A FEW BILLY’S to take the edge off

Its 2017, I'm chasing a land based billfish & I know the best place to tick this off is Dirk Hartog island. I've booked back to back trips to make it happen, returning home from my previous trip at Quion head, I've come home with nothing but a fishing tale of loosing a black marlin at the cliff's edge. This made me hungry, real hungry! In June we return to dirk Hartog island, this time locating at the block.

General June weather

By June the easterlies have well and truly kicked in, so you generally get that winter weather pattern where the wind starts as a south east for a day or two then to east for again a day or two before it finally gets to a north east (and you hope the NNE doesn't last too long) water temps are normally around 21-24 tops. The disadvantage of this time of year is that winter fronts are regular and these bring horrible North or West winds and big swells.

Weather we got dealt

With 14 days booked at the block we had the days up our sleeve to be able to ride out a few bad weather spells, for the first 8 days we were blessed with east winds, cobalt blue waters and fish stacked up, day 9 saw a front come in with westerly winds & a bigger swell (thinking we would get a day off ? but that didn't happen, more on that later) After 2 days of bad, the weather went back to text book winter low swells & east wind.

Stacked FISH

When I said fish were stacked, I meant like stacked stacked !

A 26 on a glamour winters day

I truly believe this was one of the best years the west coast experienced for land based game fishing with waters up and down the coast loaded with fish, From day 1 of the trip big fish were hitting the ledge with gas ballooning getting the numbers over spinning, The fish were in numbers but they were also in size, over the 14 days we bring 7 fish over the 50lb mark onto the ledge. Like usual we split the crew up, half the crew stay at the block and the other half move to the aquarium, this allows us to cover more ground to find out which ledge is working best and also allows us to fish more baits in the water spread out.

The need of a billy

With rexy getting a sailfish ledge side at steep point on a trip earlier in the year & my self just recently loosing a black marlin so close to the gaff, this trip the pressure was on to seal the deal & tick off a land based billfish

Rex Hunt ticking off the sailfish from steep point

What I learnt from hooking a sailfish

It was a classic winters morning at the aquarium, low swell, cold air temp with a pumping straight easterly wind, we had a crew of 3, I skipped a gar on a wide drift whilst the other two lads spun some chrome. Bite 1 of the day just before high tide a beautiful sailfish puts on a dance show for us free of charge. I fight the fish on a medium to heavy drag setting (the best I knew at the time), it stays on the top for only a few minutes before diving deep (most likely because of the heavy drag) in hindsight knowing what i now know about billfish i would have backed the drag off slightly once i knew the hooks were set, this assists in keeping the fish up high as they will normally sit and try to shake the hooks rather than dive deep if a light drag is set, il explain the problem with the deep dive.

With the fish sitting deep in the water column as we come to the end of the fight with the given line angle its almost imposible to bring the fish back to the surface, so the sail actually ended up dieing, the only option for me was to sit in freespool & hope the fish would float out. Luckily it was a low swell day as this wouldnt be an option in high swell, some things are meant to be and few minutes of freespool & a sailfish floats up enough for me to put the reel back into gear and wind the fish to the gaffman, next step was a busted pole gaff bringing a sailfish onto the ledge. The job was complete.

The hard work pays off // a dirk hartog island sailfish

Pumped for a day off

After 8 days of off tap fishing, early mornings chasing east winds & late nights celebrating epic captures a westerly onshore wind with a bigger swell just shy of 3 metres was forecast & we all thought we mite just get a much needed sleep in and a lay day...WRONG

The fishing for the past few days had been quiet on the spin, with most fish falling victim to the gas, however this morning all it took was one bloke (rex) to take a quick trip down to the spin ledge at the block to realise it was ON

Getting everyone out of bed for an all out spin a thon, this was the day we had been looking for, big fish on spin, it doesnt get any better!

note the rough dirty water in the background -  Sokhom Chhouk getting the job done with a surecatch knight

What we learnt

What came out of this day was the re-assurance of big feeding fish that move in a little closer to the cliff line when the seas become bigger & the water becomes a little dirty, just like offshore marlin fishing, big fish love rough dirty water as it helps them hide and make it easier to ambush prey. A lot of times with nice clean water the fish are sitting out of range with spin gear, so next time your on the ledge and the wind goes onshore or the water doesnt look as clean as youd hoped, dont write the day off, have a spin, the fish may have just moved in with that change.

Rex Hunt with the fish that got us all out of bed