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A day to remember & story for a liftetime
26/05/2023
An early morning bin filler mission that turned into a fish of a lifetime.
We began our journey out of Tauranga harbour before sunrise to a nearby reef with the intent on a feed of winter snapper. Making our way out of the flat bar, my father in law and I on his 5.4m fi-glass pinned the GPS and headed to our usual spot. We quickly dropped the anchor and burley pot eager to get the bait in the water. Unfortunately the current was not playing ball so the fishing was slow. 6 snapper in 3 hours, this wasn't what we had hoped. Little did we know the next few hours we would never forget.
While anchored we noticed a school of fish busting up behind us. We decided to stick out the straylining for another 30mins and then shoot over to see what the shoal was holding. 30mins passed an no more snapper so we pulled anchor and shot over with the intention of hopefully snagging a kingi jigging through the boil up. With a few drops completed and no hits we went to plan B, the good old live bait. I tied on my favourite Caveman tackle micro jig with a treble hook and started casting into the madness. A few casts later and I was hooked up, but to a fish I was not expecting. Sure enough it was a Koheru, a barrel of one at that. We had fished this reef many years and never had seen a shoal of Kohies. I quickly tied this onto my live bait setup and dropped it down feeling optimistic.
It didn't take long before I felt the fish panicking, light tugs on the line and slow peeling out, I was on. Slowly pushing the lever drag up the weight came on and the rod tip bent, this was a good fish. The line started peeling so I quickly put it into sunset to avoid me getting reefed. We were in 50m of water so I had some room but having experienced this reef many times I knew it had some knarly areas. Managing to get some line back I start to feel abit more confident that we were going to land this one so when we saw some colour I was relieved. My father in law hooked it with the gaff and lifted in a nice 110cm king. Fat winter kings always tasted best.
Now it was my father in laws turn. We quickly drove over to the work up and casted in the lure hoping to snag another one. It didn't take long and we had another live bait hooked up, dropped back down, eaten and another 110cm King on board.
Looking at the time it was 1pm. With snapper and kingfish in the bin we weighed up our options, do we go in early and get a couple of hours work done. Bugger that...one more drop.
We snagged another Koheru and dropped it down expecting a kingi. What happened next I will remember for the rest of my life.
2 minutes into trolling the live bait I felt another tug and line started peeling out, I was on again. I slowly increased the drag but this time the line didn't stop peeling. Not only did it not stop peeling but the angle of the line looked like it was 80m away and on the surface. Immediately I was gutted. "Great a bloody shark" I said to my father in law. We quickly boosted over in the boat trying to gain some braid back, I had lost too much braid on this reef over the years to sharks. As we gained on the fish I got a glimpse of a dorsel fin that did not belong to a shark. "It's a F*&kn marlin!" I yelled at my father in law.
I've had some epic fights on the line before but nothing like this, the line would not stop peeling, and when it did and I got some line back it immediately went out again. Over the next hour we were towed 2kms, but I was not optimistic and neither was my father in law. We knew that landing this fish on my 80Lb braid setup with 120Lb leader wasn't going to be easy. Slowly and surely we idled along with the fish and continued the back and forth battle.
After an hour I knew I had gained a significant amount of line back so hopes were high. Sure enough the leader came up out of the water, my father in law got the gloves on and was about to grab it when suddenly the fish took off again, bugger. Again after a few minutes I got some line back and saw the leader. This time my father in law managed to grab the leader and get some wraps, the stripped side of the marlin glistened in the water as it came to the surface, we had landed our first marlin.
Before we could truly celebrate we needed to get the rope around its tail, which was not an easy task and one that took a few attempts to achieve.
Its a strange feeling killing such a big animal, that only hunters and fishers can understand I reckon. On one hand its a sence of pride in the achievement of such an awesome trophy, aswell as providing many meals for family & friends. On the other hand their is a sense of sadness, which reflecting on comes from a deep respect for the animal.
I managed to get hold of my brother on the way back in who organized a courtesy weigh at the Mount Oceans Sport Fishing Club so we could take a few photos.
There's something pretty special about sharing an experience like this with someone close to you, it binds you together in a way, knowing that the two of you have an epic tale.
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