"Fish Tales and Techniques"
by Captains Ross and Glenn Hunter

FISHING FLOATERS FOR SNAPPER by Ross Hunter
7/11/06

Snapper are one of Australia's favourite recreational fish they are great fun to catch and they are five stars as a table fish, they simply are everyone's favourite.

On Broadbill and Billfisher we love a day on the reds as a change from the gamefishing.

There is nothing better that fishing on anchor with engines turned off , maybe a little soothing music on the stereo whilst fishing at our favourite snapper area the Stanwell Park Hump.

This place is the home of the big reds, it is found 19.8 nautical miles south of Botany Bay Heads, which is our homeport.

To visit "The Hump" is a wonderful experience if only for the scenery itself, as it quite breathtaking, to be in this part of the world always makes me feel good.

Miles and miles of National Park, the rugged unspoiled coastline is made up of magnificent cliff faces, reaching one hundred metres high, so rugged and so shear. Home for many families of white bellied sea eagles as they majestically soar in the updrafts searching for food. We often troll the washes along the edge of the cliff faces and catch kingfish and bonito on the trip home.

Deep diving lures trolled slowly will get the job done as we sit back and breath in the serenity of this wonderful area of the Royal National Park, usually with a fine catch of snapper in the fish box.

It is always a pensive thought that only 30 miles northward is the big smoke, Sydney, the biggest city in Australia, but down here we are in a bit of wilderness, that is the beauty of this wonderful country we call Australia

Andy and Jordon with their catch of superb reds from the Hump	Another fine snapper from the Hump.jpg
six lilo glenn	Another success and a happy angler
they don't come much bigger Roscoe witha couple of gems	Glenn Hunter witha couple of snapper caught on floaters

PLANNING THE TRIP
When planning a trip we ensure that the following factors are in place. (After all it is a long haul down there and it can be a waste of fuel and time if the following are not right)

(a) Current flow…To fish the floater system the current must not be running too fast, any more than one knot and this system is in jeopardy (more on that in techniques)…The current should be running lightly to the south.

(b) Wind…The wind must be reasonably light and from any direction but the south. Light west light nor east but not south. The reason is that because we are fishing on anchor if the currents light from the north (IE running southward) and the wind is from the south then we could find our selves fishing under the boat and back up the anchor rope, this never works.
If the breeze is from any other direction other than against the current the boat will generally lay with the current flow thus allowing the baits to be fed back from the transom with the current assisting to take them down to the depths with the berley.

(c) Selecting a spot to anchor……This is the most important part of the day. Having fished this area for many years I have land marks I work with and still use to day.
Yes! Believe it or not people actually used land marks once……that is before a thing called GPS was invented.

After all how else could you find your fishing spot, mind you we still use the GPS to check our landmarks.

Having established that we are now in our spot we then sound the bottom carefully, we are fishing in 20 fathoms and the bottom is broken reef and gravel We pick a section of reef to anchor on and drop the reef pick allowing for breeze and current to drift us over the small reef outcrop below.

Anchoring on hard reefy areas will result in rubbish fish all day Such species as pike, sweep, jackets etc will plague all day making it impossible to get a bait to a good snapper.
The wider reefs are where the big fish forage for their food and that's where we have selected to anchor.

Ok! So all the above are in order so we can plan our trip an early start for these sorts of trips is essential.
In the Spring, which is the best month by, far, we leave around 5 am getting us on the spot at 6.15 am, first baits hit the water about 6.30am

Big baits are the best ....This is what we use big slabs of salted or fresh striped tuna cut in a triangular shape the 2/0 hook goes into the thin part of the bait at the end.Note the small ball sinker it sits on top of the hook with no swivel.

TECHNIQUES FOR FLOATER FISHING
(d) Techniques………Ok if you have not fished the Floater method for snapper then there is a great experience waiting for you…. Basically what we are doing is not Rocket Science. Once we have anchored on our favourite spot, a spot that in our instance has produced some great days over many years on the reds we then get the system going.

Firstly pilchards are cut fine on the cutting board and berley slick is started as they are thrown in small pieces cut into 8 or ten cubes per pillie and fed back down the slick. This never stops all day. We have now senta message to any snapper feeding below we have arrived and there is food above.

