Sydney Friday 22 Jan

[Scent Blazer Lures]

I checked the weather in the morning and it looked good for the afternoon. Heavy rain, thunderstorms, overcast and light winds. I'll take heavy rain over wind any day. Txted a couple of people in the morning but no takers on such short notice and bad weather, so solo it was.

Got to the heads at 1.45pm and headed east. The first thing I noticed was that everyone was heading in and I was the only one heading out. About 1.5 miles out the water went from a green/brown to a electric blue and 24.3, so I put the lures straight in and started trolling. 5 miles out I found a string of fish traps and caught a few small dollies on the lure chains. They were too small, threw them all back and replaced the lure chain with a bigger 12" lure to keep the small fish off, I also put a j-ray in the lure for extra visibility in the overcast conditions. I was just running 12” and 15” lures at that stage. Headed further east and found a few more traps, more small dollies, they kept hitting the 12” lure with the j-ray and bait inside it. Got 4 dollies around those traps, 2 went around 65cm so I kept those and threw the other 2 back.

Rain was bucketing down at times but still got hook-ups even in the down pours especially the lure with the j-ray in it. I was soaked, like a drowned rat, but it's only rain right . I kept heading east, about 2 miles inside 12 Mile I found a nice little current line, and so I started running that line. 30 minutes later I hooked a marlin, speed up and set the hook and just as the boat slowed a 2nd marlin came leaping out with a lure in it's mouth on the other rigger. Just for a few seconds I could see both marlin were hooked-up and jumping simultaneously, I was thinking sh*t, what am I going do? Anyway, the one on the rigger came off, so I didn’t have to worry about that anymore. I left the rod in holder, brought in all the other gear in, turned on the go pros and started reeling it in.

About 15 minutes later I had him near the boat. I was thinking he might be a bit green but I tried to trace it anyway, it leaped out at first, then it dived and charged forward swimming in front of the boat, I had to let go of the trace, I couldn’t hold it. The rod was bent right down backwards in the rod holder so I picked up the rod and I managed to get him back behind the boat again. I tried landing him again. I reeled it in towards the boat but it swam under boat and I couldn’t stop it. Unfortunately the line got wrapped around one of the prop legs. I went out hiking out on the marlin board trying to get the line off the leg. I contemplated putting on a mask, snorkel and flippers and going in to sort it out, but thought better of it. In the end I decided to drive the boat forward on the prop that didn’t have the line tangled around it to bring the line to the surface so I could gaff the line and try to pull it in by hand, it didn’t work and the line just busted. Oh well, these things happen. It’s a bit hard landing a marlin solo on my boat, you really need another person to drive who can react to what the fish is doing to keep the line clear from the boat, but still it wouldn’t stop me from trying again. I have landed marlin solo successfully before, but things have to go your way.

Reset the spread minus one rod, one lure and kept trolling the same area until about 6pm then started trolling back towards Sydney Heads. About 30 minutes later one of the lines in the rigger snapped out violently. I turned around and only saw a big splash, thinking it was another marlin I sped the boat up to set the hook. Same thing as last time, gear in, camera’s on. It went for a decent run when I eventually picked up the rod so I was still thinking another marlin, but after that run it came in pretty easy and I saw the yellow fin on the surface about 20 metres out, nice dollie though. I landed it without any drama.

Great arvo out despite losing the marlin at the boat. The water is great out there, 24.3 and very blue just a few miles out, you don't have to venture far. I couple people txted me today and said a few boats hooked marlin yesterday morning, so there’s a few out there.

Hooked the marlin and the dollies on these 2 lures:
http://www.scentblazer.com/Products/tabid/292/ProdID/947/CatID/104/Dorado__Large_Slant_Head.aspx
http://www.scentblazer.com/Products/tabid/292/ProdID/993/CatID/130/Red__Black_Squid__Medium_Slant_Head.aspx

Put some screen grabs from the go pro up, not as good as shots from a camera but does the trick if you’re fishing solo.

Good luck if you’re heading out!

Edited January 24, 2016 by Scent Blazer Lures

[GoingFishing]

Mate I only have one word

AWESOME

That's a great solo session on a day most would have decided to stay home.

[The President]

Mate you are a true fisherman, hats down for your solo effort in those conditions. You catch fish, well done.

[MV Sunray]

Well deserved result for epic solo mission [emoji106] no way I'd be jumping in when out there solo. Don't even use the auto pilot on mine when solo haha

[erroll]

That's a great effort solo mate, very well done. Cheers.

[Overdraft]

That's a massive effort

Its one hell of a challenge solo!

[Scent Blazer Lures]

cool, i'll post some videos up, I got a really nice bit of footage of the marlin on it's tail next right next to the boat and of the dollie. I got so much video, I will get around to posting some eventually

I'm with you Sunray, I didn't get auto pilot on my boat on purpose because I could imagine myself doing something really stupid and end up overboard with auto pilot running

Edited January 25, 2016 by Scent Blazer Lures

[australianslug]

Sounds like it was an awesome experience! (And great images as well)

[raysenior]

Top result well done , just getting it to the boat is my ambition !!!

[MikeR]

awesome experience! and a great result

[Moonshine]

Awesome!

[Scent Blazer Lures]

Awesome!

thanks, hey i'll be heading out in couple of weeks i'll let you know