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View Full Version : Marlin, Mackeral, Dollies and Wahoo off the Tweed



flickflack
20-12-2005, 09:52 PM
HI All

With the weather report good for Monday (for the first time in a while) Kev (shadowmaster) rang me up to see if I wnted to go outside for the day. What a question!! ;D. We roped Benny J in as well ,cos someone had to make the traces, and we left the Fingal boat ramp just after 3 in the morning with everything but the kitchen sink on board. The plan was to hit Parmie in the morning for a few spotties then head out wide for some jigging and trolling. We anchored up at Parmie in the dark and started to get the lines out. We had a a screamer straight up with Bennie away. I managed to tangle my line and while I was trying to loosec the foul off mine went in more ways than one . :( not a good start for me. We boated Bennie's so dinner was sorted. I started tossing a slug only to get the leader knot stuck in the guide, exit one slug. Bennie had chucked in the spinning so I asked him if i could have a go with his rod. He sort of looked at me funny and then said OK but try noe to break anythin.I fliped the slug ou gave it two winds and a spotty jumped on. I gave another 2 winds and he jumped off again. Well maybe I should stick to Jacks and flathead. Benny thought it was pretty funny ;D.We ended up getting two and dropping three before we pulled the pin and headed out wide.
We worked our way out looking for warmer water and bait, we eventually ended up on the 50's. After a jig with only one Bonito to show we decided it was time to troll.
Bennie stuck the first lure in the rigger and I was busy with the second when he shouts;"THERE HE IS!" We look up to see a beakie tracking the lure I was busy putting in the rigger, we all held our breath for like 5minutes but he lost interest and headed away. Two striped tuna followed with no further interest for an hour so we headed towards the 40's and area that had weed patches of weed flaoting around. As we got into the grass the outside rigger goes off and the shotgun. The rigger jumped off and Bennie landed a good size Dollie. We turned around and Kev got another. Third round and it was my turn. Big headshakes no jumping what was it. I had it to the boat pretty quick and it turned out to be a good size wahoo. He gave another big headshake and bit the pakula off. Well that made me fish 3 Roderick 0. It then went a bit quiet so we headed shallower. Another marlin came up this time on the short flatline right behind the transom. It also dissapeard after having two goes at the lure. We continued shallower and found some good bait schools. After a quick chang we dropped some livies into them and I got a pick up. It took the bait slowly on the drop and kept going,I tightened up wwith no reaction from the fish it stayed deep and took line slowly. After 20 minutes and about 250m it eventually jumped and we saw that it was a beakie. Something didnt feel right and we could not get the fis to the boat. I was using the 50lb outfit but only had a SL12 on the buisness end to chase the smaller Billos so didnt want to turn up the svrews too much. This went on for an hour with the fish only jumping twice. I decided to turn up the screws, put the harness on and push the drag up to about 9kgs. I eventually had it at sunset before we got the fish to the boat to find it had the line around the Pectoral fin and I was pulling it sideways. Bennie stuck a tag in it and we towed it for about a km before it finally swam away. ;D
So i suppose I was saving my luck up for the marlin. It was our first for the season and hopefully there will be many more to follow. The fish was about 80 to 90 kg and definately one of the wierdest marlin I have caught .
Thanks Kev and Bennie for a great day on the water, Till next monday.

Good fishing to you all and a very Merry Christmas. :) :) :)

flickflack
20-12-2005, 09:52 PM
Kev with his dollie

flickflack
20-12-2005, 09:55 PM
Bennie and his dollie

flickflack
20-12-2005, 09:56 PM
the Marlin at the boat being tagged

flickflack
20-12-2005, 09:58 PM
The fish boatside with a happy ausfissher reviving it, we lay it on its side for the pic and the held it straight up while swimming it.

fishingnottake
20-12-2005, 10:39 PM
well done

land_based
20-12-2005, 11:29 PM
Thats awesome mate, looks like you had a good trip, well done on the marlin!

outsiderskip
21-12-2005, 05:50 AM
well done
looks like u had agreat time fishing

cheers pete

StevenM
21-12-2005, 06:52 AM
Nice effort lads

cheers

Steven

Toppy
21-12-2005, 07:21 AM
Good on ya Rods!
Dam it tasted so good too, have you eaten it all yet?
cheers
Toppy

Jay_S
21-12-2005, 07:38 AM
Excellent work mate :o :o :o


Cheers Jay 8-)

Colorado
21-12-2005, 08:05 AM
Nice Fish Rod, well done.

There seem to a decent mix of fish sizes out there at the moment with mostly 20-30kg fish then a few around 50-60kg and then a couple at 90-120kg.

Makes you think you should be using 30 or 50lb gear on the wider marks and leave the 16lb for the close grounds.

Keep up the good work mate.

Leigh

Benno
21-12-2005, 08:25 AM
Great work Rod.. Sounds like it was a great day..