Snapper like all fish have a great sense of smell and will pick up such a berley trail from alom]n g way away.

Sometimes you won't get a bite for maybe 2 hours be patient it will pay off and when they arrive it can be in numbers.

Tide changes can play a part in the snapper's feeding habits an hour before and an hour after is always good. Also after big seas and bad weather, this too will work well.
Once the berley slick is working then the baits go in.

BEST RIGS
We use a Shimano bait caster loaded with 6kg line….a ball sinker of enough weight to carry the bait slowly down in the light current sits directly onto the mustard 2/0 bait holder hook.
No swivel is used with this sort of fishing.
Yes! Small hooks are the best; they never come out and are easier to set on the light drags we are using.

The bait is striped tuna cut into a triangular shape complete with skin…The hook is fed thru the thin end of the triangle once only The baits are 120 millimetres in length .
I use big baits as it helps with the drift and the pickers cannot eat them but snapper are gut's and they have no trouble getting them down.

Ok! Now the baits are on correctly and we are ready to present same to a waiting snapper below.
It is now important to feed the bait back in free spool in the current, not too fast but at the same speed that the berley is flowing back. How far do we feed the bait back? …Depending on the day up to 100 metres, if you get snagged up on the bottom then go to a lighter sinker You do not want to be on the bottom at any time as the snapper will feed right up in mid water once they are in the berley slick.

To experience a snapper's run on this light gear is a buzz and is so instant and powerful you will never miss it. You will be dreaming away, feeding back your line, you may have done it for a few hours with out a bite and all of a sudden line is screaming off the reel and the fun has started You have just hooked a big red and the fun has started.

At this point the reel is clicked into gear and alight strike is made and then hang on as the light line pours of the drag. But the best is still to come and that is the sight of a big snapper coming out of the depths after a 20-minute fight.

The landing net is called for and one hell of a beautiful specimen joins the boat. These days we release a fish or two especially the big breed stock the best table fish are the 1.5 to 2.5 kg size
Yep! The barbeque will be fired up tonight ….Fresh snapper a nice wine and a great days "Floater Fishing".

Sounds good!………………………………… well go and give it a go and good luck….send us the photos!

"MARLIN TECHNIQUES" ( a five year apprenticeship that takes 30 years to complete)
by Ross Hunter

It was 35 plus years ago the first time I had ever seen multiple marlin tag flags on a game boat I can recall that great sight as the late Bill Hayward's Bertram 'Wombarra" idled to the weigh station at my home Port Botany Bay. They had tagged three marlin in one day. I gazed in awe wondering if ever such a feat would ever come my way.

My life long friend and proprietor of the tackle shop Bluefin Sports, Bill Heaton was on board and working the decks, rigging baits etc..

Bill is a very experienced fisherman and had caught the marlin off Botany Heads on trolled yellowtail.

Whilst we had some success on marlin encounters I dreamed that one-day we could catch more than one in a day some day.

I also knew that the great challenge of marlin fishing was going to consume many hours of my fishing career in the future.

As the founder of the boat building company Marlin Broadbill we had some success with our first production boat a mono hull we called "Billfisher"This won Fisherman's Boat of the year in '76.

A fully fitted Billfisher We were the first to fit rocket launchers, live bait tanks and so on to boats in Australia The boat won "Fisherman's Boat of the Year" in '76	Vic Casey and myself testing the first Billfisher in '75 We fitted a 175hp Evinrude to it and belted around the ocean to see if we could break it. We couldn't
A very young Glenn Hunter fishing in the Quinney.with his Dad Ross....He probably had no idea that 25 years on he would be doing it for a living. Captain Glenn Hunter.	The 6.2 metre Broadbill my favourite...We caught a lot of fish from this boat in those early days, but there was a long way to go and so much to learn.
Glenn Hunter starts catching them better than Dad on his boat Billfisher .Dad says That's OK as long as it's in the family I'm happy

Having built 100 or so of them we then decided that an aluminium catamaran would sell well, nobody yet had done that, whilst there were a few fibre glass cats on the market such as Shark Cat and they were great boats but required big gas guzzlers to push them along.

We at Marlin thought that alloy was a better medium to work in for its weight saving, durability and ability to use smaller outboards to power..…So we started design and construction of the marlin Broadbill range of catamarans.

