With a pretty great forecast we headed to Tantabiddi today to give Hayley a introduction to Exmouth gamefishing. The plan was to have a troll for marlin and hopefully get a fish up for her to see. We arrived at the ramp to a reasonable crowd and an easterly stronger than expected. We headed out anyway with Adam and Deepwater not far behind us. Conditions weren't too bad, a little bit sloppy but we pushed on and set the spread in about 60m. After a couple of hours and no action apart from a few small tuna, the black and red Williamson on 24kg on the short corner (that caught me my first marlin) gave a scream and kept going. I was going to offer it to Hayley until it jumped- "sorry babe, I'm taking this one". Drag up to strike and a good hook up and run resulted. With a decent aerial display happening, Hayley did a good job of clearing the other lures and teaser and swinging the boat around so I could regain some line. Some more jumps and a bit of deep stuff, we finally had the fight under control. Hayley did a great job driving, clearing gear and taking photos etc. Up it came and after about 20 minutes we had it boatside. Rod to Hayley, me on the trace and it was ours. What a beautiful fish, a 70kg estimated black marlin pretty lit up but well behaved was in my hands. The usual photos followed, including some with Hayley who was pretty amazed at the whole event and left her with a better appreciation of why we fish. After a bit of a tow and a nibble on my hand it was off, hopefully no worse for wear. By now it had calmed right off and neither of us cared what happened for the rest of the day. Anyway we recommenced the troll to raise another fish about a hour later. I was facing astern at the time and saw it come up on the lumo on the long corner- it would have been around 20-30kg and a great start to Hayley's gamefishing. Unfortunatly it didn't hook up after a good hit. I've now decided to run SL12's on the 15kg outfits next trip and leave the Jobu's for the 24kg. Anyway that was it for the day, we chased a few whale shark sightings but arrived as soon as it went down.

Well here's the photos. Hope they inspire the crew coming up in a few weeks.

ps. I thought I'd chuck a few other photos of the last few days. Been having a few spears- pictured are a 57cm and a 50cm gulf trout that tasted supurb.