Having had a few days off the blue water, Adam and I decided to make the most of a good afternoon go to Tantabiddi to troll lures for marlin. The morning started off at about 15kts plus from the east and was doing much the same when we launched but we pushed on anyway and set the spread in about 50m of water. Conditions weren’t too bad with the breeze up our bum and when the short corner reel burst to life after just 10 minutes we knew we were going to be in for a good arvo. A small black took to the air as we cleared the gear and Adam jumped on the rod. I had a crack at taking my first marlin jump shots but didn’t have much success.

After a short fight we had the fish alongside and the trace in hand when the hook pulled next to the boat. No photos of that one but a good warm up at around 15kg. We reset the spread and tried to go back over our mark but the easterly made it pretty sloppy so we swung back around to the north west and headed deep. Not really knowing what to expect we were going through the motions when the smallest lure (on the lightest gear) in the spread got hit but no hook up. With both of us watching it the fish returned smacking the lure but again failing to hook up again. One last try and no mistakes made this time. The reel screamed (I mean screamed) and we both knew this was a big fish. Teasers ripped in and I jumped on the rod and pushed the drag up a notch. This didn’t do anything as the fish continued to power off. Were we out of our league? Yes was the answer as the line went slack shortly into the fight. Not knowing if the hook had pulled or the fish had doubled back I was cranking furiously when another free swimming black came right up to the back of the boat. We had a Stella and stick bait rigged up for this very occasion but both panicked when we saw it and unfortunately missed our window. It turned out that the 15kg main line broke for unknown reasons which was very disappointing as the fish was well over triple figures.

 Anyway onward trolling and fast forward 30nm, 4 hours, a few lure changes and a couple of small hits and we decided to head for home. Beers were capped and “what could have been” dominated the conversation. Crossing back over the 100m mark, the “big breakfast” (the lure I thought would never get a swim as it was too big) gave a squeal but no hook up again. Squeal- miss. Squeal- miss. What’s going on we thought? Squeal- run- Sailfish!!! It went crazy jumping all through the setting sun and after a 15 minute fight Adam billed my first. We pulled it aboard for a quick happy snap which turned out to be quite hard with over 2m of fish in my small boat. At an easy 30kg plus we dropped it back in and swam it for a good release.

Now we could go in satisfied. One more beer each and a few more good stories to tell.

Gotta love Exmouth.