The good news is that Marlin are still here, Blues and Stripes mostly and amongst them a run of Sydney Yellowfin Tuna. This run of Tuna was a regular occurrence in the past and was the reason the Sydney Game Fishing Club’s ‘Summer point score’ season was extended from mid-April to May. One can only hope this is the start of another period of Yellowfin prevalence. Also, around the FAD’s and traps there are schools of Mahi Mahi. Though not the real big ones they are the good eating schoolies.
The Bucket list Mahi Mahi…
The run of Marlin that has kept us on our toes and losing lures for the last few weeks has slowed. The bite has moved a little further South with the prevailing currents. Over the week-end Port Hacking held their annual Tournament. About seventy boats competed, the biggest Marlin a Blue weighing 190kg. and the biggest Tuna a 68 kg. Yellowfin.
I don’t think we have seen the end of this run of Sydney Yellowfin tuna and Marlin. It is still just the end of March, the beginning of autumn. If history is anything to go by we’ll have several more weeks of Marlin and hopefully Yellowfin tuna to enjoy. It’s just a matter of perseverance and patience waiting for the next warm current to pulse down from the North.
This is the best time of year for Sydney Marlin fishing in fact all the gamefish. The ocean current are at their warmest and closest to land and as they stream by they bring the baitfish and their predators.
Blue and Lumo…
Over the last few weeks we have witnessed some of the best game fishing I have ever experienced. I have seen years when there were good runs of Black Marlin, good runs of Stripes and less often Blues. This year however has had all three in abundance and to top it off the appearance of the much missed big Yellowfin.
On Saturday I took Jim Nelson and his family out. I couldn’t do a thing right. I went North to the Bait Station where on Friday there was a good bite. After an hour of trolling we had a good hit in 200 fathoms. I knew it was a good fish because it didn’t take off too quickly. However it didn’t take long for it to realise it was hooked and took off at a million miles an hour. Then for some odd reason while I was backing down on it the line broke. When I checked the break it was clean, no abrasions just a nice clean cut. After that it was all downhill. Wherever I went someone had just caught a fish or the ‘fin had just been seen there, I was always one step behind.
On the Leader…
I made up for it on Sunday though with Lee and his two friends Glen and Clem. I went North again and ended up tagging two nice Blue Marlin. Glen caught his first after a hard won battle that left him drained and very sea-sick. Clem caught the second and again a really tough battle in the sea conditions. The weather however was not as bad as predicted. It blew from the North-East up to about 20knots but the North-Westerly never showed up offshore. In fact we only experienced it and the heat when we came back to Port. One of the fringe benefits of the weather report was that the radio was quiet and informative.
In all Sunday was not at all like the Friday and Saturday. There was little bait and hardly any bird activity. This could have been because there were far fewer boats out, obviously covering less water. Could also have been that the good water has moved on, only time will tell.
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.
Brad ‘J’ does it again…
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.
Boatside…
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.
Howie…
Shortly afterwards I marked a fish. Lee and IÂ 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…
Port Stephens deep sea fishing is at the best I have ever experienced. All three species of Marlin are there in numbers. Also Mahi Mahi, Yellowfin tuna as well as the occasional Wahoo and Spearfish. During the previous week the ‘Car Park’ really fired and out wider we had caught Blue Marlin and a couple of big Yellowfin. Consequently I decided to take Stephen and his wife out wide to chase Blues. As luck would have it the conditions out wide had changed. The current was from the South and the water cooling so I turned back inshore. On the radio the ‘Car Park’ was really going off. I have never heard so many double hookups nor so many calls for boats to get out of the way of their hooked fish.
Port Stephens Blue…
As we approached the ‘Car Park’ and we were actually only a half mile away when we had another screaming hookup and a good Blue headed East at a rate of knots. This proved to be a very stubborn fish and poor Dr. Stephen had to work really hard to bring it back to the boat. However, after nearly an hour a very tired Stephen had it boat-side. We took some photo’s and let it go and set off again. Neither really expecting the Doctor to take another fish nor his poor wife who had been sea sick pretty well since we left Port.
Well, as Murphy does it didn’t take long for another Blue to climb aboard the ‘Lumo’ and this was a significantly bigger fish. The Doctor was there in a flash ready to go. Fortunately this was a much easier fish and only took about half an hour to subdue.
Due to the circumstances it was decided that we should head for home. We put the lures out again and headed off for home. As we passed over the shelf we had yet another strike, this time a Striped Marlin which dragged off some line then did as Stripies do and went on its way.
The next two days were not so exciting. For all the fish at the ‘Car Park’ on Saturday there were significantly fewer on Sunday and even less on Monday. The action on both days had moved further South and it was hard fishing for everyone. I reckon that nearly every fish in the area on Saturday had either a toothache or a backache. Or, I guess I could just blame the moon or the water colour or the temperature. Anything but the fact that I couldn’t do a thing right on Sunday or Monday – that’s fishing…
The inshore fishing for the small Blacks hasn’t really taken off being more of a day to day proposition. However it’s more than made up for by the good numbers of larger Marlin further out.
