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Not what we planned for
The plan today was to chase a few dolphin fish, which was going very slow and frustrating - the dollies were not wanting to play (in the end, three did).
We found a big bait ball with some pretty hefty whaler sharks near the surface. Down deeper at around 110m, there looked to be some big fish hanging off the bait.
My daughter soon had a bait jig down among the bait, successfully hooking into a string of mackerel. As she got the mackerel to the boat, a large striped marlin grabbed the lot, leaving her with nothing but roughed up line from the abrasive bill.
I didn't have any heavy gear, so quickly cut a lure from a skirted rig, giving me a 1.5m 130lb trace (a little on the light side). Without a fresh live bait, she simply tossed out a large whole dead mackerel which was instantly taken. Allowing the fish to get the 8/0 mustad circle into the corner of its mouth, she flicked the bail arm over and allowed the fish to take up the strain.
All hell broke lose as the fish leapt from the water, ripping off plenty of line from the big saragosa. The fight went from the surface to down deep, and kept heading further and further offshore. After a gruelling 2hrs -which she mostly spent on one leg, due to all the gear in the boat - we finally had a splendid striped marlin of 3.79m alongside the boat. After a few photos, the fish was released and we headed for home.
A big congrats to Georgia; a fantastic effort, especially after ranking 8th (in her age category) in a major triathlon yesterday, where over 4000 crazy people swam, ran and biked for no reason other than all being mad.
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