With hopes of a few more fish we set off again yesterday at 03:00. The seas were calm and we wanted to try the dawn bite at the first FAD’s again where we found some fish last time.
We were at the fad in the dark and I rigged baits under artificial light. Before I could see, we had lines in the water and we were off trolling. Besides tangled lines from trying to deploy in the dark… we had no success at the fad. Within an hour of daylight we had zero strikes, no bait and no birds.
The gear came in and we ran another 10 miles to the banks to try for a meat fish before the dawn window closed.
I almost never fish a diver but considering the objective at the time it made sense to position one a couple meters behind the boat in the prop wash. Wahoo love a lure playing peekaboo with them in the prop was 4 meters behind the boat. A 160mm Strada redhead went out off the port corner.
Within a couple minutes the shotgun went off, no hookup. We rebaited and then the mid rigger popped the rubber band but didn’t get hooked up, then the short port went off. The diver. Nolan was standing right there and cleared the rod holder then held on for dear life. Line was vacating the reel quickly and whatever he had hooked wasn’t happy. We all called it for a hoo and could tell it was a good one so started clearing the lines on that side of the boat. For some reason Nolan decided he wasn’t up to the challenge and told Porter to take the rod for him.
A few minutes later we saw what had caused the commotion.
Rosi sunk the gaff
Porter tried to get his ankles cut so he could miss work. The video at this point is both funny and a little scary. Idk how he didn’t get hooked or cut by its teeth. Rosi has a nasty habit of laying wahoo heads around feet.
46lbs of sashimi
At that point I made the executive decision the food situation was sorted and we should go chase billfish. I cut east and before we got off the banks we hooked a rainbow runner and mac tuna. We then cleared the reef and headed out toward a few subsurface fads that had been producing blues for the past week.
On our way there we saw a mark on the sounder 25m down that would be a marlin. About ten seconds later a black enter the spread, he rushed over to the long rigger and nailed the micro sprocket. Rosi took the rod and we cleared the gear.
After about 20 minutes I had the leader and porter planted the tag. The fish lunged and I didn’t let go, pop goes the leader and away he went without the usual boat side photos.
Luckily enough it broke on the hook crimp so I got my lure back without having to swim for it.
We worked that area for a bit without any indication he had friends. We then continued out to the fads. Once there we found birds, bait and dolphins. The scene was perfect, the table set. We just needed the marlin to know it was dinner time.
We trolled and trolled without a strike. Didn’t even mark a fish. Saw plenty of the other fish
Eventually time was against us and we had to bust a move for home. We were crossing through the area the first fish had hit and we had another strike on the shotgun. A black started tail walking behind the boat and we started to clear gear while porter took the fish. A few seconds later it threw the hook.
The spread went out again and we worked that area hard. Nothing.
We continued back to the banks and worked the south end for a couple passes. A strike on the short corner brought another rough tuna and then another billfish grabbed the shotgun and quickly threw the hook. We then heard on the radio from a few boats on the subsurface fads that the bites been late in the afternoon. Had we known that we wouldn’t of had a 02:00 start and would have stayed for the arvo. To late now.
A few more passes and the mid rigger hooked up. Nolan brought us a little bonito.
Nice teeth on these fish. First one we’ve caught.
With that we pulled the gear and came home.