Wind forecast said <5 knots and the swell forecast was under a meter. They lied. Wind was nasty, The swell was more then a meter and the chop was all over the show. A guy doesn’t wake up at 0300 to go fishing just to turn around so off we went. It was a slow run out but we it the banks and dropped a spread. Nolan got sick pretty quick and was over the edge of the boat getting rid of his breakfast when the first line went down. Being as he was there he grabbed it and brought us a nice mahi.
We trolled north and shortly after marked some bait. First line went down, second line etc. next thing we’ve got five of the eight hooked up and two of the others were hit but didn’t hook up. We thought we had tuna. I was already thinking about the sashimi and planning on eating some on the boat. Nope, amberjacks. I’ve never even caught an amberjack and we nailed five on the troll. I took one pic of one. He wasn’t the biggest but we had a bit going on so I got a pic and then put the phone down and grabbed another rod.
That was the first time I thought eight lines and two teasers might be to much. Between the chaos and trying to drive the boat it was like a Chinese fire drill.
Anyway we tried to cut across the banks in another spot to avoid them because rigging the gear took time. We missed. They pounced on us again. This time five hit and three hooked up. We landed the three and then got the heck away from them before they ate all our bait.
We then cut north and deeper where Rosi picked up the first marlin of the season. A black around 150kg. We got a tag in it but he then took another run, sounded and we lost it before getting our hands on it for a picture. Luck for us the tag is what we need so that’s number one of the season.
We then trolled for about four hours without a strike. We trolled back across the banks on the way home in a different place and had five lines go down again. Two of them broke off. We got the gear cleared and Nolan got his to the boat first. He had another amberjack. The other two were bigger and giving us trouble so we had to give chase. I passed my rod off to Nolan and drove the boat. The sky’s opened up and we got some crazy rain. To compound the problem we had two directions of swell, a north east and a southerly plus a wind chop from another direction. It was like a washing machine.
After a bit of a chase Nolan passed the rod off to me and I managed to land my first GT.
Rosie’s fish wasn’t giving up so easy and he had to work it for about an hour. Shortly into the fight he called it for a shark but I doubted him because it hit a skirted lure on the troll.
I started watching the fish on the side scan and told Rosie how far off the boat it was. Eventually he brought it up and it was pretty disappointing.
A bronze whaler. Man I hate sharks.
With the gear in the boat and the weather looking pretty bad we pulled the pin and slogged our way back the last 27 miles. The seas were interesting but we made it back safe and sound. Overall a good day, it was a long winter and terrible drought between the last marlin in April and today. Things are looking up.