Cheers Benno

Bonesy
21-12-2005, 08:43 AM
Good fish look's like fun ;) ;). they must have put up a fight ;D ;D ;D

Bonesy [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

kingcobe
21-12-2005, 09:15 AM
Good fish there [smiley=2thumbsup.gif] My dad (kingtin) is giving up on all the catties and rays to go for Marlin, dollies, tuna and all those kinds of fish ;D


Kingcobe

flickflack
21-12-2005, 09:35 AM
Toppy

Yup ate the last of the dollie at work today YUM :D

Leigh

The fish that came up on the lure on the 50's was also a good size, but the problem is that we got that good size fish just on the back of 9 mile so i will be sticking to the 50lb gear from now on wherever I fish. Kev dropped a good fish on the 8kg in that area last season in about 20fm so it looks like the slightly bigger fish could be anywhere.

blue_rogue
21-12-2005, 09:59 AM
Great fish there Rob,

Big_Ren
21-12-2005, 10:11 AM
Sounds like a very full-on day there Rod. Well-planned and good results as well. Couple of quick questions: Were you pushing 9kg of drag or thereabouts at strike and if so, what would you drag have red-lined at sunset? It looked like one of the reels in the pics was a TLD 2-speed?? Finally if you're using the Gamakatsu SL12s on the smaller bills, what would you be using chasing bigger fish. Sorry for so many questions.

Cheers and top effort again :D
Paul

Louis
21-12-2005, 10:23 AM
Well done


Louis

flickflack
21-12-2005, 11:31 AM
Paul

I must say I am a bit slack when it comes to testing drag settings. When I put the rods out I sort of judge the the amount of drag I have on and when I get a setting I am happy with I leave it there. Generally when we tow with the SL12's we use about 2,5 to 3kgs on the strike and push it up to about 3 to 4 when fighting the fish unless they stay down deep and you have to push the drag right up to move them,like with that fish we pretty much knew something wasnt right so had to apply max drag to move it. We would have easily had about 10kg of drag on at the end. I dont know how the hook held but I reckon that all the leverage was on the pec fin and that is why the hook didnt open. For the bigger fish on 50lb gear or more the popular hook seems to be the Mustad stainless 7691 S but its very difficult to get a hook up on the smaller fish with these hooks.
There should be heaps of guys that would be able to answer these questions better than me, Like SMITHY and JEFFO

hope that helps mate

Big_Ren
21-12-2005, 02:16 PM
Sure does Rod.

Cheers and Good Fishing over Christmas.

Paul :)

Scott15
21-12-2005, 02:36 PM
top report Rod!! some sweet fish aswell.

DALEPRICE
21-12-2005, 04:27 PM
top stuff rod,
love the pics of the dolphin fish :D
cheers dale

vertico
21-12-2005, 04:36 PM
bloody awesome rod

flickflack
21-12-2005, 05:02 PM
Yup cant wait till next Monday will be out there chasing them again ;D ;D

roz
21-12-2005, 05:17 PM
Good to see you having a bit of luck with the Marlin, also glad to see you T & R.

Sound like it's going to be a good season up there.

Well done.

flickflack
21-12-2005, 05:58 PM
Roz they have been a bit patchy but i reckon they should be around in good numbers after chrissie YIPEE ;D ;D

szopen
21-12-2005, 06:15 PM
Very well done.

Sometimes we get a reward for earlier failures.
This was a pretty good one.

Billo
21-12-2005, 07:41 PM
Rod , you've been having some good luck with you lately haven't you ...covering the rivers and out wide .
Top haul ..you lucky lucky bastard ;D ;D

no_wind
21-12-2005, 10:46 PM
what an action packed day ,must of done some k's
well done. ;)

rajawolf
22-12-2005, 01:58 AM
Top day ..well done some nice fish. :)

Smithy
22-12-2005, 06:42 AM
I would use Gamakatsu SL12s up to 15kg line class then Mustad 76LGS for everything else but guys like CJ (Magic Pudding) are slowly switching over to the Stainless Steel Pakula Katana hooks for everything. Running the 76LGSs out on the shelf for Blues nearly makes them disposable after every fish but I am going for good solid hook-ups. The SL12s are nearly the same. Throw them away after nearly every Billfish but at about $1 each they don't break the bank as bad. The Mustad 7691S hook out of the box takes a hell of a lot of filing to make it a worthwhile hook but it is certainly a great trolling pattern.

flickflack
22-12-2005, 09:49 AM
Smithy

Thanks mate,yeah I was chatting to Bennie about the Katanas . We had them on two of the lures but didnt get a strike on them. He reckoned they last longer than the SL12's but still prefers the 12's for the light stuff. They look a bit stronger.

jeffo
22-12-2005, 12:47 PM
awesome fish rod!! your on fire!

the katanas are great, i have switched to them on all my light tackle lures now. we changed a few of our heavy tackle lures over to the larger size katanas and they seam to work well.

fish up to 80kg are still very do-able on 8kg.

i got a 75kg stripey on the gold coast in january that wasnt to much of a hand full at all. just takes a bit more time and patience.