Skip the ice, let’s go billfishing.

[Coiloil37]

It’s that time of year again the juvenile black marlin get caught in the fish trap that we call Hervey Bay. Typically these are 1-2 year old fish that are migrating south for the first time. I commented on them and the trip I would take up there in the last thread I made about lady musgrave island.

http://www.outdoorsmenforum.ca/showthread.php?t=386697

Being as it’s the right time of year, a full moon on the 2nd of Nov and two weeks off I had a look at the forecast and this past Wednesday/Thursday looked acceptable.








The 7 year old didn’t want to make the trip as he had an ear infection that hadn’t gone away yet but the 5 year old was chomping at the bit.

Thursday morning I loaded up and we were off.







We got to the boat ramp after an uneventful drive.










It’s about a 60km run out to the grounds, once we hit wathumba creek we stopped and to put out a six lure spread and started hunting. On the run up we found a bust up of longtail tuna but couldn’t get a hit on the slugs or soft plastics we threw at them.





Back to trolling, we struck out for the most part with five marlin strikes on skipping gar (ballyhoo for those of you who’ve fished the Caribbean) but I couldn’t stick a 7/0 circle hook into ones mouth.





In hindsight I didn’t wait long enough but I was giving them 6-8 seconds after they popped the clip off the outrigger which I thought was enough. We did manage one little spotted mackerel for dinner.





Then we popped in to check out one of the many sets of turtles we saw who seem to be displaying some mating behaviour.







The we stepped onto the island for a look around.








We trolled around as the sun went down without any success.





Due to some fires on the island and the smoke we had to anchor up in a less then ideal location but we stopped for the night, set out a few lines and cooked supper. At that point my phone died and I found out my charging cable was cactus. Luckily I had a gopro with me but it’s less handy to get pictures and videos with then my iPhone. As we went to sleep my little man told me not to worry, the second day is always more successful...

[fishinisgood]

Fantastic!!

[Surly]

What a trip! Good for you!

Would the young marlin be considered table fare?

How was the second day?

[Jack&7]

Awesome pics!

Please tell me all about your boat...

[Coiloil37]

Second morning we fired up the Webber and made breakfast then got into it. I put out the standard six lure spread and set her to 6.5 knots in about 20m of water. After about ten minutes the short corner went off which was a split tailed mullet. I let him run for a few seconds then gave him strike drag ~15lbs. The hooks seemed to have sunk in and he rocketed up to the surface for a few jumps. I gave the rod to the youngster and started clearing lines. About the time I was done clearing the other five rods his line went slack and he told me he was gone. I cranked it in the find the leader had snapped where it went through the hook. I made a mental note to add anti chaff on my split tailed mullet and started setting lines out again.
Within fifteen or twenty minutes another rod went off. This time a rapala magnum so I was thinking a tuna or Spanish mackerel. Well another much larger black marlin came to the surface 60m behind the boat and started tail walking. This was the biggest one we saw all day, perhaps a 90-100kg fish and not the little babies we were expecting. Within a min or so that fish had spit the hook so it was back to the grind.
About half an hour later the shotgun went off. This time a jr ilander with a gar under the skirt. I gave him a second to run then set the hooks. The little black came to the surface and I passed the rod over to Nolan. I cleared lines then slowed the boat so he could fight the fish.













When the fish got to the boat he was pretty tired. I slow trolled him along side the boat for about thirty minutes without much hope he would survive. I had my little man troll us into about 2 meters of water so I could gaff the marlin if he didn’t make it. On the release he went belly up so I told Nolan we would eat him. Nolan thought that was a fantastic idea because he’s been chasing me for a marlin bill since we moved here and I’ve been unwilling to kill one. I circled around and put the gaff in him. We bled him and got some pics before knocking the fillets off to put in the kill tank. We also kept the head and tail and I’ll have to figure out how to preserve them.




We got the pics, weighed him at 33.6 lbs and gutted the fish, put him on ice and I explained to the little man at the ripe age of five he had accomplished what took me 36 years to achieve. Now, they’re small fish but non the less he had a marlin under his belt. The pride on that little face was priceless.

We then got four lines out (it was easier then running six) and about ten minutes later we had another marlin sneak in and hit the split tail mullet, ran with it, dropped it then I saw him shoot across and he hooked up on a pakula skirt off the long rigger. I cleared the lines while Nolan fought him and he tail walked all over the ocean. I drove the boat toward him and Nolan brought him up. I video taped the action on the gopro then got him unhooked and revived for a quick release.




We put the spread back out and Nolan told me the next fish was mine. A half hour later the shotgun goes off again. Another little black starts leaping out of the water a hundred meters behind the boat. Where’s Nolan? Right beside me asking for the rod. He takes number 3 while I clear the lines. Another good fight and a clean release.








