The weather hasn’t been playing fair but had to give it a try cause it’s only going to get worse. I asked a buddy who’s a charter captain how the bite has been and he said somewhere between slow and non existent. He said the best advice was to drive two hours south to the Gold Coast cause they’re into “blues galore”. I don’t like the Goldie and don’t feel like learning new water so instead we ran out to the banks and trolled east. At about 120m we had a mahi hit, porter brought it to the boat and I missed with the gaff but managed to unhook it with the missed shot. One point for the mahi. At about 170-180m we had a marlin come up to the short corner lure and take a swing at it with his bill. He missed and didn’t strike at anything else, just faded away. At 400m we marked three marlin on the Garmin down at 40m but they didn’t come up to the party either. We continued to troll east until we hit 1200m of water under the keel without any action then turned around and started trolling back in. Finally we had a strike but it was just another mahi. I had it called for a bull but instead it was the biggest cow I’ve landed at 22lbs.
We trolled a bit further and had another strike. Nolan was up on that one and landed a little skipjack. When it got to the boat he took one look at it and said yuk then hopped back into the chair. I told him to come hold it up for a pic and he refused. Said it wasn’t worth it cause it was just cat food. That six year olds a chip off the old block. We kept it for bait though because we will need some when we head north for the overnighters at lady musgrave and Fitzroy lagoons.
A little later another baby mahi committed suicide on a skipping gar and made its way into the kill tank. We trolled back to the banks, pulled the gear and ran home. For the first time this year we didn’t have a billfish strike. Such is life in the winter though. We are slaves to the fishes migratory habits.
Steaming back into the boat ramp.
And home sweet home.
Maybe next time. We just need those blues down on the cold coast to swim 150km north to paradise.