

Well done on the hook ups,bad luck on lossing the fish due to the clip swivel.Around the shelf is alive with marlin at the moment lets hope they hang around, im out tomorrow in a mates boat fingers crossed.

Cheers Mike

[your fired]

Guys don't want to be percieved as a knark but every time someone looses a marlin it seems as though there always a Blue, it can be quite hard identifying marlin laying on the bottom of the boat, being swum besides the boat before release let alone hooked fought and lost. The marlin in this thread may be a blue but it's just an observation I've had over my twenty years of chasing these things. Hopefully next time guys luck prevails your way ,cheers Stu

[achilles]

Guys don't want to be percieved as a knark but every time someone looses a marlin it seems as though there always a Blue, it can be quite hard identifying marlin laying on the bottom of the boat, being swum besides the boat before release let alone hooked fought and lost. The marlin in this thread may be a blue but it's just an observation I've had over my twenty years of chasing these things. Hopefully next time guys luck prevails your way ,cheers Stu

Based on the time of year and the nature of the fight it is cetainly an assumption but the fish were certainly not as wild as a black or stripe

[Guest Big-Banana]

Based on the time of year and the nature of the fight it is cetainly an assumption but the fish were certainly not as wild as a black or stripe

Odds are it was a Stripe. Fish action is not always a good indication of the type of marlin. Stripes and Blacks can be docile as anything at times! Where they've been hooked and water temps are main factors to fight patterns.