We were fishing from a 6.5 metre prototype Broadbill with a couple of smelly, fuel gulping two stroke outboards on the back.

It was the first of the breed and was one of the nicest boats that we had built to date, a boat that really was set up superbly and handled a sea way like a dream.

We would fish up and down the coast from Hat Head in the North to Bermagui in the south attending all the fishing comps held at the different ports.

These were great times indeed ewe were all young with an exciting business that was powering on building boats, live bait tanks rocket launchers and being able to fish from our boats as a promotional sales tool at the different get to gethers…………………………..what a life and it was!

Lure trolling was our go was there any other way? Just whack 'em out and way you go charging around with an n artificial bait school up your clacker, we got a lot of bites but not a lot of fish.

A new up and coming lure manufacturer by the name of Peter Pakula was trying to make a name for himself in the early '80's.

Peter became a great friend and to gether we pioneered his early lures on my first fly bridge boat Broadbill. Success came when we caught the first blue marlin recorded at the Botany Bay Game Fishing club in 1981 Brian Nesbitt was the angler and the fish weighed 155kg.

My great mate Brian "The Moose Nesbitt" with his 154 kilo blue marlin caught on Broadbill This was the first recorded blue in the Botany Bay Club and maybe the first off Sydney In 1981 and the first marlin caught on a Pakula lure.

It was not only the first blue caught but also the first marlin caught on this breed of lure. Peter was there to great us with champagne as part of the celebrations.

During the next decade we were to catch many great fish on Pete's lures inc 178 kg Blue marlin,220 kg blue marlin 243kg blue marlin and the current Sydney record that has stood since '92 Harvey Sainsbury's 297 kg Blue marlin all caught on 24kg test.. A fish that lost 6 to 8 kg in dehydration during the 10-hour day., a fish that died after a prolonged fight, a fish that was over 300kg when boated and that's not bad on 50 lb mono.

First time angler Harvey Sainsbury's 297 kg Blue caught on 24kg tackle on Broadbill in '92. The fish is still the largest blue recorded in Sydney waters in the year 2006

We were starting to get the hang of it, but the success rate on marlin hook ups on lures was as low as 60 % that meant that 40 % of the fish swam away. most times after hours of fruitless trolling., very frustrating indeed.

We reckoned that there was a better mousetrap and that's when we really picked up our game.
It's amazing if you go fishing with blokes who know more than you how much you can learn in a short time, it sort of by passes the experiments.

To be a proficient marlin fisherman a lifetime apprenticeship is required and whilst in the early days we thought we knew a bit about it all, looking back in hindsight we were pretty wet behind the ears fisherman.

Lure trolling for marlin is easy, it really does not require great skill just look forward and wait for the reel to go off, and then hope that the fish stays attached, most of them weren't especially the stripes.

Our success rate on them was as low as 40% and that's a heart breaker especially when you’ve been trolling all day and you get him up only after several swipes at the lure turn a bit of drag then swim away, followed by a mouthful of profanities by the Captain and crew. I am not knocking lures for other species like tuna, dolphin fish etc…we use them all the time and they are most efficient on these species.

However, there was a better and more efficient way and we had to find it.

CAPTAIN LAURIE WOODBRIDGE IN CAIRNS 1980 ( a great mentor)
If fished Cairns in the early eighties on Sea Baby 11 with Captain Laurie Woodbridge and ex -Sydney sider and beaut bloke Jack Erskine. Jack is perfectionist to watch him rig bait is like watching a brain surgeon work; such is the attention to detail. Once rigged put them out for a test swim for approval some passed some were re- rigged.

I watched in awe as Jack and Paul Whelan rigged garfish and mullet using drop back rigs on the riggers We caught little blacks and sails and missed very few on hook up. I flew home convinced that I had found the answer "well rigged baits, a better mousetrap"

Laurie Woodbridge and Jack Erskine had, without knowing it, taught me a lesson that would stay with me for life.

Marlin should be caught by well-prepared and presented baits, be it dead or alive. When that is achieved, the art of catching marlin is refined and the results speak for themselves.

Striped marlin are probably the most difficult of all fish to hook up, especially on lures, so why not try a new technique?

Once the skill in rigging and trolling baits is learned a major milestone is passed in a billfish apprentice's learning journey.

