Hey all. I was lucky enough to get in on the epic bite we had up here.
I have an old school buddy Sean who had been struggling to land his first Marlin, he comes in for some Chiro work every once in a while and I've been listening to epic tails of lost fish for awhile. So in suggested we fish together. Finally a window came and we both managed to cancel our respective days work. A plan was hatched the wives were ok and Sean arrived at 8am at my place, where I would have everything ready to go.
I know right such a late start? Well part of the wives been ok was for her to have ridden a horse (she trains dressage horses for a job) before I could go and it was the best I could get so off we went
First trouble we ran into was A HUGE muppetry from myself. Rushing and failed to replace the lid to my infloor tank so on arrival at the launching beach we were greeted with a bad smell, not really any viable fuel just a bad smell that for me would result in a bad day. No matter once we were safely away from the breakers a quick stop and the 3000GPHr tuna tube pump flooded the boat several times and with some scrubbing we managed to sort that out.
We did the quick run around the headland and pointed the nose of the ever reliable "Shes Gonna Sell Me" a 5.5 surtees towards some marks where previously caught fish. 15 miles later signs were good and lures deployed.
Birds were present and saurey were seen at times. As we neared my mark clearly action had been had as close to 20 boats working the well I cant even say area they were on the Mark.
We moved on to another mark and away from the circus when I decided to size Sean up in the harness and gimble. We were half way through our adjustments when pop Bang the rigger popped and the Howelllll of the makaira told us this was not another albacore but the reel deal.
The usual chaos of clearing gear endures with Sean quickly on the rod snd line steadily leaving things were looking good! Neither of us had seen the fish as we were both clearing gear so hard out, but it wasnt long before some jumps were seen. We had the fish to the boat casually as fishing a light drag in about 30 mins but it was way to green and went deep, we let the biat move away create angle the fish would rise, wind down on the line again leader in hand fish to green and tear off to the depths - repeat.
It took just over the hour to hour 15 before we had her along side. We had discussed what Sean wanted to do which was a Tag. So happy angler and after some quick measures it swam away fine.
Here's the issue. After showing the video to several very seasoned skippers they are calling it for a small blue.
The fish was 2.2m long. Diameter 140
And was very thick.
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What do you all think.