Tag Archives: Marlin fishing

Fishing Reports

Ambition Report 19th.December’25

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Christmas Marlin…It ‘s that time of year, the water warming, the bait gathering. It is Christmas Marlin time.

Another interesting day at sea yesterday,  interesting in that it all seems to have changed again. The bait was not as prolific and the water a little cooler with hardly any current.

Christmas Marlin...
Christmas Marlin…

We started trolling in eighty fathoms where the was some patchy bait and worked our way out zigzagging across the shelf between eighty and one hundred and thirty fathoms working northwards.

Christmas Marlin...
Christmas Marlin…

After a couple of hours of futile zigging and zagging I turned East and started to pick up bait balls but they were quite deep.

So, we did eventually get a strike on the ‘Lumo’ but nobody saw it. The sun was behind us and there was a decent chop due to the twenty knot North Easter blowing. The fish didn’t jump consequently there was a lot of guessing as to the species as you’ll hear in the video.

All in all it was a good day made so by a beautiful Striped Marlin being a first for the angler and his more then ebullient mates.

So far this has been a great start to the Marlin season especially since the currents have not really set up yet.

Tight lines,
Ivan

  • All lure used unless otherwise specified are Pakula Lures .
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Fishing Reports

Ambition Report 26th.October’25

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October Marlin Mayhem…What a remarkable day at sea today was. I took out Qing and three of his friends for their first day at Game Fishing and they had a baptism in fire, truly October Marlin Mayhem.

The video will give you some idea of the mayhem, but you had to be there to appreciate it. Bear in mind that these guys’ experience was only some small fish caught rock fishing.

The day started slowly for us, but the radio was telling that the bait schools hadn’t moved on and that several Marlin had already been seen and tagged.

Bait Schools…

I worked the bait schools for a while with no result so had decided to move on. That’s when we got our first strike, a blind strike on, surprise, surprise the Brad’J’ bullet. One of the guys took the rod and the others moved in to help him, one holding the rod, one winding and the other holding the guy with the rod, we were in trouble. It didn’t take long to realise it wasn’t a Marlin and as they brought it closer, I was surprised to see it was a Yellowfin around twenty to thirty kilo’s. Sadly, as luck would have it and with the help of some slack line the fish won its freedom. Though there have been a couple of Yellowfin taken around these bait schools recently it still comes as a big surprise to find any inside the shelf these days.

Qing's marlin
Qing’s marlin

So, we carried on and shortly after all hell broke loose. We had five, maybe six Marlin in the spread hitting the lures. Ron was running around like a chook with its head cut off. He was trying to tease them into solidly striking the lures but to no avail. We had a couple on for a short time however not one of them stuck, but it was exciting to say the least. Sadly, the video does not do it justice.

Fortunately, the day wasn’t a complete failure, we did end up tagging a Striped Marlin.

Never too late…

Later in the day we had a double hook up. And between the four of them on the rod they got one to the boat where Ron released it. The other fish was left to its own devices, the rod just left in the holder, so lost. By this time none of the guys were feeling terribly well so they decided it was time to go back in. A frustrating decision since it seemed the bite was happening with several boats hooking up as we left.

Other than the seven or eight Marlin that came into our spread throughout the day. I saw another couple tailing down sea. Also, considering that three other boats, Rampage, Shoki and another whose name escapes me, had caught three when we left, not to mention several others boats with at least one to their credit it is hard to imagine the number of Marlin in the area.

This Marlin bite has been going on for quite some time now and it is only October, the next few months could be quite something. The question is, are they holding in the area because of the bait or are they constantly passing through?

http://www.ambitioncharters.com.au

Tight lines,
Ivan

 

  • All lure used unless otherwise specified are Pakula Lures .
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Fishing Reports

Ambition Report 29th.September’25

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Striped Marlin, Striped tuna and Yellowfin they’re all here at present. So perculiar to have all three species, Striped Marlin, Striped tuna and Yellowfin at this time of year and all inside the shelf.

It has been a long time between drinks, after finally finishing repairs to the mighty Ambition I took to sea yesterday for the first time in what seemed like years – needed to reconstitute the salt water levels in my blood.