The first exam is passed, go to the top of the class, take off the dunce's hat, but don't start your lunch because just when you think you know it all you will realise that there is still a long way to go and a lot still to be learnt.

My long suffering crewman some in 1992 was the "Bat" a great deckie, we worked to gether on Broadbill for 10 years, he was a great bait rigger So much so that I often referred to him as "a master baiter"

We would run garfish with two hooks one in the gut and one half way back and they are dynamite.
We developed this rig between us and it was lethal on hook up percentages.

Now we were up to 80% hook up rate, we got the feeling that we were on the right track.
As well as garfish we also trolled head rigged and skipping slimy mackerel, mullet, pike and whiting The latter being the best head rigged bait I have ever trolled If brined down first, they have been trolled for three trips before they fell apart.they are indeed a hardy bait and the billfish love them.

Because we were now using tiny Gamakatzu 9/0 hooks in the baits, they would, once set, stay in and never come out.certainly not like the massive 12 and 14/0's in the lures.

Always remember a small hook is easier to set in marlins mandible than a big one. Especially on 10 to 24 kg tackle which is what most marlin fisherman use in NSW.

At last as a marlin boat Broadbill was making its way into respectability by starting to achieve a few milestones in performance but whilst we were into our second year of completing our 5-year marlin fisherman's apprenticeship I did feel since we started rigging and trolling baits, we were well on our way.

1991 found us back to our second home in summer and my favourite marlin grounds Pt Stephens Having fished the port since '76 I had a fair handle on the grounds, but there really was so much more to learn.

My passion for the amazing marlin grounds of Pt Stephens is just as strong to day, it is my favourite part of the world…We tagged 120 marlin for the stay inc… 12 in one day Yes! Our time had come we were on the way, finally we slide multiple flags up the pole, we were on the improve.

That fantastic season we learnt so much about bait fishing especially live baiting with slimy mackerel and working bait schools efficiently.
We never trolled a lure all season and caught the hell out of them on trolled dead baits and trolled live baits.

We returned in ' 93, 94 and 95 and caught similar amounts per season.

Glenn Hunter's 202kg blue on 24kg won the most meritorious capture in NSW waters in '92	In '95 we buy Billfisher and so starts Capt Glenn Hunter's career Here he is catching his first marlin from her.
Glenn Hunter traces the 297kg blue marlin It is still the biggest marlin recorded off Sydney	Mike Rowe's superb blue marlin The big fish died after an exhausting 3 hour battle

However the absolute hi light was the amazing year of ' 97 at Pt Stephens we had to hide under the gunnels to bait up. The Bat kept a really accurate account of every fish we caught, most of them small blacks (average 40 to 50 kg) That year was one of my favourite seasons ….why Because we really learnt so much about techniques, sounders, deep fishing to fish in bait schools and bait presentation.

We tagged 248 for the two-month stay Inc 18 marlin in a day ………we really did fish hard and very efficiently.

We were without a doubt the most successful boat in the Port that season.
Mr great companion and life long friend Scott The "Bat" Taunton, Glenn Hunter and my self sat back on that last day having tagged 18 and over a twilight beer and knew. We had just fished one of the greatest marlin seasons ever. This is how I remember that last day;

18 MARLIN IN ONE DAY AT PT STEPHENS '97
As quickly as the fish came on, they went off, but not before, at 6.45 pm, we tagged our eighteenth marlin for the day, not a bad day to go out on, considering we had lost five fish on the 3-kg gear before we changed back to the more sensible 10-kg gear. It was the perfect end to a perfect season—a season in which 8 and 10 tag flags were the norm, a season when every group on the charter had caught fish and experienced the unforgettable excitement of light tackle marlin fishing a season that goes so quickly, a season that the boys and myself did not want to end. The words of my dear old Grandfather rang in my ears, when I used to get sad, having to return to the city and leave my beloved Tascott at the age of 5, having fished every day with him in his tiny row-boat, he said:

"All good things must come to an end, young fellow."

Back in the pen at Soldiers Point Glenn, the Bat and myself sat on the gunnels of Broady, raised our glasses high and toasted each other, we had worked hard and fished well, we silently knew that we had fished the season of a lifetime. We watched the sun set over Swan Bay, nobody said much, we just took in the beauty of the sunset as the crimson colours reflected in the glass-like estuarine waters. The sunset turned to dusk, lowering the curtain on a wild day's fishing our personal best and brought to an end the '97 Port Stephens marlin season.

