bertram31.com

I thought you here might enjoy this brief writeup by a Bertram 33 owner from Australia who singlehandedly was running his boat and landed a marlin.
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G'day,
I caught my first solo Marlin today bringing the boat home from Port Stephens on my own. I released a Striped Marlin between 50-60kg on 24kg, in 120m of water east of Newcastle.

I was running one teaser lure and a 50lb outfit from the rocket launcher, and I had my stand up harness and gloves on the bridge ready to roll.

Caught him on a Black Bart El Squid Snr in blue mackerel over pink.

I fought the fish from the bridge until I had the double up and then went down the ladder to leader the fish, get my lure back and cut him off.

It was an awesome feeling when I cut the leader and watched him swim away! I had done it! Solo Striped Marlin on 50lb, from the Flybridge of a 33 Bertram.

It was my first Striped Marlin, my first marlin as angler on 2CATS, and first solo Marlin.

It really capped off a great couple of weeks in Port Stephens.

I have watched the video 3 times now, and I think I will watch it at least once more tonight

Stoked!!

Cheers,
Myles

There is no better feeling than that.

Damn - that's the first marlin I ever heard caught off one of them tender ridin' 33s.

yo Fren'

UV

Myles posted this followup....
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Thanks everyone,
I was great fun to do it, as well as being a bit nervous not to stuff it up, but the feeling when I cut him off was the best I have ever had when fishing.

Basically it went like this, I missed the bite as I was watching the sounder, I had marked a fish about 3 minutes earlier but didn't get a bite, I heard the reel scream and turned around to see a little Striped Marlin jumping around, "yeeeeehaaaa GOTIMON!"
"damn, now I actually have to do this hahaha"

I quickly cleared the teaser lure and put my gimbal plate on and picked up the rod and pushed it up to strike drag, (only run 12lbs of drag when pulling lures on 50 and 80lb, it allows the fish to turn their head away when they pile on and I have found it has improve the hook up rate, also it makes the rod easier to get out of the holder)
I put the rest of the standup harness on and started back down after the fish, put my gloves on ready to leader it, and then went to about 22lbs of drag and chased hard.

Once the double was up,I went to sunset drag of 28lbs and went down the ladder to the cockpit to finish the job, once the double was on the rod, I pulled on that with my left hand while winding, and then did the same with the wind-on leader until the snap was at the rod tip, I was then able to grab the leader and take 2 wraps and pull him toward to boat and up along side.
I grabbed my lure and threw it up the leader and then got my release knife and cut the leader about a foot up from the hook.

Yahooooooo! I was punching the air!

I got some "ordinary" video of the whole fight. I don't have a go pro yet (wishing I did now!), so I had my normal video camera mounted on the bridge rail. You can see the initial jumps etc and some later in the fight, but the lense isn't wide enough to capture the cockpit for when I had the fish boat side and the release. When I work out how, I will put it on YouTube and post the link.

I am more than happy for youto share it Frank.

Chris, I went with the 50lb rather than 30lb as most of the fish we have been catching have been double the size of this little bloke, and I wanted to have a reasonable chance of catching the fish. I very nearly went with the 80lb hahaha but the 50 was about perfect.
Still smiling about it

Cheers,
Myles


"2CATS" 1979 Bertram 33 FBC Caterpillar 3208T
Empire Bay, Central Coast
New South Wales
Australia