Marlin and Tuna hunt 20.02.10

On the way home

it's rougher than it looks

several hours later "not so keen"

Dean first shift "keen as"

With Murray not available I thought I would give this contest a miss as we totally suck at catching Marlin and big Tuna, but I was offered a place on a friends boat.

Day one, we didn't go out as we all had to work

Day two, was cancelled due to a southerly front which bought rain, wind and a swell.

Day three, we gathered at the ramp at 5am and headed out in the dark , we only got 50 meters when the motor stalled, we found we had a fertilizer sack rapped around the prop so spent the next half hour cutting the sack away(thanks to those who throw rubbish in the sea). Finally we were off in the 8.5 meter White Pointer "Men At Work" the sea was still sloppy from yesterdays weather, we headed to the dog leg with the boat ploughing though the seas with ease. At Westpac we set our lures and started to troll, going through the dog leg we had a double strike and landed 1 out 2 Albacore tuna around the 13kg mark each. We then headed out to the Turahine rise, Rex our skipper set the auto pilot and settle in the cabin and went to sleep, we trolled for 3 hours I thought something was wrong, worked out where we were and we had gone passed the rise by 2 hours so we turned around and headed back to the rise and spent the next 5 hours trolling the rise we picked up another double strike of albacore about the same weight, the boat ahead of us "In the Red" caught and landed a 70kg Big Eye Tuna. By lunch time the sea breeze was in full mode 25 knots and the sea was getting ugly but the White Pointer was handling the conditions alright, even the crew where good, mid afternoon we started the long haul back, around Nolders we had another double strike and landed another 2 Albacore of around the same weight. We got back to the ramp at 7pm and weighed in our heaviest fish at 13.36kg.

Day four, again we headed out just after 5 am the sea conditions looked a lot better than yesterday, again we went to Westpac and set our lures, this time we headed north after an hour we had a strike which was much larger than before it turned out to be a Marco shark around 50kgs, not what we wanted an hour later another strike this time Dean landed a 20.38kg Albacore which ended up being the 3rd heaviest albacore for the tournament. Three hours later Rex landed a 8kg Albacore and it was time for lines out. That was the contest over for another year.

I was really impressed by the fuel consumption of the diesel engine, on the troll around 4 litres an hour and at 18 knots around 18 litres - puts petrol engines to shame as it would cost twice as much or more for Gazebo's 4 stroke to cover the same distance in those conditions.