Lumo and Blue Marlin
At the well known ‘Car Park’ all three species of Marlin ( Blues, Blacks and Stripes ) are feeding in numbers on the schools of mackerel present. It is frustrating when using 10 or 15 kg. line for Striped and Black Marlin and only to hook a rampaging Blue. I can’t give actual numbers but over the last two tournament weekends every boat saw action with the local boats doing exceptionally well tagging up to and over ten a day. For more information on results go to the ‘NSWGFA‘ and ‘Newcastle Port Stephens Game Fishing Club‘ sites.
Port Stephens Yellowfin
Wide of the ‘Car Park’ around the shelf you will find more Striped Marlin as well as Blues and Blacks. As you move wider towards the thousand fathom line which is as far as I went, there is bait and birds working and masses of flying fish. There are schools of Striped tuna and if you’re lucky, some very good Yellowfin tuna. I managed a couple going 69 and 59 kilo’s. There are also Blue Marlin both small and large and you won’t know what size will hit next ; the most exciting fishing.
Port Stephens Yellowfin
The Marlin build hasn’t just happened over night but built up over the last few weeks. I first encountered the increasing numbers of Marlin wide and North of the Port. In one day of trolling I had twelve strikes.
The Blues are in numbers that I have never even heard of before, other than off the Gold Coast. This all bodes well for Sydney in the coming months. March and April and even into May is when the biggest fish ( Marlin etc. ) are caught down here. So, if what is happening at Port Stephens continues moving down with the currents we could be in for a bonanza.
I have just come back from three days at Port Stephens Game Fishing. No two days were the same and each presented its own challenges. However with perseverance, the rewards were there too.
On Friday I took Matty and his friends out on what was a less than comfortable day. In fact downright uncomfortable but we persevered and finally reached the shelf. There was good bait almost to the surface and a few boats working it. It didn’t take long to jig up enugh to get us going. I thought it was too rough to skip bait so I went with trolling live bait. We soon had our first hit and after nearly drowning the poor angler backing up, tagged a striped Marlin.
Striped Marlin…
The baits were put out again and even before we had all the baits out we had another hit, this was looking good. The elation didn’t last long however, when we saw it was a Whaler around 2 metres long. The worst of it though was it was accompanied by about twenty others. That set the scene for the rest of the day and we ended up tagging four Marlin and two sharks, losing another four Marlin probably to sharks and being bitten off about ten times. It was a rough day and not just because of the seas.
Saturday was the exact opposite. It was dead calm. I opted to go to the ‘Car Park’ and was immediately sorry. We counted sixty five boats bombing the bait. The problem with such a large number of boats out there in a relatively small area is the lack of respect shown by some to boats that are hooked up and fighting. Some of the stories I heard make you wonder…
Mahi Mahi…
Anyway, we eventually caught enough bait and joined the crowd bombing the bait schools. The sea was like a mirror and the fish were certainly shy compared to the day before. We ended up with only one Striped Marlin and caught it after I’d given up bombing and started skipping baits.
Sunday was different again with a strong South-Westerly picking up through the day then backing to the South-East late in the day. Again I went out to the ‘Car Park’, the bait was there and the Marlin too, hard not to go back there. I was hoping the weather might have deterred people from going there. As it happened there were less boats but there were still a lot. Some out there were doing well but most were biding their time waiting for a bite.
I left the ‘Car Park’Â and was setting the lures and having no deck hand I was helping out on when a Blue Marlin struck ripping the line out of my hand. The reel screamed in protest as a good sized Blue Marlin raced for the horizon. We did get it under control and tagged a 130 kgs. Blue. Over the next two hours we tagged another Blue around 150 kgs. and kept two Mahi Mahi of 10 an 12 kilo’s.
Mahi Mahi…
So, that was the week-end, three really diverse days. Next week it is tournament time. There are Stripes, Blacks and Blues as well as all the other Gamefish and that is Port Stephens Game Fishing, anything could and can happen…
Over the last three days, the Port Stephens Marlin have been almost like the days of past when the ‘Car Park’ fired. Bait is building up on the shelf and the run of Blacks seems to have started up on the inshore reefs. To add further interest there is a good run of Blues and Mahi Mahi on the wider grounds.
On the Trace…
There is an old saying among fishermen that goes :
‘ If there are ten people fishing and one catches a fish it is luck but if ten people are fishing and one catches ten fish then it is skill’. So what do you say about a lure that gets struck by ten fish out of twelve strikes over two days?
Traceman at work…
It started like this. A few weeks ago Tony from Mackay called he was comin to Port Stephens and wanted to catch a Spearfish as part of a Slam to catch all the Billfish in one year in Australia. All that was left for him were a Spearfish and a Broadbill, the most difficult ones. Now I don’t know how to target Spearfish but I have caught several and all on smallish lures. In my arsenal, I had a Bullet Head that Peter had given me and assured me that on the shotgun it was deadly, here was the opportunity to test the theory.