Looking at the charts, I noticed there was a nice little eddy wide of Broken Bay and there had been a long liner working not far from there, so definitely worth a look.

Weather reports were for a Southerly change mid-afternoon with moderate NW winds until then. However, on leaving the heads we were surprisingly met with a totally unreported Southerly, however, it was going our way so all good.

Reports have been interesting for this time of year. Most notable to me was the number of Yellowfin tuna up to fifty kilo’s being caught inside the shelf. Apart from that there was also a good Striped Marlin bite happening the fish attracted by huge amounts of bait along the shelf where the current is raging.

Sadly, we didn’t catch any of the Yellowfin. All we managed were some huge Striped tuna. They do put up an incredible fight, lucky they don’t grow to fifty kilo’s. Definitely the best fight per kilo. Interestingly the Stripies were full of Bellows Fish and the Yellowfin had been eating Slimy Mackerel.

We did encounter a couple of Striped Marlin. One of which hit every lure in the spread without finding the hooks, I still don’t know how they do it.

If the bait keeps building up out there this could be quite a remarkable season. Here’s hoping and more so that the weather plays the game.

Tight lies,
Ivan

All lure used unless otherwise specified are Pakula Lures .

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Fishing Reports

Ambition Report 12th.May’25

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Kin’s Striped Marlin…

Today was an interesting day at sea for Kin and his friends. It actually epitomised Game Fishing…ninety nine percent boredom and one percent mayhem, a lot of the time anyway as Kin found out.

I took out Kin and some friends from Hong Kong today. These guys had never caught anything bigger than the equivalent of a Black Bream and were keen to catch a big fish.

By any measure it was a very slow day out there today but after hearing of Yellowfin and Marlin caught yesterday the motivation was there to persevere.

After several hours of trolling we hooked a Striped Tuna which created a lot of excitement and photo taking. After which we continued on just hoping something else would happen.

Later…

Later on after several more boring hours and with time running out I turned for home. I’d virtually given up on Marlin but as we approached the ’12 Mile’ Ron let us know in no uncertain terms that there was a Marlin following the short corner, a ‘Pakula Evil’. It hit the lure but no hook up then turned away, I thought that that was it but then it or another Marlin came in and took the lure solidly, hooked up and was off running.  At the same time the starboard rigger got hit but didn’t hook up.

Then amid the mayhem the port rigger was hit and took off at a rate of knots. It was absolute mayhem on deck as you’ll see in the video. Meanwhile Ron was working to clear the shotgun. Frantically trying to keep the Brad ‘J’ from being eaten by yet another Marlin. With these guys of limited experience and limited English the last thing we needed was a triple hook up, a double was going to be problematic enough.

Fortunately the fish on the ‘Lumo’ dropped off after a few minutes so we could concentrate on just the one fish which after some tag teaming, and lots of motivation, some of which I’ve had to mute from the video, was brought to the boat and released.

Thankfully the perseverance paid off and Kin and his friends ended up experiencing the excitement of Game fishing as well as the tedium.

http://www.ambitioncharters.com.au

Tight lies,
Ivan

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Fishing Reports

Ambition Report 26th.February’25

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Ambition Fishing

I can only describe yesterday’s Ambition Fishing, for me anyway, as one of the most frustrating days I have ever spent at sea. I won’t go into details but Ambition Fishing was ambitious, it could best be described as a ‘good news, bad news day’.

Mikayla's Marlin
Mikayla’s Marlin

The good side was that the clients caught some beautiful Mahi Mahi and experienced the excitement of catching a Marlin which put on a great aerial display.

Mikayla's Marlin
Mikayla’s Marlin

The bad news side the details of which as I have already said I will not go into but suffice to say the current run of Marlin continues unabated. All three species are evident with several Blacks being found on the inshore grounds. Out wider there are both Blue and Striped Marlin and even further out you’ll find Yellowfin tuna. The Yellowfin are moving around and moving quickly so take a bit of finding. However around them there is always the chance of running into a big Blue Marlin.

