FIRST day out with my friends Joel Pallister, Stuart Wright and their business associates, had me wondering whether I should have turned right instead of left on departure from Cooktown…
By 4.00 pm I had not even marked a fish, nor been chopped off by the razor gang. Then a few marks started to show and then came the big crash tackle on the skipbait 20 minutes later. An 800lb fish was released after a very spectacular performance. It was Ashley’s first marlin – what a first fish!
The boys were stoked, but little did we know what was about to happen. Thirty minutes later we had a blind bite and Stuart Wright virtually just wound it to the boat. I called out that it may be a shark. How wrong was I? … All of a sudden the line started to angle up, and out she came, a black over the magic 1000lb figure.
The fish realised it was in trouble and started smoking all over the place. The speed that this big fish got up to was amazing, and one would be excused for thinking it was a blue marlin. It was a great experience for all aboard, and the yelling and screaming was heard from the other boats in the area.
Stuart Wright, the angler on my first grander for the season, has had an amazing year of luck with his first metre barra, his first hole in one, and now his first grander. We celebrated a little that night – no I should say a lot!
