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A report from Brad at the 20th Alliance Tag & Release Tournament held at Bermagui on the weekend: Like Port Stephens, it seems the fishing at Bermi has been a little quiet with just the 6 marlin for the two days – 4 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. Congratulations to Brad and team on Aurora for taking out Champion Boat over 6.8m with 2 stripes and their angler Chris Sedgwick, Champion Male, and to Champion Lady Angler Sharon Garbutt on board Hot Shot!Back at Port yesterday. It was a lonely day on the shelf for us on Reel Chase yesterday only coming across just the one other trailer boat. But it appears the current has backed off a bit and a bit more bait appearing. We managed to live bait yesterday for the first time in over a week which resulted in another single striped T&R for the day for angler Angus.Hopefully good numbers of fish find the bait schools soon.
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Caption Left: Scotty sent me this photo of Freedom in action on Day 3 of the Interclub (taken I believe by Capt. Tim fishing nearby) of this approx 250lb black marlin they fought on 30lb at the Gibber for several hours. Despite having it close to the tag shot on several occasions early in the fight, 6 and a half miles out to sea later they again raised the fish only to break it off on the leader. What a shot!Caption Right: In trying conditions yesterday Reel Chase again fished the shelf yesterday hooking two stripes and successfully tagging this one for angler Scott. In the morning, there was more bait around again but by lunch time a patch of hot, dirty water had moved in from inshore and it all shut down.
This post was imported into WordPress from my old Black Marlin Fishing Blog website without any accompanying photos. If you’d like to see the original post, with the accompanying photographs, go to the original Black Marlin Fishing Blog site and navigate to the post using the archive navigation links on the right-hand-side.
Leading boat Tag & Release Di Da Ke secured their lead with an early tag of striped marlin on Day 2. Meanwhile a number of blues were being fought to the boat with the existing heaviest marlin award at 210kg held by Weapon in serious doubt. The mark was raised just after lunch by Obsession with a 216.5kg blue. But in a dramatic finish, Di Da Ke hooked up only minutes before cease fishing and battled the fish for a further hour and a half. We came over to have a look and saw four grown men struggling to pull the fish into the boat and with a 6 o’clock deadline, the hammers were down to the weigh-station which they made with 2 minutes to spare. The fish going 288kg (635lb) – one of the biggest weighed at Port Stephens in many years.Overwhelmingly fish caught on Sunday were blue marlin although Dreamcatcher II reported a 120kg striped marlin released in closer to the temperature break, one of the biggest stripes in the area in a while as well.
This post was imported into WordPress from my old Black Marlin Fishing Blog website without any accompanying photos. If you’d like to see the original post, with the accompanying photographs, go to the original Black Marlin Fishing Blog site and navigate to the post using the archive navigation links on the right-hand-side.
More boats on the shelf courtesy of the Shootout Tournament meant that our later start – at gentlemen’s hours – saw us arriving in time to see Di Da Ke on a double hookup of stripey’s having found a bait meat ball loaded with fish instead of the usual dolphins. Di Da Ke added another stripey later in the morning to lead the Tag & Release in the tournament thus far. Closely followed by Time Out who tagged an astounding three blues which is not surprising when you look at the recent satellite imagery which shows dramatic temperature break fronts of 3 degrees centigrade off the shelf wide of Seal Rocks. Another boat leading the Shootout is Weapon who boated a 210kg blue marlin on 50lb for Junior Angler Miles which is an astounding effort for a young fisherman of the future.Meanwhile back on Reel Chase a frustrating day of seeing stripeys but not hooking up changed late in the day when we managed to hook the world’s dumbest stripey for Peter who gave us some magical photo ops at the back of the boat and some more good underwater TowCam footage. Also not fishing the tournament, Mauna Kea got a double header of stripes in the morning including a first marlin for their lady angler.
This post was imported into WordPress from my old Black Marlin Fishing Blog website without any accompanying photos. If you’d like to see the original post, with the accompanying photographs, go to the original Black Marlin Fishing Blog site and navigate to the post using the archive navigation links on the right-hand-side.
We’re back at Port Stephens for the weekend and on Reel Chase headed out for our first day back Friday to (once again) reported fabulous weather – somewhat dismayed to find big swells. The trip out and the trip home were less than pleasurable, thankfully it gave up a little during the day.While fishing reports had been much of the same for the week, we headed out with some enthusiasm and were not disappointed. Although our first fish, a 40kg black marlin wore through the light tackle trace before we could get a tag in, on the edge of the shelf, we were again met by thousands of dolphins and mutton birds, and started marking a few marlin down deep. This eventually lead to the first strike, from a striped marlin for angler Mick which could be seen on the underwater footage when we reviewed it later, rocketing up from the depths like a missile. Two black marlin follows later, we tagged our second stripey for Clint from a pack of at least four fish that materialized at the transom and continued to follow the boat while we fought the fish to the tagpole. Despite it making a vain attempt at tagging us (picture below). Nearby on Mauna Kea, Capt. Tim made the most of two bites for the day tagging a blue and striped marlin – the blue at around 400lb giving them a great display. Trailer boat Josh managed a 1-1-1 striped marlin in the trying conditions. And Calypso finished the day with a black marlin near Fingal Lighthouse on the way in.—Smithy gives us another update from the Sunshine Coast Thursday – the blacks are still in residence. Tanjian went 7 from 10, Ymer got 3 switchbaiting, Keneka another 2 and Triton ended up with 2 plus a wahoo.—Sad news for the gamefishing fraternity with the passing this morning of the original Cairns deckhand and skipper Gordon Hallam at Proserpine. He will be sadly missed by those who had the pleasure of his company over the years.
