Vava'u Tonga October 2019

Well, having attended the NZ Fishing News tournament in 2015 and 2017, plans were made for 3 of us to have another crack this year. Unfortunately my friend Steve developed a heart valve problem and had to call off 6 weeks before the trip, relistically a wise decision as he had trouble walking 200m.
So that left me and an old fishing buddy Eric to be part of a team of 4 put together by the travel agent.
Arrived after a long days waiting around airports  to settle in and for the briefing night.
Saturday was the first days fishing, and on our boat for 7-30





The boat our first day.

The start fishing was 8 am, so the boats slowly headed for the horizonb setting 5 lures for marlin, yellow fin tuna or anything else thats hungry.
Nothing happened untill just before 11 when the (shotgun" lure 100 m or so far back at the middle of the spread) dissapeared in a huge water explosion and a large fish tailwalked for a few seconds before dissapearing in the sea.
The Penn 50 wide was howling as line dissapeared, I sat in the chair, and pulled the rod from the holder, the crew pulled in the other lines, then just me a boat running foreward slowly and something big going the other way.
I will finish that day tomorrow, Rhod



Me in the chair with Eric "driving" the chair pointing the rod at the line, not the fish probably 3 to 400 meters away and the decky Folau waiting for the trace to appear, anything else touched and the fish is disqualified (IGFA rules)




The next 2 pictures above and below were taken 1 second apart, and show how marlin can "light up"





There were a few issues with a bit of water getting the fish in the boat



The last one speaks for itself

Wow some fish!

I didn't realise quite how dramatic the "lighting up" is

Fantastic! 

Awesome fish

The last thing I was given at the hospital was a cold from one of the nurses. Not bad but knocked me a bit.

To continue, Of course the marlin had to take the lure set at the back of the spread of 5 lures, which was meant for yellowfin tuna, and of course was the only 24kg rod, the rest all 36 kg. so we could not be too hard on it, with only about a third of the line left on the reel we had to loosen the drag as the pull to take line off a reduced spool could break the line. with a bit of reversing and hard winding, a fair bit of line was recovered and after 55 minutes the trace was held by the deck hand and the fish pulled to the side of the boat and secured with a big gaff on the end of a rope.
For some reason the skipper opened a hatch on the stern of the boat before the fish was lined up with a rope around the bill, with 5 people at that corner of the boat, every wave gushed in through the hatch and we soon had 6 inches of water sloshing around. they had to tie the fish off and move forward to empty the water, then stop, realign the bill then open the hatch and everyone helped pull it on to the deck, move foreward to get rid of more water that came in with the fish, close the hatch and time for high fives and hand shakes all round. My first marlin and was estimated at around 160 kg. Later on the skipper looked down from the flying bridge and said thats one fat fish, so the estimate was upped but not as far as the 218kg it was.
Lures back in the water and everyone looking for birds and work ups. Mid afternoon and out of nowhere the same lure was taken by something unseen, Petes turn in the chair and after a typical marlin fight keeping near the surface all the time a surprise 52kg yellow fin tuna was boated.
back at the resort some keen young men were called to pull the fish from the boat and float them to the scales.
Day 2 to come.

Excellent report and what a fish

Wow what a fish

Beat's catching pin whiting

That,s a super size fish Rhod well done.