Mikayla's Marlin
Mikayla’s Marlin

Surprisingly for the number of pelagics around there is not much bait. I did find patches but I would have expected more. However, I did see something I haven’t seen off Sydney for years. As I was approaching a private FAD I saw Mutton birds working over a small patch of what looked like a pool of blood in the water. It was in fact a bait ball of ‘Red Bait’ with a school of Mahi Mahi rounding them up from below. If you’ve never seen ‘Red Bait’ before I can assure you that you’ll never mistake it for anything else.

http://www.ambitioncharters.com.au

Tight Lines,
Ivan

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Fishing Reports

Ambition Report 30th.December’24

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I am glad to say that this remarkable  Marlin run continues. This looking to be an early season hopefully the Marlin run will continue into the new year.

We took Izzy and her Uncle Larry out yesterday to chase these Marlin knowing we had every chance of success. Not to say that luck doesn’t play a part.

Izzy's first Marlin...
Izzy’s first Marlin…
Marlin Fishing…

So, on a glorious summer day we headed out. After fishing in some horrible weather over the last week this day was a dream. I ran out to seventy fathoms and put the lures in. The water was twenty-three degrees and a beautiful blue the scene was set, all we needed were the actors.

Izzy's first Marlin...
Izzy’s first Marlin…

There was little chat on the radio but what there was, was talk of the boats raising Stripies which were only half-heartedly hitting the lures. We trolled for a time without any success so I decided to skip some baits. It wasn’t hard to find a bait ball high in the water column and one drop of the jig gave us six reasonable Slimies.

Izzy's first Marlin...
Izzy’s first Marlin…

We put the skippies out on the riggers and I decided to leave the ‘Brad’J’’ out there as a teaser. A big mistake. I should have taken the hooks out of it first. Over an hour of running the skippies two Striped Marlin came in and hit the ‘Brad’J’’ of all things. But because we were trolling at a slow speed we didn’t get a hook-ups. Only one Stripy came in to hit a skippy but it hit the leader instead and spooked.

By now it was mid-afternoon and the bait had gone down so the skippies were pulled in and the lures re-launched.

Hook-up…

After what seemed like an interminable amount of time the short rigger took off at a huge rate of knots and a Marlin bust out screaming off at a rate of knots. It seemed to take forever to get the other lures in and the reel was being stripped very quickly. So much so that with a rigger still out I started backing up trying to slow down the rate of line loss. Izzy had taken the rod and was feverishly trying to gain line. In the meantime, the Marlin was greyhounding at what looked like a mile away.

It took some time, but we finally got the Marlin under control. It was still hard work for Izzy as the fish was dogging it down deep refused to come up. I surmised that this was either a foul hooked Stripy or a Blue, but a Blue in seventy fathoms seemed unlikely, so I thought.

It did take some time but Izzy worked the Marlin up and unbelievably, to me anyway, it was a Blue Marlin looking to be one hundred and thirty to one hundred and forty kilo’s. We eventually did release the Blue much to very weary Issy’s relief; she had done a great job.

We had just put the lures in again when to our surprise after not having gone more than a couple of hundred metres we hooked up again, this time to a Striped Marlin with Larry taking the rod. Then and not so surprisingly the Marlin jumped off.

It was time to go home.

Tight Lines,
Ivan

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Ambition Report 8th.December’24

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Charlie’s Marlin was an excitement filled day for these Englishmen. Charlie’s Marlin more than made their day.

We went out yesterday in ideal conditions, though a Southerly change was due, with a great degree of optimism after having caught our first Marlin of the season last week. Since then, there have been increasing reports of the Striped Marlin here off the Sydney coast.

Charlie's Mahi Mahi
Charlie’s Mahi Mahi

The charts were showing a very warm Southerly current (24C to 26C ) way out wide, in fact well wide of Heatons. The current then, a bit cooler now, turning West wide of Port Hacking and splitting with a portion going South and some going to the North. Inshore there is a cooler (21C to 22C) Southerly current coming from the Port Stephens area. I thought the area between these two currents, as well as the area off Port Hacking where the current was coming in from the East were worth working.