In hindsight, we did not realise it then, we may have been privileged to have fished the greatest of all marlin seasons.

Scott The Bat's marlin tally board from BROADBILL for the '97 season Possibly the best marlin season we may experience

What with commercial long-line pressure on our marlin stocks increasing year after year, thus pressuring our gamefish, we may have been lucky enough to experience one of the best marlin seasons anyone will ever see; who knows, only time will tell, but as I write this chapter in the year 2004, the best tally has been 100 in a season. We tagged 248 marlin in two and a bit months in '97—and that's pretty special fishing, no matter where you come from.

We will live with that memory for many years to come, but isn't that what fishing is all about?

At last multiple flags every day and a boat, which could now hold its head up high in any company. We may have not been the biggest boat or the prettiest or the fastest but shit we caught marlin well…………..things were progressing well ….we had served year "four" of the "five years" in the Marlin Fisherman's Apprenticeship. Only another decade to go and we may get the hang of the marlin fishing caper!

The wonderful world of marlin fishing is a never finishing learning curve The moment you know it all is moment you have entered the rank of an egotistical idiot because new techniques, new technology are always there to be learnt. Boatmanship is not an issue once you have chased a couple of thousand of these most beautiful fish around the ocean backwards.

You do get pretty good at picking when to dart back on hot fish for a tag shot or how to out manoeuvre a surfer (a striped surfing down-sea with the waves) and so on, no it is more techniques and changes that are to be kept abreast of.

At this era enter my son Glenn who has worked the decks with me for a decade or more, that ends when we buy our second boat a beautiful boat we call "Bill fisher"
Enter Captain Glenn Hunter.

It was not as though Glenn did not know how to drive a boat or catch a fish he had worked on the decks of Broady since he was a youngster and had been skippering when I needed a break from time to time.

ENTER the "BILLFISHER"
It was June '98. After 12 years the business was going well. We were reasonably confident that there was enough work for a second boat. I was concerned about Glenn's future, knowing well that he could not be a deckie on a charter boat for the rest of his days. So we sat down one day and talked. We decided to keep a look out in boating magazines and if the right boat came along we would take the risk and buy a second boat and give it a go.

We agreed to try to find a boat that was in reasonable condition, but needed work and TLC …… and was at the right price, the hard work to restore her did not worry a boat builder and a marine diesel mechanic.

That way, if we could not keep her busy we would get our money back on our investment, given the improvements we were prepared to make to it: after a bit of elbow grease in fibre glassing, painting and tidying up, a tired boat can be turned into something presentable. We were good at that; after all, we had built over 300 Billfisher and Broadbill boats, so a bit of refurbishing should not be a problem.

The secret was to find a boat with the following criteria …… a fly bridge vessel with twin diesel engines, preferably Cummins, with good sea-keeping qualities, with protection from the weather for the customers—somewhere there must be such a boat. We found it in the Trader Boat magazine. There was a tiny advertisement and a stern-on photo; the boat lay at Shoalhaven Heads, south of Sydney. I rang Glenn and suggested we drive down and look at her having rung the owner and arranged it.

The Bat Cuddles and Ross Celebrate after winning the Australian International Billfish Tournament on BROADBILL	Winning lady angler in the '05 Interclub Tournament on board Glenn's boat Billfisher. A happy Joanne Nadin.

We lay the boat up on the hard stand for a couple of months. In that time we repainted her inside and out, pulled out both shafts, aligned and straightened them, new fuel systems, new sounder, plotter radios and rewired much of the electrics and in general turned a tired boat into an elegant princess. By September, Billfisher was unveiled to the public in all her refurbished splendour, and they loved what they saw. No matter where we took her over the next five years, people would comment on what beautiful vessel she was. The hard work was worth it we now had a very stylish, reliable charter boat. BILLFISHER

We spent about $25,000 on refurbishing her, but the result got Glenn his own charter vessel in Class 2 Survey, ready to go for under our planned budget, and we were happy at that, but could we keep her busy?

