A record but for the bill

A bill, or rather the lack of one, was the difference between Casey Ockwell getting her name in the NZ Sport Fishing Council’s record books or not.

The 12-year-old Tauranga junior angler was livebaiting with her dad Paul in the family’s Stabicraft 609 Game ON at Astrolabe Reef when she hooked a striped marlin that went 152.7kg on the Tauranga Gamefishing club’s scales, a mere 100g short of the national junior girls’ record.

The difference between a club and a national record was a bill, which on Casey’s fish was missing.

The keen angler and her dad originally began their fishing day livebaiting kahawai at the Penguin Shoals, but a lack of action saw Paul make the call to try their luck at the Astrolabe Reef where there had been reports of more activity. Initially, he was going to troll there but decided to pull the lures and run as it would take too long.

On arrival, they came across a bait school, and the skipper marked a couple of larger fish surrounding it that he called as marlin.

“With two baits out, it would have been interesting to have hooked them both with just Casey and I on board,” Paul quipped.

Casey’s kahawai was bit and in keeping with the boat’s name, it was game on. Two hours and 40 minutes later, the fish was at the boat but being short-handed there were some anxious moments as the fish threatened to take the leader around the prop.

“The difficult bit was having to leave the helm to leader the fish. We cam very close to cutting it off on the prop but with a bit of luck we got it,” Paul says.

During the fight Paul was concerned that the fish would go the minimum 90kg, but he was left in little doubt with it closer to the boat.

While this was Casey’s first landed marlin, she had hooked one earlier in the year when fishing off Waihau Bay, but that dropped the lure after a short run, leaving the young angler gutted but determined to get the next one. Prior to this season, Paul had been schooling Casey up in fish fighting techniques in the back yard, getting her familiar with the Black Magic harness and practicing her stand-up technique.

This may have been Casey’s first billfish, but she has several smaller species to her credit including trout, snapper and skipjack. She has also been schooled