Big miss points to tropical fish run

I don't usually like to write anything about a fish that is not landed, or at the least sighted, but I found this story quite remarkable.

Grant Gardner has spent a fair amount of time in the past 10 years working as a deckhand on charter boats throughout the State. He's done most things, from targeting reef fish at the Abrolhos Islands to chasing sailfish off Broome.

Originally from Margaret River, he now spends most of his time in Perth and when he is not working at Bluewater Tackle World, in Melville, he is giving charter boat operators a hand.

Two weekends ago, he got a call to lend a hand on a particular charter boat he works on from time to time.

The plan for the day was to hook onto some Samson fish at The Barges, west of Rottnest, but when none of the fish picked up by the sounder showed interest, Grant suggested they try for some bluefin tuna. Four small skirted lures went overboard and the clients had fun catching bluefin to around 1kg and striped tuna to no bigger than 2.5kg.

As he was looking through his bag of skirted lures, Grant found a big pusher that he bought a few years ago but had never touched the water.

He attached the lure to a 24kg outfit and placed it among the spread.

Interested in how the lure swims, he climbed up to the bridge and had a look, but his sight of swimming lure was blocked by an inflatable boat, so he returned to the deck.

Just as a client was asking what he'd expect to catch, the ratchet of the International 50 started screaming, the rod buckled over and the line veered from port to starboard.

He saw a big splash, but as Grant got to the reel, he realised there was no weight at the end of the line. He gave the reel a couple of big cranks to entice the big predator to have a second try, but it was nowhere to be seen.

The few that Grant has told this story to believe the fish may have been a marlin, despite the water temperature being just a touch over 20C. The other guesses included big eye tuna.

The markings left on the lure were inconsistent with either, but lure markings can be inconclusive at the best of times.

The fish struck in 240m of water at the edge of the Rottnest Trench and the screens in the wheelhouse indicated there was plenty of phytoplankton and baitfish in the area.

Marlin have rarely been seen off Rottnest in the past four years, but some observers are predicting a warmer Leeuwin Current this season, which usually means a rise in the number of tropical species in the area.

Blue marlin are mostly caught around the Rottnest Trench and they have generally been good fish over 150kg. In saying that, the odd black and striped marlin have also been encountered at this spot and even closer towards the island.

In recent years, the best metropolitan marlin run was in the summer of 1999-2000 when dozens, of mostly blues, were landed at the Trench. During this time, the Leeuwin Current was at its strongest.

Hopefully, the forecast is correct and we will see good numbers of tropical fish along the Exmouth to Albany coast.

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