21 Marlin in a day

11. June 2004

21 Fish In A Day

We have only just returned from our second last trip to the Wanganellas for the 2004 season, and like the title suggests, it was nothing short of an extraordinary trip.  We released 64 striped marlin in 5 days fishing, with the last day being by far the most successful day, in all our days fishing the Wanganellas.  So I will start with this day.

Big Tuesday
The wind had finally showed some ease, and my nickname was now"10knt Tom" because apparently that was the forecast I had given them, '10 to 20' I said, but it had blown 20 to 30knts for most, well, all of the trip.  Anyhow, today was the day, it was beautiful and every one was loving it!

The morning bite was unusually slow and we were rather disappointed as the moon was where it was supposed to be, and the marlin should have been snapping their heads off.  Instead we ticked them over at a fairly constant and usual rate, with the bite starting at around 1030hrs, and by 1400hrs we had 9 fish.  Still a great day, however,  we were know where near our record of 16, and with the late afternoon bite dropping off yesturday, I wasn't holding my breath.

Today was also different, because by 1400hrs we had noticed that the fish were from a slightly larger mould, and we hadn't released a fish today under 260lbs. We were estimating the majority of the fish in the 280lb bracket.  All good!  The fish were also biting hard, and we weren't missing all that many on our lures. 

Pentoople, pentaplet, I am not sure how to say or spell it, but we now had one on, that is 5 at once!  Both pitch bait rods and 3 lure rods were all hooked up, and marlin were jumping about the ocean like never before.  Once the fish had settled down, we had 3 guests with their fish straight out the back and 2 guests in each tagging deck with their fish close to the boat.  I am not sure how long it took, but one by one we tagged and released each fish, with the final one confirming the most we have caught at once on our boat.  The best thing about it, was, that not one of our guests had to walk forward to fight his fish, they all remained in the cockpit.

We were now knocking on our record and our anglers were keen to give it a nudge, so the early afternoon produced another couple of fish, bringing us up to 16.  We then hooked a double, only to have one fall off, but that was all we needed. 17, was now the new record.  By about 1600hrs the bite had definitely slowed, (as it did yesterday) and I was getting a little anxious.  The cockpit was also very quiet.  I then marked a meatball in the distance on the sonar and took the chance to leave our spot to have a last chance gamble at somewhere different.  We raised 2 fish with 2 passes, and then noticing some oil slicks on the water, I ventured over and we had another pack attack.  With it being so dark, I had wound in my teaser and we just had the 3 lures in the water, however, both baits went in and we hooked up 4 fish.  This time we weren't so lucking, one angler had to go forward, but we tagged 3 fish making 20 marlin releases for the day.  The 4th and final fish had almost spooled us but was slowly and surely coming to the boat.

As we pulled the 21st fish up into the spot light it became apparent that a great deal of the fish was missing.  Only the head, backbone and tail remained and once on board it seemed that that the same creature that had attacked yesterday's last fish, had completely devoured this one.  The marks left on the head, seemed to indicate that it was a squid, or perhaps a school of squid?  Anyway I wasn't standing too close to the transom door!

We took plenty of photos and video, and will pass it on to the appropriate people.  The week leading up to this day, was, as mentioned before a little scruffy, with a half day and one whole day of no fishing heaved to on the sea anchor.  But the other 3 and a half days fishing we managed 6, 16, 7 and 14 fish days, all good considering the weather and short winter days.  I can't help but think, this really is the best Striped marlin fishing in the world.

Good fishing. Tom.