The Marlin fishing off Sydney is coming into its best period. At this time of year the water off Sydney is at its warmest. We generally catch the biggest of species…the quality specimens. The 200 plus kilo Blue Marlin, Stripes over 120 kilo’s, Wahoo, Mahi Mahi, big Yellowfin which have already made their appearance felt and even Spearfish. This prime time  could and has in the past lasted until as late as mid-May.

I’ve just returned from Port Stephens spending my last day fishing up there on Saturday. I had taken Livio and some friends out for his brother’s birthday. After the break in the weather the ‘Car Park’ fired up again. Double hook-ups seemed the norm.

I started trolling skip baits a few miles North of the ‘Car Park’ hoping to find my own patch of bait and avoid the crowds. As it happens I did find a patch and we soon raised and caught a good sized Black which gave the birthday boy a good work out.  Unfortunately I lost  the bait so I worked my way down to the ‘Car Park’. It was crowded and the radio was full of boats calling out for others to move out of the way of their hooked fish ( sometimes not in nice terms  ) – it was crazy. Anyway we managed to drop a bait to another Black I’d marked and this time Livio had to do battle.

Sunday was home time with Lee his friend Dave my deck hand  Howie. We left Port at 6am. I was going to fish down the thousand fathom line looking for Blues and Yellowfin. I did troll down the line in 26 degrees of totally dead water for an hour or so then decided to move back into 500 fathoms on the other side of the eddy. Here there were occasional groups of birds working and patches of bait but no real action.  Then as we approached Norah canyons we ran into thick algal blooms which seemed to go forever.

Finally after several miles we came out of the blooms into clean indigo coloured water just South of the canyons. The water was absolutely full of bait which appeared to be pilchards feeding. We went around them a few times with no result so headed off again.

Shortly afterwards I marked a fish. Lee and I  turned back to the lures in time to see a big Blue crash the Blue Illusion on the short corner and take off as they do. Dave was on strike and took the rod on what turned out to be a Blue of around 170 kgs.. He’d never caught a Marlin before and had no idea what he was in for. This fish gave him a workout and a half. It didn’t want to give up and stayed just out of range for ages by know we were on sunset and Dave was working hard. Inevitably we tagged the fish and then Dave had to struggle another half hour to get my lure back. No way was it getting away with that one.

We continued on and raised a Striped Marlin of around 70 kilo’s. It hit half the lures we had out before succumbing to the Brad ‘J’ bullet on the shotgun. Lee made quick work of the fish much to Dave’s annoyance.

By the time we had tagged Lee’s fish it was time to pull stumps. We still had forty miles to get home.

As I sit here writing this report I keep getting calls telling me about all the Marlin and even Tuna down here. It appears the water we had at Port Stephens a couple of weeks ago has move down here and brought the fish with it. I need to get out there again…

Tight lines,
Ivan