Incredible Battle to Catch Marlin
Editor Tim Simpson reminisces about a significant event drawing incredible resilience and determination from his then 8-year-old daughter, Holly.
It’s a special occasion when your kids are born, and for a fisherman there’s the bonus of a new fishing buddy to share the wonders of nature and the various challenges that the pursuit of fish can throw at you. My daughter Holly is now a grown woman, but during her childhood we lived on Sydney’s northern beaches and spent many memorable days on the water.
Starting when she was three years old, I would pack a bag full of ‘treats’, a bucket, a pack of fresh prawns, a net and two outfits rigged with small quill floats, then Holly and I would head down to the rock walls surrounding Sydney Harbour at Cremorne Point. There, sitting on the edge of the public park, perched on our rock wall beside the ferry wharf, we enjoyed a commanding view of the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, and a swarm of hungry leatherjackets breezing through the shallow weed bed in front of us.
As soon as Holly’s float plopped down in front of her, the leatherjackets attacked. It was really fun fishing. The thrill of watching the float zip beneath the surface, then the determined tussle through the tall strands of weed on the way to the net are memories we still treasure.
The only chance I got to fish was during one of Holly’s regular visits to the bag of treats, which helped maintain her enthusiasm through any temporary lulls in the leatherjackets’ assault. My token catches were equally important as it gave Holly a very credible opportunity to tell mum and everyone else that although we had both been fishing, she had caught a bucket-full while dad could only catch three!
Big Time in Queensland
In 2001 we moved to the Queensland Gold Coast, which provided more opportunities to take Holly fishing and enjoy our father/daughter bonding. She was my regular partner on crabbing excursions and became very skilled at extracting angry blue swimmers from our ‘witches hat’ snares.
Soon after our move, we joined our good friend Barry Bailey and his family for a camping trip to the top of Fraser Island aboard his 26 foot Boston Whaler centre-console. While reef fishing out past the Breaksea Spit on the first day, a frisky hammerhead shark came sniffing around the boat, sending Holly into an instant frenzy. At first I thought she was frightened, but it soon became clear that she was absolutely bursting to catch it! She had never discussed it before, but it seems she has inherited a good portion of her father’s passion for catching ‘big’ critters. Sadly, the shark disappeared and the next day the weather fell apart.
Wind howled at up to 35 knots, making the shallow waters of Hervey Bay almost frightening. However, sitting at our sodden camp in Wathumba Creek was sending us stir-crazy, so we set out for some fresh air in the boat.
At a slow cruise, the Whaler carved through short wind-waves even several metres high, but we still found ourselves airborne on many occasions. Holly clung to the front of the console, dressed in a wet-weather suit over her lifejacket, getting drenched. I was naturally concerned for her safety and comfort so checked on her often. It was an anxious moment when I found her head bowed beneath her rain hood, her eyes closed and a concentrated expression on her face. But my alarm soon switched to amazement when she calmly explained that she was praying for it to get rougher! “This is SO much fun,” she said with a huge grin. After that I didn’t worry about whether she would handle a serious fishing trip out on the ocean. She was ready!
Holly's High Ambition
Shortly after Christmas 2002, my then 8-year-old daughter stunned me with the declaration: “I’d like to catch a marlin, Dad”. This was the first time Holly had even hinted at this, but she seemed serious.
I never squash her enthusiasm or goals, but I have seen the result of new anglers starting their angling achievements at the top of the tree. After missing all the qualifying steps along the way, it is all too common for them to quit the sport with the attitude of, ‘Well, I’ve done that’. I really didn’t want Holly to catch a marlin before she had learned to appreciate what a special occasion it is. Perhaps she should wait a decade or so, like most of us.
But Holly didn’t let up, so Barry and I arranged a day to chase billfish off the Gold Coast in mid-January. The usual summer run of juvenile black marlin had arrived, so I had a quiet confidence that we would see some action.
In preparation, I coached Holly on how to use game fishing tackle, and guided her through the regulations of the sport. We spent an afternoon in the garden pumping and winding, using a lever drag and bracing in a fighting stance. She did such a surprisingly good job that I really thought she could pull it off.
Only a few months before, I’d made a terrible mistake while down at Yamba fishing for mulloway at the mouth of the river with live herring. Holly caught two substantial jewies on a 6kg tackle. Our sportfishing club made a big fuss and congratulated her on the catch, but she was more than a little disappointed when I told her that she couldn’t claim them for a record or trophy because I had helped her with the rod. She was determined never to let that happen again!
