Haha didn't take long to get a bite there Travis!
Been hanging to pop my marlin cherry for a while and there has been a super hot bite up at Port Stephens, a few hours north of Sydney, for the last 7 weeks or so....many boats have been getting 4-6 fish on a decent day....Tim Dean had a few days on Calypso into the double figures. But I have been busy with work and family.
Managed to duck up there yesterday. Couldn't get a crew together on late notice but the weather was so good and I was so desperate, I took the charter boat to myself!...motored out and found a likely spot with a nice current line, some bait and good temp. Whilst jigging up some slimies for bait we saw a free jumper, and about 30 minutes after actually started fishing (with 2 surface baits and a deep bait on my Hots jig rod/Stella 20k combo) the deep bait gets hit
Black marlin surfaces and gives us half a jump before heading deep and slugging it out with me for 1 hour 10 minutes....let me tell you, at about the 50 minute mark I would have loved a harness, but no spin harnesses aboard...got it to the boat for a nice release, skipper estimated at 120-130kg, it was a big fish!
Managed 2 more stripes on conventional gear, plus the deckie got a stripe as well....he had to take the rod as we had a double hook up
Went 4-4-4 for the day plus saw a couple of free jumpers, was awesome....the 3 stripes were in the 75-85kg bracket
No pics unfortunately as we were short handed (just skipper, me and deckie) and none of the fish were particularly cooperative boatside, except the one I landed during hte double hook up, but we wanted to release it immediately and get the second fish, which was about 150m out the front of the boat going nuts by that stage....and we did get it
Wasn't going to post a report since it is not really this forum's purpose but am pretty stoked and since you asked.....
