Hey Mark,
Thanks for the kind words.
Nathan is going to try and attempt something myself and several other GT anglers have been wanting to do for a while now.
The biggest stumbling block for me isn't the gear or even access to the fish.
It's actually getting a crew and a boat that wants to tease-and-switch with GT/Tuna gear as their sole focus.
Most still prefer to have a spread of lures out on 37kg stand-up marlin rods so they have the best chance of landing/tagging these amazing animals.
Without sufficient height or a skipper/crew with good eyes, teasing is difficult from the smaller 23-27ft class boats I am fishing on at present.
You need a dedicated skipper. A dedicated angler and at least 2 extra crew to run the teasers properly.
It can be done with less, though your opportunities to convert marlin hitting teasers to marlin hooked up on the casting rig would be slim at best and without the advantage of height, you may cast to the monster you didn't mean to because you didn't judge it's weight at all!
A blue marlin was weighed around 5 days ago on the Gold Coast.....it was 836lbs!!!!!!
It died during the fight on proper marlin gear on a boat skippered by one of the best in the business.
This is NOT the sort of animal that you want to muck with on casting tackle........not unless you have tried it 100 times before and you are looking for a bigger kick in life........
It may be fun on the initial hookup, though to be fair on the fish, I'd pick out blues under 400lb for this kind of fishing shenanigans!!!!!!!!
They are far tooo crazy........even a 'normal' size blue around 250-300lb mark are ballistic animals!!!
Still, it's something I want to do.......that and cast flies at appropriate sized models
Cheers,
Aaron.