It was the tuna season of '98 and long lining was starting to have an effect on tuna stocks, but there were still plenty around, it was the first outing for the new boat with a new crew and a very excited new Captain Glenn Hunter. Glenn came home with a great catch of yellowfin it was the dawning of a new era….Proud Old Man Yeh!

We worked this beautiful boat hard for five years every one loved her she really was a lovely boat with great lines for her age.

Things were going well and we were keeping both boats quite busy so the plan of Father and son boats worked………………………………………………………………………………………..all was well.

Glenn fished Pt Stephens for the next five years and caught a lot of marlin from Billfisher
He too was an advocate of bait fishing after all him and Bat lived the transition from lures to bait fishing for marlin. In 2003 Glenn tagged a record for Billfisher of 128 fish for the Pt Stephens stay of 6 weeks, but there was better to come.

After five years we sold the boat and bought a 40-foot Cairns Custom Craft originally called New Moon 11 . The boat was originally skippered by one of the best marlin Captains in Kim Anderson. It worked the heavy tackle season in Cairns with Kim winning many tournaments with her.

Having bought her, once gain we went through the re-furbishing with this boat but with our background of boat building and a bit of hard work and a lot of TLC we ended up with a modern game boat for the next decade. And what a decade of marlin fishing we were about to experience

I really thought that the Pt Stephens '97 season would never be bettered by either Glenn or myself after all any boat that tags and releases 248 in a season could never complain. However, these were small fish caught within 6 nautical mile of the coastline…. great fun none the less on light 8- 10 kg tackle, however new ideas were now on us …We were back trolling lures again after 20 years, but with one difference we didn't put hooks in them Yes! "Switch and Pitch" marlin fishing had arrived.

SWITCH AND PITCH ( The good the bad and the ugly)
This technique involves pulling a couple of your favourite lures from specially built teaser rods (these are long rods and the line runs through the centre, there are no runners and the tip is designed so the line cannot tip rap when working the teasers away from a hot fish.

The two or three lures are trolled 25 metres behind the boat as teasers When a marlin comes up he is teased up on the hook less lures, whilst a bait is fed back to him At this point the teasers are wound in and the fish eats the bait.

The live baits are kept in tuna and mackerel tubes that we built onto both boats. Such baits are pre bridled and kept alive in these tubes the salt water is freshened with engine driven seawater pumps
Like I said before you never stop learning in this business.

Live baiting with tuna; mackerel etc is the most successful way to catch marlin without doubt. The switch method is great and some days will work so well and it is a visual way of hooking a marlin but I have had them refuse a bait many times leaving Skipper and crew with egg on the old dial few times.

Live baiting into bait schools will out fish any method over a season it can be tedious but patience is a virtue and given time most times will come up trumps.

We fished the next few marlin seasons with Glenn and myself never far from the action in 2004 Biilfisher had days of 12, 14 and then 17 tags per day and ended up with 148 fish for the Pt Stephens season ( most of these fish were averaging 80 kilos ) he caught the most fish by far that season than any boat..Billfisher boat won Champion boat day four and champion lady angler and beat Broadbill to win Champion boat in the Northern Waters Tournament.

We fished The Mosh pit 25 nautical mile from Port this area produces without doubt some of the most exciting marlin fishing any where in the world.

This area can turn it on and in 2005 we had the day of a lifetime on Broadbill

TWENTY-ONE MARLIN IN A DAY
It was one of those days when you cannot feel anything but confident; after all, we had already caught a lot of marlin for the season and today was perfect for it …… no wind …… flat calm ocean and very little company. . I glanced southward and spotted a boat on the horizon, apart from that it seemed like we had the ocean to ourselves. Sometimes that can be an advantage, sometimes it is better when a few of the mates are around as we swap info via the radio; such conversations as "We've got a truck load of bait in 03 and just let one go", and so on can help guide us to the most productive spot.

The good thing about fishing at the Port is that the skippers are all good friends and help each other, after all the better the reports and results the busier we all are.

Upon reaching the bait grounds in 75 fathoms, I eased the throttles back to trolling speed as Soxie made ready bait jigs, rods, bridle needles and tag poles. We trolled the grounds looking for the bait schools, the sounder redded out with vast schools of blue mackerel under us.