A few minutes later after getting the spread out I see a tail and dorsal fin sticking out of the water. We troll over and I tell Nolan to watch the rods. The first lure past him was the short corner with another split tailed mullet. The rod buckled over and he started to run. I cleared the deck again and Nolan brought number four to the boat.




It was 10:00 am and we had a good run back to the boat ramp and a two and a half hour run home. We took off and half way back I saw birds working a bust up. We got into it and I saw they were mac tuna. They’re good bait so we threw some slugs at them. I hooked up and passed the first rod to Nolan. He landed it and I threw it in the kill tank for strip baits. We ran over to the bust up again and I hooked a second one which he landed. We then kept heading for the boat ramp without any more distractions. We pulled into home about 15:00 and had the boat cleaned up by 17:00. Of 11 billfish strikes we only managed five hookups and four landed but once we found a strategy that worked we did ok.
There’s still a chance I’ll get back up there in the next two weeks before I head back to work but if not I’ll shoot out from home and get some of the larger models.

Back to their eating qualities. I cleaned up the marlin fillets.




Grilled on the BBQ like swordfish and to be honest it tasted exactly like swordfish.

[Coiloil37]

I’ll add some more details and pics tomorrow when I get home. We’ve got the Halloween thing with the kids tonight and a party.

[SNAPFisher]

Wow, awesome pics and way to tell the story throughout. Great job on this write up. And I suspect it was your pleasure
Good medal post.

Congrats on the lasting memories for you and especially your boy.

I've only ever had store bought sword fish. I can only imagine how awesome fresh bill fish is...

[Coiloil37]

A few more random pics. Not necessarily in any order and all snipped out of videos so the quality isn’t great.

[Coiloil37]

Had to stock up the bait stash so we hit the canal after skateboard practice with a bit of bread and some small hooks. I chummed them up with the crab shells from the crabs we pulled out of the traps this morning and then kept them around with bread.







I’ll give them the night in a cold heavy brine with some extra salt and sodium bicarb to firm them up and keep them looking lifelike. They’re a little smaller then what I prefer for offshore work on billfish but these little ones are the ticket for mahi mahi and tuna and the quality is much better then what I can buy. As they keep growing I’ll get some of the bigger models, they spawned last winter (July) and I think these are the juvenile fish.

Jack&7

My boat is a 21’ cruisecraft which is an Aussie brand. They’ve got horrible trailer rules over here where we can tow a max of 2.5m wide so the beam on most American boats puts it over sized to trailer here. I’m running the 150 Zuki on the back, top speed is 44 knots with a pair of men and full load of fuel. This trip was 140 NM so 260km and I burned 88 litres of fuel, I’ve been very impressed with the outboard. The boat itself weighs 1800 kg dry. I’ve got lowrance, Garmin and furuno Sounders on it and the outriggers are 4.6m mounted up top off the rocket launcher. I bought it last December and have put around 300 hours on the outboard and probably 4-500 hours on the water. I’m running Shimano tyrnos overhead trolling reels because I didn’t have the money for tiagras. I’ve got a couple Saragossa spinning reels for pitching slugs and my jigging rods are wearing avet overheads. I’ve also got the little 2500 Stradic for catching bait and squid. I’m a member of the local fishing club but I’m not playing the points game or fishing the tournaments because I don’t want to use light tackle and to get points with the 50lb line I use (heavy tackle) I have to catch everything in 200+ meters of water. All of my fishing is less then 130m so that puts me out of the game. Having just left Alberta a year and a half ago I’m still learning the ropes for big game fishing but putting in the effort and having fun trying.

[Smoky buck]

You make it very tempting to move somewhere warmer

I just need to find some reasonable hunting options to go with the weather and fishing

[58thecat]

Another awesome thread thank you....

[Coiloil37]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

You make it very tempting to move somewhere warmer



I just need to find some reasonable hunting options to go with the weather and fishing

Plenty to hunt here too. There are six types of deer, pigs, foxes, water buffalo, wild donkeys, wild horses and wild cattle that are all feral. That means shoot them on sight. No seasons or tags, it’s a free for all. There are also elk here that escaped from farms. Most got crossed with red deer but regardless they’re here. I know one guy in Queensland who’s shot a few about two hours from here although most are down in the snowy mountains from what I’ve been told. Out in the desert there are also camels to be shot.

The firearms laws are a little stricter then Canada but if you want them you can easily jump through the hoops. Archery gear is still unrestricted and most of the pig hunting is done with a dog and knife. The worst part of Queensland is there’s no hunting on state land so you’ve got to hunt private land.

[Smoky buck]

Australia and New Zealand seem nicer with each winter/bad election

If it was not for COVID-19 we were planning a family vacation to visit one of the two

[Coiloil37]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

Australia and New Zealand seem nicer with each winter/bad election

If it was not for COVID-19 we were planning a family vacation to visit one of the two

If you come through Queensland hit me up and we can go fishing.