The Big Day Arrives
Barry, Holly and I set out over the early dawn glass to a ground 17 miles off the Gold Coast with the unlikely name of ‘Spot X’, a popular reef in late summer when it holds schools of baitfish and juvenile black marlin, which typically range from 20 to 60kg.
I set the flat-line lures on 6kg and 8kg tackle – a strength that Holly would be able to really work, and be capable of hauling from the rod holder with a fish hooked-up. The outriggers were set with larger lures on 15kg tackle, which Barry would take if one of them went off. As always, it was a gamble that the right sized fish would take the right sized tackle.
An hour went by and then we had a double strike. Line sizzled off both the light outfits. Holly and Barry picked them up and went to work. “Wow, these things REALLY pull!” said Holly as she battled what would be her first tuna. I smiled to myself. At least she can’t start with a marlin now, I thought. But then, thinking further, I realised that no one lands their first marlin strike anyway – do they? After all, these things are experts at somehow getting away, even for anglers that have caught a hundred and think they know it all. Beginners are supposed to lose the first dozen at least!
Another hour went by while we watched the flying fish skitter about, before the 8kg outfit in the corner folded over in a firm but non-violent strike. As Holly raced over and struggled to heave the bent rod from its holder, I peered back and scanned the wake. Sure enough, there was a stick doing its ‘windscreen wiper’ thing on the surface. I knew what lay beneath.
“It’s a marlin!” I cried, as I raced over to help Holly clip into her harness before clearing the other rods. The marlin sat still for several seconds, confused about what it had just eaten, but soon cranked-up the afterburner for the first of many searing runs.
Barry has spent many years at sea as a yacht captain, pro-fisherman, and then leader in the boating industry, but strategically positioning the boat to fight a very active and manoeuvrable fish was at that stage something new to him. The fact that the once calm ocean was now whipped up by a freshening breeze made my requests seem all the more difficult.
Special Forces
All marlin are special, but some fight much tougher than others. And then, once in a blue-moon, you connect with an elite fish so strong, so tenacious, that it makes all the others seem like play-school assignments. Holly had hooked one of those.
Her fish soon got into the swing of what was at hand. Its jumps were inspirational: long greyhounding bounds involving dozens of leaps at blistering speed. Line poured into the ocean as the fish careered open-mouthed through the air in a frenzy of flared-gill thrashing, with torn-water spray thrown in all directions.
It was an amazing display, but my heart skipped a beat each time the fish came out, and the knot forming in the pit of my stomach tightened just a little more. Would the hook hold for her? Holly, of course, hadn’t even considered this. She had no idea how hard it was to set a hook securely in the bony mouth of a marlin, or that it’s even harder on a lure-hooked fish – especially with the minimal force of light tackle. But while her dad was holding his breath, Holly was having a ball.
Barry kept pace with the fish as fast as Holly was comfortable to wind. With cool determination, she fought the fish at a steady pace, learning a rhythm and a feel for it all. Holly leaned back against the harness with knees bent, the reel snuggled up tight and close to her stomach while the broad, padded gimbal pad sat low on her wide-spaced thighs. She pumped by rocking, cranking the line with a surprisingly consistent stamina. “This is really fun, Dad,” she beamed after half-an-hour.
We came close to getting the fish then, but the marlin was more manoeuvrable than us, and at a crucial stage it ducked around to the immediate downwind side of the boat. By now the breeze had developed into a choppy 15 knots and was building all the time. Not wanting the boat to drift over the line and fish during the critical endgame, and because we needed Barry to trace the fish, he repositioned, and we lost our chance in the process.
The fish went deep.
A battle of Willpower
An hour later, Holly was struggling. The marlin had given us very few opportunities to get close; the 4.5-metre leader was still an agonising few metres too deep to reach. It wouldn’t budge. We repositioned, drove away and worked the angles to find one that affected and lifted the fish … but it didn’t want to play. Each time we closed the gap it would glide down to six metres and taunt us with its closeness. It was demoralising, and Holly was feeling the strain.
Ninety minutes after hook-up, Holly turned to me and in a quiet, troubled voice said, “This hurts, Dad. I don’t think I can do it any more.” I tried to console her and said that it didn’t matter, that she could have another try on another day. To this she replied, “Okay, but I’ll keep going – just a bit more.”
I had shown her how to operate the reel’s two-speed gears, and now she frequently changed between high and low ratio as the fight dictated. Rather than rest when the fish dogged it down deep, she clicked down to low gear and kept cranking the line on, centimetre by centimetre. I could only look on with great respect, love and admiration for my rapidly maturing little girl.
