Not only could I only marlin fish in small bursts, I had useless and easily distracted crew for the week.
Regardless, here's a quick report for the week:
Saturday:
Just dad and I, towed the boat up and launched around midday. Get out to find the radio isn't working, bugger!
In short, was a pretty ordinary day with wind, rain and no fish.
Sunday:
Myself, dad, my uncle and my cousin all headed out to Montague as they all wanted a kingfish. Plenty about, we had some fun on jigs but not monster, we got a few just size though.
I convinced the crew that we needed to troll home via the kink for a marlin, and luckily it was all happening out there. We spotted a free swimmer, I tossed a livie at him and he immediacy swallowed it. Dad was on the rod, he was a bit too excited and too quick on the drag, we lost the marlin after just a few minutes and a few jumps.
Monday:
The entire family was out on a charter, to spread my grandfathers ashes at Montague island. Plenty of kingfish again, that was basically the day and a bit of fun.
Tuesday:
With dad yet to tag his first marlin, I was determined to make it happen. We pushed north all morning with nothing to show for it. No bait, no boats, green water. Around 3.30 I said enough is enough, and pulled the lines in and punched south from Tuross to the baithole to find a heap of boats and plenty of action. I began marking up fish everywhere, and got the livies in the water. I looked down at the sounder to see at least 8 marlin under the boat, and seconds later the longer livie got smashed. Dad was on. But at least 2 more marlin showed up behind the boat, so I tossed another livie in for the double hookup, but unfortunatly didn't stay connected for more than a minute. 2h 10m later dad tagged his first marlin, despite trying to lose it first under the boat, and second around the prop. I had to strip 90m of shredded line off the reel that night, no idea how we landed that fish. Got back to the ramp at last light.
Another stuff around day at Montague for kings nothing about at all completely shut down.
Thursday:
Just dad and I again, big day for marlin it was my turn. A very quiet morning, with barely a fish seen between all the boats around us. Around 2pm however all the bait came up and it was action stations. We marked a fish and again, immediately had a livie get taken at the back of the boat, this time an est 80kg black. I had him knocked over in 20 minutes and up beside the boat, but I was halfway through putting the trace gloves on (dad has no experience leadering a lively marlin) when he decided to change direction and somehow the circle hook pulled. Ahh well.
All in all finally got the monkey off dads back, but it was a reasonably frustrating trip as the marlin were biting pretty well.
Lucky I'm back up again next weekend.
