Coming to the end of the season for the East Coast Game fishing we ventured out wide to chase Blue Marlin, a quiet morning with no signs of life over the shelf, we continued pulling skirts around with the plans of chasing Broadbill through the night. Coming to the afternoon around 3.30pm the long corner folds and reel starts screaming, a Blue launches full body out of the water in the opposite direction and peels 300m off before popping up 20m next the boat putting on and air show for us before heading deep. Ben, on the rod did the hard yards as we left the gimbal and harness in garage back on land, a make shift harness out of rod lanyards, an old towel and the game chair was all he had. After an hour the fish was coming to the trace suspecting a small blue , a few pinches of the leader brought us into sight with this solid Blue Marlin that wasn’t ready to give up just yet , after 5minutes of playing up on the trace the fish makes a run for it and away it goes for round two . 5 times to the trace and the fish was still not willing to give in, being patient and persistent we slowly worked the fish down and just about to take another run the fish rolls on its side and gives in long enough for us to get a shot at it.
With the solid blue boated, we all have a break whilst travelling to our drift grounds. Setting up the rigs and putting them out in formation it wasn’t long and a reel peels some line, and rod loads up slowly. A small hammerhead around 50kg ratted our bait, a quick tag and it was released. Through the night a few bait changes and move of spot paid off with the rod taking line at 5am in the morning, waiting for line to take up to set the circle hook a solid Mako jumps 50m from the boat with lights not far behind it and the start of the fight was on. Taking over half a spool of 37kg first run it slowed up and gained some line back on it before it stripped another 100m back off. 15minutes in and the Mako turns and runs back at us getting the advantage and biting through the mono leader. Getting back the trace with a frayed end. From there set up to continue trolling for the morning and make our way home guessing what our capture will way. Congratulations to Ben with his first Blue Marlin weighing in at 232.5kg , a hard bench mark to beat.
