Merry Christmas to all! I hope you enjoy the break – I know that I will. I’m sure there will be plenty of fishing, so I’ll see you after the holidays!
Here are another couple of little black marlin from over the weekend to give you a snapshot of the fishing:
Kurt from Seekin’ fished east off Point Lookout on Saturday for a 12-9-6 on little black marlin, including some not so little fish up to around the 50kg size making up the tally.
They also caught 4 dollies, 1 wahoo and popped off a great yellowfin tuna boatside. The morning session was pretty hot fishing – they were 6-5-5 by 8am!
And from Nick Currey fishing on Aluhra also off Point Lookout who tagged 10 black marlin for the day on Saturday with all the fishing in the 15 -20 kg range. Sophie Currey and Michael Stephens shared the rod time with 5 fish each including Mike’s first five billfish! Nick reports that the bait that was there 2 weeks ago had scattered and the fish were really aggressive smashing the lures and hooking up.
Out of Botany Bay, Tonlu 2 tagged a striped marlin in 70fa east of Port Hacking last Sunday – their first for the season. And here is the video!
Little Black Marlin
Healthy Release Tips
With the abundance of little black marlin around, please follow these basic tips to help ensure a successful release.
As these are still juvenile fish, it’s very important to take care of them as much as possible to ensure their long-term survival.
“The equation is pretty simple, if there are no little marlin, there will be no big marlin!”
- Leave them in the water. Taking the fish out of the water is an unnecessary stressor.
- Cut off your leader as close to the fish as possible – trying to remove a circle hook from a healthy marlin can sometimes do more harm than good.
- Use a plug to limit the length of your tag applicator.
- Be very careful with tag placement.
- Use circle hooks – the original full circle circle-hooks rather than the chemically sharpened fine gauge versions which are no different to a j-hook.
- Use appropriate line class and drag. The longer you fight the more exhausted the fish will be at the time of release.
- Swim tired fish by holding the base of their bill just below the surface of the water. Move your boat forward slowly (just in gear) to push the water through their gills.