Charlie's Marlin
Charlie’s Marlin

As if to confirm my thoughts, while we were travelling out I heard of several Stripies being tagged and lost East of us in the eighty fathom area. Reports also from the North and a couple from off Port Hacking. Expectations amongst the crew were getting higher and higher.

After putting the lures in I started trolling North zigzagging across the shelf. It took a while but we got a strike on ‘Lumo’ and a good sized Stripy took to the air then turned and charged the boat, sadly this led to a slack line and the Marlin threw the lure. A while later we had another hit, this one on ‘Brad’. Not a Marlin this time but a very nice Mahi Mahi, the guys had dinner at least. Then while Rob was resetting the lures dropping ‘Brad’ back the line was pulled out of his hands. Because of his quick thinking in resetting the drag to strike we were hooked up again. I thought it was another Mahi Mahi but then this Striped Marlin took to the air and as you will hear in the video, below on deck the excitement was palpable.

It was a good fight and tested the guys, at one stage there was the angler aided by two of his mates stabilising him and another helping to lift the rod, a team effort indeed, with the rest of his friends cheering him on.

Both the Marlin we saw and from what I’ve heard from others, this run of Stripies are all above average size. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that ours were in the order of a hundred kilo’s. Hopefully this trend will continue.

Tight Lines,
Ivan

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Ambition Report 22nd.November’24

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November Marlin although not uncommon are still a surprise. A November Marlin is worthy of gloating about.

Well, it’s always an ice breaker when you catch your first Marlin of the season and yesterday, we caught ours, a good sized Stripy.

November Marlin
November Marlin

I took Shouren and five of his friends out on a perfect day, weatherwise. The plan was to catch some live bait then head out to the FAD’s and have a shot at the Mahi Mahi which have been so prevalent lately. But as it happened,sadly, not this day. As luck would have it the Mahi Mahi had gone off the bite at the spots I visited. I must say I wasn’t unduly surprised as they have copped quite a hammering over the last few weeks.

November Marlin
November Marlin

So, we made the move to go offshore and see if we could find a Marlin or maybe a Yellowfin.

November Marlin
November Marlin
Marlin Time…

Game fishing is probably the most fickle discipline of the fishing world, Perseverance and persistence being the key to success and sadly not for everyone. So, after a few hours of trolling in what was the ocean’s equivalent to a desert the natives were becoming restless. Fortunately as luck would have it, we got hit on the shotgun but no hook up. The crew were all screaming and I turned around in time to see a Stripy hitting the ‘Lumo’ on the rigger, doing what Stripies do…missing the hooks, so frustrating. The Marlin disappeared after a couple of shots.  Then a few minutes later the shotgun took off, a solid hook up at last.

After thirty odd heart stopping minutes, we had the fish at the boat. It’s when you have a fish like this on the line you can appreciate the difference between a good angler and one of lesser experience, but I won’t go into that.

On the way home I thought we should give the FAD’s another shot. The Mahi Mahi should have had enough of a break from the hammering to come on the bite again. When we arrived the fish were evident but not going off their heads as they had been but after persevering we did catch a couple, the crew had something to eat and it was time to go home.

In general, the water had changed from the previous week. The current coming in from the East and the water cooler and greener. However, we found that Marlin in a current line of that beautiful blue water.

Tight Lines,
Ivan

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Ambition report 11th.March’24

