Story by Johanna Keyzer
Ever since the old boy hooked a marlin accidentally while out trolling for skippies (with a 6/0 Penn - and landed it with his 73-year-old mate) he has quietly beavered away at achieving a repeat performance ... part of which beavering involved seven years of ear-chewing to finally get the go-ahead on a 6.1m Surtees Barcrusher. I know – they were my ears!
There had been a lot of planning, reading multitudes of mags and perusing the internet (Fishnet has a lot to answer for!) The plan also included up-grading from the good old Penn reels that we used for hapuka to two beautiful shiny gold Shimano Tiagra 50 reels, complete with lovely custom-built fully-rollered game rods from Rodworks.
I had gone along with the hunter-gatherer scenario, quietly keeping tuned-in on the finances – and just how much equipment was being gathered for his hobby. So it came as a somewhat startling revelation when the old boy told me that it was going to be me playing the fish! Eh???
“Well, someone has to drive the boat – that’s the really skilled part of the game.”
Is that so? You could have fooled me.
It certainly hadn’t looked like that on all those fancy Matt Watson etc videos I’d been made to watch - all the driver does is back up on the fish and then all the pretty boys with bulging muscles (it wasn’t too hard to watch those bits) bring the fish in. Right?
Anyway, our first season with the fancy gear involved live-baiting around Astrolabe Reef. It really is quite neat to go out, catch some kahawai on soft baits, and then rig them up as volunteers to try and catch marlin for us.
We had one awesome take as we were drifting around a school of kahawai about 1km inside Astrolabe. The water was so clear that we could actually see a marlin, all brilliantly lit-up, come cruising up and check out both volunteers – he chose the less-healthy specimen and then it was all on! He took off behind the boat, porpoising out of the water and making a large semi-circle, then charged off in the direction of Mayor with us chasing him past a myriad of boats sitting on Astrolabe.
Meanwhile, I had been put into the stand-up gear and told to wind – which I did. It wasn’t that hard really. I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about when you watch these guys on telly, cranking and sweating away. It wasn’t hard until about 45 minutes later when the old boy asked how far I’d cranked up the drag – and I told him that I had changed NOTHING. Well, it got a bit harder after that!
Eventually we caught up with the fish – we were heading in the general direction of Chile by this time. What a beauty! He was stuffed. Just quietly moving along as I gently wound him up to the boat. The old boy took the leader and as he slowly brought him in closer – the leader broke! What the….?
The fish didn’t actually swim away for a good 20 or 30 seconds. We just watched, as he slowly made his way down the water column before broaching and shaking his head above water – and then he was gone. On examining the wind-on leader, the old boy concluded that the fish may have been beating his tail against it while we were following him, as where the nylon was broken it was all clouded up and stretched thin about 3m back from the hook.
Part of me was really pleased that the fish had got away, but the other part was pissed that we had lost it so close. Yep, I got hooked!
The following two seasons didn’t produce any marlin action, but we got in some good practice on sharks – mainly makos and blues. And I learnt about using the drag lever …
The 2010 season was notable in that we made some serious changes. The old boy had been on a Peter Pakula training session, so was fizzing with new ideas. We also decided that when the weather was right, we would go – and make the jobs fit around the fishing.
Initially we practiced with albies and skippies, but it all came together early February at Astrolabe. We had been trolling around Astrolabe, then Schooner and Motiti, with a notable lack of action, before coming back to Astrolabe in the mid-afternoon. It didn’t look too exciting, but as we came closer we picked up an albie and some kahawai on the lures, and sent a couple back out as volunteers. Unfortunately a few were lost in action due to sharks, but we also had a massive kingie come by and make enquiries.
While all this was going on, the kahawai suddenly started to rise. Instantly there were simply acres of kahawai rustling up the water. Brilliant. 15 minutes later there was a sudden twang! as rubber ruptured out of an outrigger. Bodies sprang into alert mode and then the reel started whizzing. A black body leapt out of the water, and again. Yes, there was a beak attached. We’re on, baby!
Cabin girl leaped into action and grabbed the rod, fumbling it into the stand-up chastity belt. Instructions were rattled out by the old boy. Line was retrieved and tightened after the leaping, then disappeared off the reel with that thrilling high-pitched pinging sound that makes your blood race. Meanwhile the other livie was being retrieved and popped back in his tuna tube, before we put the motor in gear and started chasing after our client. Luckily we were heading away from the reef and other boats – in the direction of Chile, again.
It was beautifully calm, with a refreshing light breeze rippling up the incredibly sky-blue water. Awesome. We played “come hither, go thither” a few times, but after an hour-and-a-half we finally had our customer at the boat. The old boy leadered him and got a good grip on his beak. I was quivering like a new-born lamb when the instruction came through to put the rod in the holder, grab the gaff and whack it into the fish’s shoulder. Done. Now grab hold of the rope and pull on the count of three. Well, we got the head and shoulders up onto the gunwale, but we were not quite there yet.
More instructions: grab the second gaff and whack it in near the tail-end. Done. Now pull! Jeez…! I was pooped! I pulled, but I don’t think I was that effective. (The old boy told me later that once he had grabbed the marlin by the bill, the hook fell out – so there was no way he was letting go of it!) Somehow he managed to dredge up a bit of extra reserve, inched that marlin forward and finally got to the balance point where it slithered on board. Thank goodness! What a relief.
I was drenched in sweat; my arms ached and my thighs were red and swollen. They retained the imprint from the harness padding for the next hour (about a week later, the skin peeled!). But hey, I had just caught my first marlin!! 133kg striped marlin on 24kg stand-up gear. Excellent! Marlin was tucked up inside his insulated sleeping bag with a sack of salt ice spread over him. After weighing he was taken home and carved up the following morning, with half taken for smoking, the rest eaten fresh and frozen. Delicious! The cabin girl was well and truly hooked!
The old boy and I went on to catch another 3 marlin that season by ourselves, all of which we tagged and released. Even I got to have a go at harpooning a marlin with a tag – our last fish was a biggie and was deemed to be too feisty for me to hang onto the leader. Watching those fish gently swim away after being released is truly awesome ... euphoric.
We have picked up a little Sony videotape camera to see if we could capture some interesting video footage too. With just two of us on board, we soon discovered that a little tripod and bungee cord work wonders for recording the action. A headcam also ended up on the old boy’s ‘must-have’ list – and was worth it. Videos of our marlin expeditions have been posted on YouTube: simply search for Ruffasgutz channel to view.