"Give it a jig here?" I suggested from the bridge …… Rob dropped in the bait jig and pulled a full string of beaut big mackerel baits. The boys helped the deckie take them off the jigs and despatch them into the live bait tank …… three more drops and we had a tank full of giant mackerel baits. On the fourth drop, three striped marlin followed the bait jig up and swam around the transom of the boat. We quickly bridled two baits and hooked two fish, both over 100 kg …… the day had started with a vengeance. The big fish danced every which way as I tried to figure which one to target first; and the fish on the left side stuck his head up I backed over and we released that one. One down, one to go.

The next one took 20 minutes and he too swam away with a tag for the trouble, only one marlin virgin to go. As I glanced seaward, I could see a bunch of shearwaters working a bait patch. We steamed the 500 metres to inspect; when we arrived there was a massive bait ball …… thousands of yellowtail balled up on the surface by a school of striped marlin like I had never seen before. There were perhaps 40 to 50 marlin tearing around the panicking bait, balling it tighter and tighter, until at a given moment they would attack the frenzied bait.

We backed over to the ball, threw in two baits and simultaneously hooked two stripes straight away. We would then chase them down, release and then back the bait for two more.

We sell the old Billfisher and buy this 40 foot Cairns Custom Craft a really great boat built from the keel up to catch fish	Broadbill at Pt Stephens in '05 with 21 marlin tagged for the day.
Let 'em go. A big striped is released	One of the great days in my marlin career. It could not have been achieved without a good deckie It was a better effort than '97 as these were all averaging around 80to 90 kg

We could have thrown five baits in and hooked up five, but that would have been too messy and busy …… two was still a challenge; these were all big fish and did not always head in the same direction. Many times we slewed Broadbill on its keel to change direction in order to chase the fish, one around the bow then one to the stern, it was a Captain's dream to back up on this sort of action. We fished like we were in a frenzy and within four hours had tagged 16 marlin, it still only three o'clock.

One of the boys asked, "Hey, Ross, isn't your previous best 18?" I replied, "Yeh!" He added, "Let's see if we can beat it." I agreed, knowing where they were coming from. We had the ocean to ourselves so there was virtually no-one else competing for the bait ball so it made it that much easier.

If there were other boats, the fish may have spooked, but on this day we just kept going back to the baitfish and just kept hooking them up …… the lads certainly were not virgins anymore and by 6.30 pm we released our 21st marlin for the day …… we were all exhausted, but the adrenaline rush and the wild fishing was keeping us fired up. When we caught the last fish they were still snapping. We backed the boat into the pen that night at 8.30 pm.

It was a tired team that night as we struggled down the ladder from the bridge, it was now 15 hours since we first set foot aboard that morning and that is an honest days work, but no pain no gain some fool once said. Rob and myself had to wake the anglers who had slept all the way home, quite understandably. Milestones were only made to be beaten, whether or not we will ever achieve such a feat again is debateable. We had fished the best marlin day of our career, a day when everything was right—the calm seas, the lack of opposition boats, and a schooled marlin population like we had never seen before.

In 2005 we had the stripes flying high at Pt Stephens all season	Some great shots of stripes . Check out the bait in this ones mouth.

I refer back to my days as a wet-behind-the-ears, lure-trolling, marlin fisho in the seventies …… when I longed for the day that we may be lucky enough to catch a multiple of marlin in a day. I had seen a boat that caught three in a day and just gazed in awe at the flags …… and dreamed that one day it may be my boat with that many flags on the rigger!

In the cockpit below, 35 years later, Rob's is putting 21 flags up the rigger. Putting it into perspective, I must admit that I was personally very proud: I consider that I have served most of my apprenticeship well over the years, I also needed the best crewman to help me achieve the result and in Rob I had that.

It's sort of funny how after all those years you tend to take things in your stride a bit more. We don't have to prove ourselves anymore; generally people know that Broadbill or Billfisher will never be too far from the action, we have achieved much along the way but we still go out and have runs of catching bugger all and that keeps our feet on the ground …… that's what fishing is all about.

Never get too high on the good times and never get to low with the bad times because there will always be good seasons and bad seasons it's all part of the intriguing world of marlin fishing
It's called, "The good times, the bad times 'n the goin' half mad times" Or in Marlin skippers terms "GOIN' FROM THE PENTHOUSE TO THE SHIT HOUSE"

Any way! back to the apprenticeship.

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