Last weekend we headed out wide of the continental shelf in my six metre plate aluminium boat. It had been the worst fishing season in over 20 years when it came to the weather, with floods, strong winds and never ending rain. This has been the same story for the entire East Coast of Australia. This particular day was one of those rare jewels on the predictive weather app, and after a disrupted start due to Covid, we headed out the Gold Coast Seaway on a calm dirty ocean. The blue water was out well beyond the horizon, in fact we had trolled for an hour in very borderline water until we hit a depth of 540 metres and the current finally changed into that inspirational deep purple water that all game fishermen crave. The water temperature also increased to nearly 27 degrees and our confidence level climbed.
It had been a while since Gemma 3 had caught a blue marlin. Prior to getting a double hip replacement in November I’d spent a year in considerable pain with restricted movement and was beginning to think my offshore fishing days were behind me. But thanks to surgery my pain is gone and I’m back in the seat! On
