Was a rather interesting day up here, the report was for 1-3 knot southerlies which changed late last night to 6-8 south westerlies and with a 10-13 overnight south westerly, the water on the west side really wasn't going to get any time to rest.  Regardless we got up at sparrows and went and checked 'disappointment hill' to see somewhat choppy waters, but not enough to stop us from continuing the drive out to Tantabiddi.  As we drove on an ominous looking haze started covering the horizon and on arrival at the ramp, we saw an empty carpark and weighed up the options; no one else out, hardly any water to launch into and no bog mats to retrieve (ie, stuck out there for another 5 hours) if it did turn pearshaped, which it certainly looked like it could quite easily.  The option to head back was one made relatively easily, considering I only had elephant killing gear on board and nothing that would be any fun for inside the reef.

Arriving at Bundegi we were again the first in the carpark, but with a light south easterly blowing (yes, as many of you experienced Exmouth visitors would know, the wind blows in opposite directions quite often).  Anyway, the aim was to bottom bounce with trolling as a backup option as I wasn't confident with the surface due to the full moon.  Heading out through the slot was rather messy with 2m + of incoming tide and a mixture of s.west/s.east slop forming on the top which made it relatively hard going.  We decided to push on even though there were many times where the f. it, lets go back came into play and if it wasn't for it being so early and most probably a few other boats launching we more than likely would have headed in.  

Finally getting to the first spot with a little bit of fluff on the sounder and a little nugget I made the first drop to be almost instantly bricked, getting it up off the bottom I was calling good red with the trade mark run to the bottom, get head up - coupla winds, run to the bottom type fight.  I was taking it pretty easy on him as I knew it was a good fish, of course half way up I had to get codded and that was the end of that, the whole area shut down and on the troll to the next spot was the decision.

The next spot was out in 62m and a nice little pinnacle in the middle of nowhere, again, first drop sucked down, strike and straight into a hole, ka-ping.  I had my second rod ready to go (new banax kingpin which I was quite happy with, yes BJ ;) ) and got sharked within seconds of being on the bottom.  Feeling a little deflated after fighting him for 2 mins (not long enough to get video of the reel in action unfortunately)

I decided that it was time to make the run in before the heavy north wester that was forecast came in.  Out went the spread of lures, no teasers, and into discussion mode we went for the next 20 minutes before we both got a shock with the right long corner getting dusted off in serious fashion.  After some rather fast chat as to how we were going to run this (not prepared at all) we went into action and watched another 300m of line get stripped of whilst the other lures came in and a fine little black marlin danced off into the distance.  With a little bit of anxious coaching we got all the line back and started to plane him up to the surface where he showed himself off a little, but nothing like we had hoped.  After a quick couple of laps around the boat and some skillful manouvering we got him boatside and had him leadered, dehooked and ready for photos instantly.  After a quick couple of snaps we had him chewing down on my hand for release, probably one of the most healthy releases I've done actually.  So all in all, Renae captured her first marlin after 14 months of trying and being let down for one reason or another (probably a dozen or more hooked, including one of around 120kg that pulled hooks at the boat)  I'd originally called this one at 35kg, but reckon it was more like 40kg in hindsight, very short but rather stumpy, regardless, a good fun sized fish.

We put the lures out for one more attempt and had a little saily come up and chew on the lumo short corner but not hookup, not that we were too phased.  Once we reached the 35m mark we pulled the lures and belted home as the north wester started pumping, all in all a satisfying day and was good to have the boat cleaned before 1pm.  Even though we lucked out on the fillets part of the mission, the billy more than made up for it and now I just have to go out there again and try and catch us a feed next time the weather's good.

Cheers,

Adam