Another half-hour and she was nearly dead on her feet. I urged her to break it off, or let one of us catch it for her. “But that would disqualify it, wouldn’t it?” she came back with. “Sure,” I said. “Then I’ll keep trying … just a little bit longer,” she replied. With that, my heart nearly burst. I couldn’t bear to see my little girl hurting, but I had to admire the inner strength she somehow conjured up to continue the battle.
As a last-ditch effort, Holly slid the drag lever all the way up to ‘Sunset’, and the 4kg of drag at the reel was almost more than her little body was capable of withstanding. But it was ‘do or die’ now. She either had to catch it quickly or the fish would win.
Battling Beyond Pain
The new increase in pressure had a strong effect on the marlin. With some great boat driving and a solid effort from Holly, the fish was close and high in the water.
After two hours and 20 minutes, the top of the leader cut the surface. Still a few metres away but clearly within sight, a beautiful and visibly tired black marlin coasted down a swell. Barry backed us closer while Holly cranked the last few metres of line onto her drum-tight spool.
And then, in the final seconds, something happened that I had tried so hard to avoid. As the boat drew near, the fish surfed down a swell and ducked around the twin outboards to the downwind side of the boat. I was not at all keen to enter the endgame with a driverless boat and the fish on the wrong side of the wind, but with Holly near exhaustion and against the alternative of having to set it up all over again, I stretched for the leader and took a wrap.
We are avid supporters of Tag & Release but feel strongly in the need for balance. I offered Holly the options of releasing her fish or hauling it aboard, and without hesitation she decided to keep it. It was a decision I respect and heartily embrace. After all, even though they are magnificent they are nonetheless a fish, and in our part of the world a reasonably prolific one at that. Too often, an angler who only releases fish misses the chance to marvel at their beauty and physique. On the other hand, those who develop a deep understanding and appreciation for a creature are far more likely to develop a bond and want to preserve them at a later stage. I was happy for Holly to study her marlin up close. It would not be wasted.
The Endgame From Hell
Barry had donned a pair of tracing gloves. Once I had the top of the leader, he left the helm to take the heavy mono from me so that I could pick up the flying gaff and secure the fish. But as he took his first wrap on the leader, the whole operation went horribly wrong.
The marlin darted forward and began a series of tailwalking jumps that took it further down the side of the hull. The boat was rapidly drifting down over the fish and leader, which only compounded the situation. Barry was dragged down the side of the gunwale, trying to keep up with the marlin and hoping to not strain the little hook so much that it pulled out. Back in the cockpit, Holly was nearly pulled off her feet, still with maximum drag on the reel.
A split-second later the line broke between the rod tip and Barry’s hand. I yelled to him, urging him to hang on if he could. In the same instant, Barry was doing his best to follow the fish while leaning out to keep the leader from rubbing on the hull as the marlin jumped around our bow. Next second … SPLASH. Barry was in the water!
Within moments, Barry was out behind the boat, and we were drifting farther away with every second. He struggled in an awkward attempt to swim. I stared in disbelief. “Have you still got the fish?,” I screamed. “Ye… (gurgle), Yes,” he gasped as he strained to keep his head above water long enough to take a breath.
Holly slumped at the rear of the cockpit, a shattered look across her face. I considered backing the boat up, but the thought of two big props bearing down on someone in a sloppy sea was not a comforting thought. Seconds later, Barry appeared to be making headway. I grabbed the gaff pole and climbed onto the tip of the outboard platform. With the pole extended at full reach, he was now only five metres away. Beneath him was the dim outline of a big fish.
Barry unleashed an Olympic performance and, with one arm, powered the remaining distance to the outstretched pole. His straining fingers clamped hold and I hauled him into the transom. He then reached up with his other hand and transferred the leader to me while he clambered aboard. I took a triple wrap and then once he was aboard I passed the leader back to him, so I could reassemble the flyer and gaff the fish. It was almost ours!
The marlin lunged again, but this time I had it. I held fast to the gaff rope while Barry reached out to secure the flailing bill. Somehow he’d lost one of his gloves, but there was no way he was going to let go until the fish was safely inside the boat. By then he had lost a lot of skin off the inside of his hand.
We all slumped to the deck in a state of exhaustion and relief. No one spoke for several moments … and then the silence shattered as we all broke into laughter and cheers of exhilaration.
Barry’s hand was bandaged up, but the phone and sunnies he lost when he went over the side were a little harder to fix. By now we were a long way offshore, with a rough sea to punch all the way home. We didn’t care at all.
The fish on our deck would inspire kids from all around the neighbourhood, and would feed five families and two of Holly’s teachers. Most important of all, the memories and the feelings it induced were priceless!
It had been a taxing day for all of us, but Holly had caught her marlin.