AUSTRALIA’S first 1000 pound blue marlin has been landed off Exmouth, Western Australia, by Captain Eddy Lawler and his crew from Peak Sportfishing. The massive fish weighed in at 1089.7lb (494.3 kg).
Other details:
Date: Jan 1st
Boat: Black Marlin
Angler: Clay Hilbert
Line Class: 60 kg
Method: Switched off a Bonze Violator
According to the Exmouth Game Fishing Club “Eddy has tagged over 1000 billfish with the Billfish Foundation and hundreds more with NSW Fisheries. Last week he satellite tagged fish too. Exmouth Game Fishing Club has won top tagging club in Australia more than once, which is a great effort in this remote location. From this capture, we will gain more information on these species and we believe in highlighting the positives of recreational fishing to help others learn, respect and appreciate the ocean and fish within it. This fish will be used for years to come. It will be used for research and education and be available for visitors to the region to view and grasp the size of fish out there. “
Update
More from Eddy Lawler:
“On board for this day were our anglers Clay Hilbert, Leigh Freestone and Hayley Dellar. Clay was up first with a hot fish coming in for a sick switch on a smaller model blue marlin. Unfortunately it didn’t eat the bait right and jumped off. Now here’s were it all starts. The call was made to fish a really nice mark that showed at 55 m on the Simrad Yachting sounder. Everyone was poised and ready and then the star off the season made her entrance, showing her true size, trucking in on the Bonze Lures Violater as if she was picking her line of attack…and boy did she get angry quick with some insane crash bites on the teasers, before she lined up the pitch and absolutely smoked the skipjack tuna. This gave Clay the hook up on stand up 60 kg (130 lb test) gear as she left big holes of water as she greyhounded across the surface, before settling in and making her way S/W. After 40 minutes our crewman Wes Jones had leader in hand but after couple jumps she wasn’t done yet and smoked off back deep. Clay gave all his ticker fishing some extremely heavy drag for the next 3 hours before once again leader was in hand and the fish was done!
Later on back at the club half of Exmouth patiently weighted to see what the sea creature would drop the scales to and when the winch finally got it up, it was confirmed as Australia’s first legally caught 1000 lb blue marlin.
The fish came in at 1089 lb and is a new pending All Tackle National Record.
Words cannot describe how stoked we are here at Peak Sportfishing after the effort we have put in for our shot at one of these Critters. But we would really like to thank a lot of people who made dealing with this fish a whole lot easier including Matt and Jeni Gates from Bluewater Tackle World Exmouth for helping out so much, including the organisation of transport of the fish back to town and prepping the club for the weigh in!
Thanks again to all others who helped out with the fish!”
