Some time ago, Bite Me Gamefishing was contacted by Peter Mumford, a regular Australian East coast black marlin fisherman who was looking for the chance to explore new waters in search of his favourite species, the black marlin. Peter had landed a number of huge fish (including granders) on the world famous black marlin fishing grounds of Queensland Australia and was looking to find a new fishery.
Aboard Bite Me, we occasionally head well offshore and successfully target Blue Marlin on 80lb class bent butt chair tackle but looking for a grander black along Kadavu island's Great Astrolabe Barrier reef was going to be a whole new experience for us.
We know the big Blacks are here, I have personally seen a black in excess of 16ft swim right under the inshore game boat and resort divers have returned with stories of huge marlin herding them up against the reef...and photos to prove it.
One of my colleagues skippering the charterboat Wai Tadra tagged a black on the Kadavu seamount estimated by BlueWater magazine editor David Granville at 950lbs.
There is no doubt that large Black Marlin cruise the Astrolabe Reef but targeting and catching one was another matter. Peter's quest gave us the perfect opportunity to give it a serious try.
I have seen and fought many blue marlin but this was my first black and the differences were amazing. Blues eat hard and fast then pick a direction and go go go with no intention of ever stopping. If you do manage to stop one, they then often sound on you and it can turn into a slug-fest. Blacks are totally different and this fish fought like a typical black. It charged around, mostly on or just under the surface with no clear battle plan and put on a spectaculor show for the photographers. As acrobatic as a Pacific Sailfish and as strong as an angry bull she typified why so many anglers spend yearafter year fishing for black marlin. What an amazing fish.
It took us one hour and ten minutes to bring the leader to hand. We had her in close fairly quickly but she was so green and therefore a serious danger to the crew, that we eased off and took our time. At 320lbs she smashed the existing M-130 Fiji National Record and Peter decided to weigh the fish. The first ever documented Kadavu Great Astrolabe Reef black that I know of tipped the scales just shy of 320lbs. Hardly a grander but what a start !
Source : articlesbase
No comments:
Post a Comment