Bermagui

The first marlin for the season has been tagged and guess which boat was out there to find it :- Mr Hooker!!!? On Friday 23 December 2011 I was fortunate to be on board with Paul Blacka, Reg Pauline, John Parbery, Jim Joans, Brock Lazzaro and a very appreciative German backpacker Mattieous.? We had a glorious day on the water with the wind not getting over 10 to 15 knots all day. The coverted title of the first marlin of the season was one that I am lucky to have had the experience to get (sorry Brockie!)

We dragged lures around to start with, and when Brock's 15kg tiagra went off Paul told Mattieous to wind it in expecting it to be a stripie, but was surprised when he had a small yellowfin.?

We found some bait eventually and our crew John expertly bought in 5 mackerel at a time beating the seals to a free feed.? The teasers were then put out and a skip bait, with a livie rigged up ready to switch baits.? I was on the deck answering Mattieous questions on what to expect if a marlin comes up when one hit the daisy chain and pulled it out of the? rigger.? As quick as I could I wound the daisy chain in while there was a mad scramble from the fly bridge of John, Reg, Jim and Brock to get the rest of the gear in to switch the livie, but the marlin disappeared as quickly as it came.?

A short time later one came up on the stripie lure, which John reel in whilst Reg got the daisy chain in and I grabbed the livie.? After much confusion, shouting of instructions and abuse from Captain Cranky above, I somehow managed to hook this marlin on the livie with the line on strike.? Don't quiet know how but I did it,? much to everyones surprise (hey, maybe I stumbled on a new approach).? Anyway I had it on.? Then there was the debacle of trying to get the harness on me, and half the fight with the fish was without a harness, or the 4 men on board trying to get it fitted right.? But the fish laid on a performance for us, and our elated German backpacker Mattieous was thrilled and luckily was the only one on board with a camera to capture these fantastic photos.

Paul found a bait ball later on that afternoon with seals and marlin working it.? But even with John's tempting it with a live mackerel thrown into the bait ball we couldn't tempt it to give Brock a chance at his first marlin for the season.

Click here to view footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbQ0lQ8UZNU