[Coiloil37]

I swear the weather hates me. Since I left ten days ago it’s been around a meter swell with a twelve second interval, 5 knot winds and almost zero wind chop.

Here’s a live pic of the water and then the swell forecast. I go home Wednesday







Going home to 2 meter seas with a 6 second interval and the 20 knot winds will prob kick up another meter of chop on top of the primary swell.

[cowmanbob]

Your posts are sure to shorten up the winter, thanks.

[Coiloil37]

Well today’s order of business is to install the GT51 transducer. It claims 1800’ capability in fresh water so I’m hoping for 300 meters in the salt. The online reviews and screen shots indicate it’s the best option short of going to a 1kw ducer for saltwater performance.
I’m going to leave the GT52 on the starboard side of the hull and put this on the port side so I can run both simultaneously and compare them. I suspect the GT52 will get sold after I’ve seen their performance but I want an on water test first.





Tomorrow I’ll go stock up on gar and attempt to keep them alive overnight and then head out Saturday for a trip in the home waters.




Today looks fantastic but the honey do list needs attention before I go fishing.

[Coiloil37]

I like that I can choose frequency with its corresponding beam. I haven’t played with it previously but I’ve read different species of fish show up better at certain frequencies







Seems I was incorrect. The other one was a GT54UHD ducer. I chose to remove it and skip the comparison. Everything I’ve read says it’s maxed out at about 70 meters which won’t work for me.

[NCC]

Coiloil,

Thanks for posting and please keep it up. Your photos and stories are really making me regret not taking the transfer I was offered to South Texas last summer. Looks like you made the right move. If you get out to hunt, most of us would be very interested in the stories and photos of those adventures also.

BTW, the 30-06 you sold me has been great. My 15 year old daughter shot a 50" moose with it last fall.

[Smoky buck]

Waiting to see what you catch

[Coiloil37]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

Waiting to see what you catch

Me too. No huge expectations though. While the waters warmed up to about 24-25 deg and most palegics should be here it’s still the very start of the season.
This is the second best moon phase to fish and the wind looks like it’ll behave so it’s time to give it a try.

[Smoky buck]

Originally Posted by Coiloil37

Me too. No huge expectations though. While the waters warmed up to about 24-25 deg and most palegics should be here it’s still the very start of the season.
This is the second best moon phase to fish and the wind looks like it’ll behave so it’s time to give it a try.

What species besides Marlin could you pick up on this trip

And if you go hunting pics are a must

[Coiloil37]

Originally Posted by NCC

Coiloil,

Thanks for posting and please keep it up. Your photos and stories are really making me regret not taking the transfer I was offered to South Texas last summer. Looks like you made the right move. If you get out to hunt, most of us would be very interested in the stories and photos of those adventures also.

BTW, the 30-06 you sold me has been great. My 15 year old daughter shot a 50" moose with it last fall.

Good to hear. That rifle was awesome for me from 2006 when I bought it until I sold it to you. I never missed an animal with that rifle and I took all of my personal best rifle kills with it. It was a regretful sale but I wanted to drop some weight with the kimber.

I saw a few dozen red deer on my way to work last time so I’m getting itchy to go find a property and do some hunting. It’s probably time to get my gun license too but I’ve got a few bows with me and I’ll hunt with them for now. Next April during the rut I’ll make sure I get into them.

[Coiloil37]

Well the club had a tournament last weekend. 14 boats, two days, only five marlin, 15 yellowfin and three mahi mahi caught. Most boats went heavy tackle which stipulates 200+ meters of water but the bite wasn’t there. Last years tourney there were individual boats catching 8 marlin a day.

We won’t head out that deep so maybe we can find something better but typically if the crowd goes wide it’s because there’s very little in closer. Tomorrow’s forecast looks more like calm seas, cold beer and some vitamin D but its impossible to predict and a mans gotta fish when he’s got time so...


These are the majority of the fish available to be caught








Haven’t really seen many sharks. I’ve seen two hammer heads from the boat and the boys had a kingfish sharked once.









More frequently we see dolphins and most guys say if you’ve got dolphins around there are no sharks. They come over and eat the fish we throw back so typically if you stop a dolphin will show up. I’m not saying we never feed them either.




I’ve seen lots of guys jump in and swim with them also. I’ve got a few videos of that but can’t post em.

[Smoky buck]

Looks like you have no lack of species to target

Though sharks would have been more common in QLD

[Coiloil37]

Well it’s not a good pic but we picked up a few gar this morning for tomorrow’s fishing trip. I’ve got another 15 or so resting in a bucket in the creek and I’m hoping they’re still alive tomorrow so we can use them as livies. If not we will run em dead and try to catch some yakkas, slimes mackerel or flying fish for live bait tomorrow.