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Autumn Fishing has always been the best time of year for Game Fishing out of Sydney. Generally speaking, Autumn Fishing is when we encounter the larger fish of the species rather than numbers. Although having said that this Autumn has been exceptional, so far.
Big Blue
Big Blue
Over the last couple of weeks both Blue and Striped Marlin as well as Mahi Mahi have shown up in numbers off Sydney. The Mahi Mahi as is usual are found around the various F.A.D’s with live bait producing the bigger fish, being the first boat at the spot helps as they can become spooky when there is too much boat traffic.
As for the Marlin, they could be anywhere. Usually however, if you find the bait you’ll find the Marlin, but not always. Sometimes you’ll find the bait before the Marlin, as a friend of mine, Steve Baker (Fly By Night) did. He found heaps of bait well North of the ‘Bait Station’, worked it for several hours for no result. The next day Rob Molnar in his boat ‘On Call’ had a blinder of a day raising fourteen Marlin in that same area.
December Mahi Mahi
December Mahi Mahi
On the day Steve found the bait North of the ‘Bait Station’ I was out with Jamie McKay on ‘Ground Swell’ fishing an area a couple of miles South of them where there was scattered bait. We had a great day too. We’d already bagged out on Mahi Mahi and ended up raising eight Marlin of which we tagged three, all Blues ranging from 130 kg. to 180 kg. We should have had two more but for a broken hook and another mishap which I will not go into, if you want more info just ask Jamie.
From what I heard on the radio almost everyone fishing for Marlin over the last week or so have caught or raised Marlin with many being pack attacked by Stripies. Around the shelf area where the bait tends to stack up is where most of the action for them has been.
Browns…
But out around Browns both North and South out to four hundred fathoms there have been Stripies and Blues with the occasional sighting of Yellowfin tuna. Frustratingly Stripies are habitually finicky when it comes to lures and tough to hook so ‘Bait and Switch’, live baiting as well as skipping baits is the most effective method to hook them though teasing them on lures works too.
What to me is most interesting is the water temperature. We were reading 28.5 degrees which I confirmed with other boats. In the past we’d consider 27 degrees too hot and look for cooler water. Yet here we are with a great bite and much hotter water. I suppose one answer is that our on-board gauges have a limited range over which they are accurate. Another potential answer is these above high temperatures are only a surface layer of maybe only a metre or two in depth leaving the bait below in a more comfortable zone.
Well whatever is happening the fishing is great and if it keeps up the S.G.F.C’s annual Peter Goadby Memorial Tournament on the 13th. and 14th. April will be awesome. It is at this tournament where we have regularly weighed Blue Marlin over two hundred kilo’s with several over three hundred kilo’s also Yellowfin tuna over seventy kilo. For those that chase sharks big Tigers are a regular at the weigh station.
So, the Marlin are there and if you don’t go …
Tight lines,
Ivan
Fishing Reports

Ambition report 15th.December’23

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Cuyler's Marlin
Cuyler’s Marlin

I was keen to get out today after being out last Monday when we raised a Striped Marlin but sadly missing the hook up. However I was

surprised today to see how conditions had changed. On Monday the inshore water temperature was around the 23 C which is unusual enough for this time of year but offshore at 300 fathoms I read 25.2 C a temperature more normally found in February and March. Even allowing for error in my temperature guage the STC’s were showing 24.7 C, so it couldn’t have been too far out.

Cuyler's Marlin
Cuyler’s Marlin

Today the inshore waters were a more normal 21.7 degrees but dirty green probably from the rainwater runoff. However offshore, past the shelf, it was still over 24 degrees and a beautiful blue. The colour which induces confidence even if it is unseasonably warm.

We trolled towards Browns where we raised the Marlin on Monday when in roughly the same area the rigger with ‘Pakula Lumo’ took off at a rate of knots. Surprisingly even though both Ron and I were watching the lures neither of us saw the hookup. The Marlin jumped once and just raced off on one huge run leaving poor Cuyler (I hope I got his name right) an awful lot of line to get back.

Cuyler's Marlin
Cuyler’s Marlin

He did eventually get the Marlin which to the boat and released it. Then while Ron was resetting the gear the rigger with ‘Pakula Lumo’ went off again sadly this time it didn’t hook up.

We had another strike later in the day on ‘Brad’ by what I thought was either a Wahoo or a Spearfish but again no hookup. It was only because of the water temperature that I even considered a Wahoo a fish not often seen around Sydney these days.

What this unseasonal warm ( hot ) water might mean to the Sydney fishery is going to be anyone’s guess.

Will it continue to warm up?, seems most likely.
Will it bring more tropical species down here? , hopefully but whether this is good thing or bad thing is another question.
Will is push our Striped Marlin fishery South?, I hope not.

I am sure there are many other questions and likelyhoods but whatever the end result it will be interesting.

Tight lines,
Ivan

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