marlin strike - 22/11/14

[okt824]

headed out form Wollongong harbor early sat morning. Wind and swell was up a little and the journey out was fairly slow. got to Wollongong FAD put the spread out. There was no signs of life (water temp approx. 22 and no to little current). The wind and swell were already dropping (as predicted by BOM - they finally got it right) so decided to head to the shelf. Saw numerous bait schools on the way out siting around 30-50 fathoms. circled the area each time and this produced one nice stripy. No obvious current lines or significant water temp changes, had gradually increased to 22.8. Hit the 400-500 fathom line and turned the boat south, again no real signs of life so decided to head back in to the inner side of shelf. By this stage my brother thought he'd take a nap (brought a pillow and all) however was woken fairly soon after by my excitement. Something had tapped/pulled a lure and by the time I turned around there was nothing there, eagerly watching I hear the clicker slowly start again (found this weird as in the past every hit was hard and strong) and I see a black wing looking thing flapping about at the lure and I think to myself, "s**t I got a bird" . Just as I came off the throttle just a bit, this bird then disappeared under the water and stopped pulling line then busted out thrashing at the lure and again disappeared. by this time my heart/adrenaline was racing as I knew this was not a bird, but a marlin. I circled the area for a while however I could not raise it again. The excitement had worn off and a feeling of devastation was setting in. 2500 Km, 130 hrs and a lot of $$$ spent to get my first marlin just "playing" and not take the lure resulted in quite a few swear words. Brought the lure in and as I expected the leader had been roughed up quite a bit. Water temp was 23.2 and depth was 150 fathoms directly in between shellharbour and kiama. Headed south after this following the same depth to the Kiama canyons with water temp reaching a max of 23.6. saw a 3m shark cruising about and that was it for the day.

Would like to mention that this was the first trip using my recently purchased SCENTBLAZER lures. As mentioned 2500 km and 130hrs on the water chasing marlin and the first time I use scent blazer lures I have a strike. Co-incidence?? maybe, but I know what lures im going to be using for future trips. Had them filled with a mix of pilchards and the fresh stripy caught earlier in the day - teaser was filled with fresh stripy fillets.

Can anyone offer me advice/experience. Did coming off the throttle a little hurt my chances??? should I punch the throttle to set the hook??? is it common to have a slow pull on the lure rather than a big grab/hit and run?

Cheers

[boattart]

That's marlin fishing. Yes you can gun the boat to help hook ups but still no guarantee. I wouldn't back off though. If you get a crash tackle bite and screaming line then backing off is OK but while you're clearing the other lines having line come off the reel under drag is your best bet to set and keep the hook in.

[juiced]

Exactly what boattart said . But if I see a marlin come up on a lure , when he is about to bite it I back the throddle off so the hook go in his mouth then I throddle to set the hooks. Its got me a better hook up rate doing it that way then just letting take the lure..

[chocolate]

YEH , Don't back of on the gas, I lost a marlin at south west rocks , Due to slowing down after the strike the hook did not bite , A little gas after the strike i think and i would of had him.

[brickman]

mate i tell everyone who is chasing there first stick face go with the hope that you see one ,if you see one its a good day ,get a hook up and its a great day,land one and its the best day off your fishing life

it's still very early days for the marlin run with good numbers hopefully showing up soon the only thing that could off helped was a switch bait if you had time,do a google search for ballyhoo rig[gar fish] learn this way off rigging a swimming gar and always have a few rigged and ready to go

stripe marlin will somtimes stuff around with lures but a swimming gar will do the trick most times

cheers gary

[Scent Blazer Lures]

LOL, it was no coincidence J

I hear you, we did the same thing for years, 100s of hours on the water without a beakie boatside. We did manage to raise plenty of fish on other lures, but more often than not they wouldn't strike it. Our hook-up rate increased dramatically with the bait inside the lures.

Marlin can be a bitch to set a hook, their mouths and bills are really hard, so if we see a marlin behind a lure then we normally give the boat little pumps so the lure jerks up then sinks a little. This usually agitates the crap out of them and gets them bitting more aggressively, once the rod is loaded increase your speed to around 12 knots for around 10-15 seconds to set the hook. If it’s a blind strike which is normally a Black or a Blue just pick up your speed for around 10-15 seconds to set the hook.

Most game fisherman I know get about 1 in 3 or less marlin to stick on a lure, so if you drop a marlin don’t worry you are one step closer getting one next time.

Fresh stripy and pillies is perfect to put in the lures. Here’s another trick, when you caught the stripy cut it open and see what’s in its stomach, sometimes you find undigested sauries, garfish, squid and other fish inside it, take those undigested fish and put that inside a couple of the lures, that way you matching the bait the fish are feeding on in the area. When we do that, more often than not those lures get hit more than the other lures in the spread.

Good Luck

Peter

Edited November 24, 2014 by Scent Blazer Lures