[Coiloil37]

Well a 03:00 start and a 20:30 finish makes for a long day. Had some highs and some lows but ultimately found some new ground and there’s a bit of fish in the fridge. I’ll post something up tomorrow.

[58thecat]

Wake up...wake up....hey........stop dreaming....hey

[Coiloil37]

After prepping the boat and before waking the little man I walked over to get the gar we had stashed in the creek. Seemed someone else needed them worse then I did as the bucket was still there with the lid on top but the gar were gone.
Then my fishing buddy arrived ten minutes late and we stopped for fuel and snacks before launching the boat. On the water a little later then we should of at 430 and off to see what the day would bring.






We shot out to the first fad which is 10 nm off shore. We weren’t the only boat on the fad and while we could see mahi mahi they didn’t want to eat what we were offering. We moved on to the next fad and had a strike with no hookup. The next pass gave us two more strikes with one finally hooked up.




We tried the third fad with lures instead of gar and had one strike but no hookup. Then we shot east for another 10 nm to the banks and started trolling for the fourth fad. Again we could see the mahi but they seemed to have lockjaw. The sounder was showing a lot of nice fish in about 35m on the thermocline and there was another boat pulling two lines off downriggers. They landed a nice wahoo and mahi in the fifteen minutes we were there so perhaps the old scotties will need to take a ride out there with me next time.

At that point we turned north and trolled for the areas we caught marlin last summer. We didn’t see anything useful, no bait balls, nothing really interesting at all besides a pod of dolphins.
I noticed a bit of structure on my chart a few miles north so we kept steaming in the 120m’s of water heading for an area where it popped up to about 90m.






Just on the south side of the area of interest in about 104 m of water we started seeing more flying fish then we’ve ever seen. They were coming off the water in front of the boat in schools (flocks?) of 50-100 fish flying away from us.
Then it finally happened. There was a big boil on the water 15m behind the boat where the long corner had been swimming and the 12” marlin magic ruckus was gone. The drag started howling and my buddy grabbed the rod. I started clearing the first line and this marlin came to surface about 70m behind us with his head sticking out of the water thrashing back and forth. It was huge. The largest fish I’ve ever raised and while I don’t know how big (I realise almost nobody’s going to believe me) I’m going to estimate 300+kg. He sat back there for about 20 seconds with his head and occasionally shoulders sticking out of the water thrashing back and forth. They’re was a lot of yelling about what we had hooked and I managed to clear two lines before the line went slack. Let’s just say at that point there was more yelling but it was more colourful.
That’s life though, typically boats are doing well if they can hook up on 50% of strikes. Nothing left but to set the spread and try and raise another fish. So we doubled down and I took the skipping gar off the short rigger and put another 9” coggin tado out there so we had some extra action in the spread. We worked the area in a bit of a loop and on the third pass through the same spot the long rigger went off. Initially we thought marlin again as the drag was screaming but then a mahi mahi started jumping behind the boat.
Porter was still on deck to fight the fish and he brought it boat side for me to gaff.




It was a nice fish but we could see another dozen or so in the water with him so I attempted to hook another before we pulled the first one out. They would chase my offerings but nobody wanted to hit it. Then we noticed how poorly the first one was hooked so we brought him in for the gaff shot.







We were then told by Nolan he wanted to catch the next one. I took the 9” lure back off the long corner, put a 7” tado behind a bird and deemed it a more mahi friendly spread and decided we could handle a few more if they were that size. After another pass or two I watched a green rocket shoot across the prop watch and hit that same lumo sprocket you see sticking out of porters fishes mouth.
This one was a bit smaller but the right size for Nolan. Unfortunately after a jump or two the hook came out and he was gone.

We trolled a little more, working the same area and finally decided we best head for port. We got back to the banks in about 50m of water that same sprocket on the long rigger went off. I hadn’t seen the fish and it didn’t feel very big so we left most of the spread out and Nolan landed arguably the hungriest mac tuna in the ocean. He was so small he had no business hitting a lure that size. I wish we could of caught some like him when out chasing marlin as they would of received a 7/0 circle hook in the face before being trolled behind the boat for that leviathan we had raised.




We ran back for the inshore fads. The first two had people fishing then so we hit the third one. We made a couple passes and finally got one hooked up. Nolan had decided the little tuna didn’t count as his turn so he took this mahi as well. For the record, I didn’t gaff this fish, I always aim for the head like the one above.







We then headed in for the clean up and some much needed sleep.




The water was still fairly cool at 24.5-25 deg and I didn’t mark much bait schooled up out there. Fishing on a weekend always sucks too because there are so many other boats on the fads. Typically during the week we have them to ourselves and do a lot better.

[58thecat]

Simply awesome...thx for sharing.