In the spread, I had all my regulars out but in the small sizes with the bullet head on the shotgun so off we went. The first strike came in about 400 fathoms when a nice Blue charged the bullet and after a short but exciting burst came undone. Without going into detail we hooked six Blues, a Black and three Striped Marlin all on this one lure. We did, however, manage to tag a Blue of around140 kgs. and the Black about the same size. I have never seen anything like it, every fish hit the one lure, what are the odds.
The next day we went to the same area and put out the same spread. Unfortunately, the Blues had moved on but the first strike was a 15 Kg. Dolly which stayed hooked followed by a Striped Marlin which didn’t hook up. Then to add insult to injury a Wahoo bit the lure off, it was devastating. Over the two days that bullet accounted for strikes from six Blues a Black, three Stripes a Mahi Mahi and a Wahoo. I put the bad conversion rate down to the fact we were primarily after a Spearfish. We were using small lures with small hooks which don’t have the holding power necessary. In spite of not catching a Spearfish it was still an exciting couple of days. If for no other reason than those incredible Blue Marlin strikes and runs.
Tag’s in…
On Sunday we trolled lures for a while but with bigger lures this time. Without that Bullet I wasn’t confident so switched over to skip baits and trolled the shelf around the bait schools. We ended up missing one Striped Marlin but tagged another as well as a good Black Marlin.
So that was three fun days fishing for Port Stephens Marlin.
I don’t generally recommend anything I can only report on my experiences. I must say I have never seen any lure do what that one did even the mighty Lumo Sprocket. For those interested the colour was ‘Brad J’.
If it hasn’t been raining and windy it has just been too windy to get out there.
It does look promising though as the water continues to warm and the currents move in. It looks especially good up around Port Stephens at present.
Just a reminder, I will be available at Port Stephens from the 15th. January until 13th. March 2018 so if you’re keen to catch a Marlin in particularly call or email me.
Ambition Game hunting game fish…
Unusually I have a couple of vacant spots on the 28th. December for a Game Fishing charter. Anyone interested in joining give me a call or email.
All gamefish are sensitive to water temperatures and their movements governed but the ocean currents.
Tagged
On studying the SST’s you can see that the warm water North of us, on and wide of the shelf is flowing South then out to sea just South of Port Stephens. Conversely the water off Sydney over the shelf is flowing inshore from the South and East and then turning South. It is clear that the fish, probably the Blues, in the warmer water North of us aren’t going to be seen off Sydney until there is a change in the currents.
However, the Northern water inside and along the shelf is flowing South parallel to the coast. This is the water that brings the run of Blacks inshore and further out near the shelf the Striped Marlin. Usually the Blacks show up off Sydney mid to late December but in the last week or so the inshore waters have warmed significantly. Yesterday I noticed a lot of bait just out of the Heads. Lots of Mutton birds were working the area as though waiting for something to push the bait up. This could be an indication that the Blacks are here there has been the occasional report of small Marlin inshore.
Those fishing wide off Sydney haven’t been having much luck but it seems the Kings are another story. The run of Kings outside last week was remarkable with more than a few going over the magic metre mark. Unfortunately that was last week since then the Southerly current has increased. I have been told it was running at 3 to 3.5 knots and when you add the effect of 15 to 20 knots of North Easterly you’d be close to flying.
A Black on the leader…
In the harbour the Kingsfish mixed with Tailor, Bonito and Salmon are still rampaging around chasing schools of baitfish. You can find the schools anywhere from the Heads down the harbour to the Lane Cove river. Find the birds and you’ll find the fish. Frustratingly you will often find the fish under the Harbour Bridge in the 15 knot zone where you are not allowed to stop and fish.
I am looking forward to my annual stay at Port Stephens. I’ll be there and available for Charter and the occasional social day for SGFC members from mid- January until mid-March. If you want to catch Marlin or any of the pelagic species which are so much more common up there give me a call.
I couldn’t make it out fishing on the week-end due to the weather on Saturday and ‘ brownie ‘ point gathering on Sunday.
From what I’ve heard there doesn’t appear to be much happening out there. I did however get a phone call mid-morning telling me about a Marlin, possibly a Black, free jumping about 5 miles out… I can’t tell you how good that made me feel. Apparently there were some Dollies taken and a couple of really nice Yellowfin from somewhere South of Sydney. If anyone knows anymore or can clarify I’d be happy to hear about it.
The SST’s don’t look very exciting either but I don’t know how much they can be relied upon at the best of times because of their lack of resolution. You really have to get out there and see for yourself. The way it appears the current is pushing from the North around Sydney but the temperature within the current varies widely indicating there are breaks in the main current which are always worth a look.
Inshore there are Kings but it requires some hard work and lots of looking to find them. I heard of one that Mike Clarkson of ‘Reef Magic’ caught going 1.2 metres, so they are there.
The harbour is alive with schools of pelagics, Kings, Bonito, Tailor and Salmon. They are not big fish but are still a lot of fun on light gear. You will need very small lures to catch them because they are feeding on very small baitfish.
To me the wide grounds are where I want to be. None of the charts have the resolution to show the spin-off currents and minor eddies that often hold the fish we want. It changes from day to day out ther. By the time the average fisho hears about the bite it’s generally too late…
