Our latest Trip Report to Marion Reef from the
22nd June-10th July is as follows:-
Summary - We finally landed one of the monster GTs that evaded us on the last trip to Marion Reef. The GT that we landed, however, was just an average sized one compared to the monsters that were busting us off in May. We estimated this one at around 55kgs, and based on the length and girth measurements this is a fair guess.
Either way, it is a big fish, but nowhere near as big as what we saw in May -
scary stuff. Apart from the big GT, the dogtooth fishing was a little slower with cooler water, but the GT fishing was excellent in the shallows. Big Coral trout were biting, and some massive wahoo were also on the chew.
Report - The first week was marred by very average weather, but despite this fact, the 2nd day of the trip saw our young guide, Liam Macdonald, land a GT
that was around 55kgs in some very shallow nasty water. Earlier that morning Tim Baker was taking Dax Soh for a fish just in front of the mothership due to the windy conditions. In only 3 hrs fishing within a few hundred metres of the mothership, Dax was connected to a 30kg GT which busted him off, and was then connected to an estimated 70kg GT which he got out of the reef and had under the boat about to lip gaff, when the treble hooks pulled out. Dax had done all the hard work, and was incredibly unlucky not to get a photo with what would have been his biggest GT ever.
After lunch that day, Dax asked Liam and myself to come and have a fish with him. I had rigged up a rod that we are testing as a prototype for a new range of Nomad Rods. This one was rigged with 130lb varivas, a Stella
10000FA and the prototype 8ft rod. This was the first time the rod had ever been near the water and after casting with it using a variety of stickbaits and poppers I was quite pleased. I decided to test the lighter rod for a few minutes and Dax and I both encouraged Liam to have a few casts with the heavy prototype rod. He would not have been casting for more than 2 minutes when there was a huge eruption behind his stickbait, and a sizeable GT came screaming over the reef flats to demolish the stickbait on the 3rd attempt.
Now, we were literally in 3 metres of water with seriously nasty coral everywhere, and Liam had his work cut out for him. I had the drag
absolutely cranked up on the Stella, probably over 20kgs of drag, and Liam was getting thrashed around the
forward cage of the dory like a pinball. Liam had to contend with both Tim and myself screaming instructions at him constantly, these were mostly related to him not going hard enough, as well as some timely comments about when to grab the spool - that
happened a lot.
After some very calm and impressive dory
maneuvering from Tim, we had what Tim and I thought to be a much smaller fish near the leader. We had lost too many fish in the last month, and we did not want this one to get away. As soon as the first part of leader came clear of the water, I was onto it, and eased a still green fish to the side of the boat. Tim quickly lip gaffed it while I tried to grab the tail, and Liam soon had his biggest ever GT into the boat.
Some might say it was
disappointing not to be the one to land that fish, but the 4 people on that dory who witnessed something truly remarkable that afternoon will never forget it. Just to see a GT of that size charging across the reef shallows was a sight to behold.
The rest of our first week involved some ugly weather, but some surprisingly good fishing despite the rainy and windy conditions. The beauty of Marion Reef is that even in some fairly ugly weather, you can still get into some real quality fish. There were plenty of 10kg++ coral trout landed, some 30kg+ dogtooth tuna as well as a few other solid 20kg+ GTs. The weather was so bad one day that we anchored the mothership on the outside of the reef and the guys were taking a break from a serious poker game
by going out the back deck and jigging up 10kg coral trout, green jobfish and small dogtooth tuna on soft plastics as a break.
Our second week at Marion was when the weather gods finally smiled on us. We were hosting the Middle Island
Fishing Club from Kalgoorlie. The guys had brought the sunshine with them from WA, and the wind was 5-10kn for most of the week, allowing us to roam around the reef and fish wherever we wanted.
Some of the highlights of this week would have to be Brendan's 250lb black marlin landed on a trolled minnow from Ed Lester's dory #4. It was Brendan's first ever marlin, and to land it on a spinning reel and a trolled minnow was a spectacular effort. The pics above tell the full story on this one, but it was a great effort.
Other highlights included numerous good sized dogtooth tuna. Young Matthew was the holder of the prize for the biggest dogtooth tuna for all of 1 minute on the last day before being pipped at the post by Mike Ivey with a good sized 30kg+ dogtooth. Jim Keogh landed a wahoo around the 45kg mark, but managed to prematurely release it before a photo, and we ended the week with a game of beach cricket on a beautiful sand cay near the mothership.
I must admit that in the final over of the
match, I managed to hit Steve Swallow, the MIFC
captain fair in the head with a full toss. I
must again apologise for this as I am sure Steve
will be using this accident as leverage for a
discount on next year's trip. The MIFC narrowly beat the Nomad crew, just for the record, but it went to the wire....
And I simply have to recount the story of Jim Williams, who is affectionately called
Weeds by his mates, because he runs a mine revegetation company. Jim was out fishing with me on a day where the doggies were very big and the drag settings just kept climbing to try and stop the fish getting into the reef. We'd been drifting over a spot with more sharks on it than anywhere I've seen in a long time, and we decided to leave this little spot and have a troll down to a bommie
a mile or so away.
