IN what was shaping up as one of the most frustrating tournaments I’d fished for years, everything came together towards the end of this year’s Interclub at Port Stephens.
On Day One we were one of the first boats on the board with an early black marlin tag & release. A short time later we were hooked up again on 15kg line to an oversized black (for this fishery) estimated to be around 200kg. After four hours battling the fish the inevitable happened and it had won the battle…
Again within minutes we were hooked up, this time to a large striped marlin. After another long battle the tag pole finally came in contact with the line and it was all over. Unfortunately we’d been hooked up all day and had only scored one tagged fish.
Ten minutes after the start of fishing on Day 2 we had a double hook up.
I decided to lock up on one fish and chase the other as one smoked off towards Sydney. Only two minutes into the chase the line parted due to the amount of line out … we persevered and our luck thankfully changed. By the end of the day we had five striped marlin tagged & released.
Day 3 unfortunately saw the smooth as a schooner of Bailey’s conditions of the first two days turned around to be as rough as hessian undies. Thankfully we crawled our way back from a frustrating start, with four tagged & released marlin for the day. Another good final day and we were in with a chance.
The rough conditions persisted for Day 4, making fishing hard and our total for the day rteflected that as we only tagged two marlin for the session.
At the trophy presentation my clients from the Port Hacking Game Fishing Club were more than happy when we were called up to the podium for taking 3rd place in Tag & Release. Considering our slow start it was a good result out of 178 boats. We also picked up the major sponsor’s award courtesy of Nautilus Marine to cap off another successful event for us.
