Extreme Fishing Charters Bermagui

[Carlito Roby]

Thegame fish mix starts to see more Yellowfin and Albacore Tuna and fewer Marlin. Kingfish, Snapper, and Mako Sharks are making their way onto boats. On land, the Bermagui Seaside Fair is keeping everyone entertained.

While sportfishing boats are focusing on Tuna, local anglers and Bermagui reef fishing charters report successful catches of Snapper, Grouper, and Black Drummer. Bass, Bream, and Perch are being caught in the estuary.

As the waters warm up, the fish start to get more lively. This makes for fun fishing for Yellowtail Kingfish with stick baits and spinning rods. Yellowtail and Albacore Tuna, and even the first Marlin, may start to show up.

Things are starting to get really fun. Yellowtail and Albacore are reliable catches over the continental shelf, while Swordfish, Wahoo, Marlin, Mahi Mahi, Cobia, and Sharks are all beginning to make an appearance.

Summer sportfishing is beginning to settle into its rhythm by December. Big game fishing is getting better by the day, while Kingfish is chasing bait all over the reefs and Dusky Flathead are filling Eskys inshore.

The average kingie is usually about 5kg in weight, with fish around the 10kg mark considered crackers. Fish of this size can be a real handful but they grow a lot bigger, and my home waters on the Far South Coast of NSW can provide top class fishing for trophy kingfish to 30kg.

The S. lalandi variant is the fish Aussie and Kiwi anglers encounter. The species inhabits the temperate waters from the mid-coast of WA, around to SA, down through to the northern waters of Tasmania and up along the east coast through NSW to south-east Queensland.

If bait is in abundance, a school of kingfish will hold and feed in water as cold as 16 degrees Celsius. You will usually find the larger fish in cooler water, so the first few kings that hit the cleaning tables during October/November are typically large.

Vertical jigging with small metal jigs and large soft plastics is a good option for this time of year, too. As the water temperature decreases heading into the months of May and June, the Sapphire Coast will hold some truly big green and gold torpedos.

Other spots to try around Montague are the western side, known as the Fowl House Reef, and Aughinish Rocks, which is a seamount situated just south of the island itself. Aughinish Rocks has a big-fish reputation, with some serious hoodlums patrolling the fringes of this reef system.

The home waters of Bermagui itself will play host to large kingfish, with respectable fish residing in Horseshoe Bay from time to time. It was only a few seasons ago when a mob of hoodlums raided this bay for three weeks straight, with most fish weighing over 25kg!

To the north, Tura Head will hold good fish numbers and sustains a great land based fishery when the warmer water pushes into the point. Hunter Reef to the south hosts some brutes which can be unstoppable at times.

Care should be taken when planning a run this far south from Eden, as prevailing nor-east winds in the summer months can make it a long and dangerous trek back up the coast. There is a safe anchorage within Bitangabee Bay (just north of Green Cape) should you get into strife.

Wonboyn Lake to the south of Green Cape offers alternative boat launching facilities; however, the entrance to Wonboyn Lake is very shallow, and can be quite dangerous to navigate. The entrance to Wonboyn Lake regularly closes, making it an unreliable launching option.

Pulpit Rock on the north side would have to be one of most famous LBG ledges in NSW, probably only playing second fiddle to the Tubes at Jervis Bay. City Rock on the south provides an alternative, if prevailing weather produces unsavoury conditions on the north facing ledges.

BE sure to call the contacts below prior to planning a trip to the Sapphire Coast so you get all the local info about accommodation, restaurants, fishing charters and to find out where the kingfish are biting.

Marlin fishing or billfishing is offshore saltwater game fishing targeting several species of fast-swimming pelagic predatory fish with elongated rostrum collectively known as billfish, which include those from the families Istiophoridae (marlin, spearfish and sailfish) and Xiphiidae (swordfish). It is considered by some fishermen to be a pinnacle of big-game fishing, due to the size, speed and power of the billfish and their relative elusiveness.

Of all the billfish species, 10 of them are of the most interest to blue water anglers: Atlantic and Pacific blue marlin, black marlin, white marlin, striped marlin, Atlantic sailfish, Indo-Pacific sailfish, longbill spearfish, shortbill spearfish and the swordfish.

Fishing for marlin captured the imagination of some sport fishermen in the 1930s, when well-known angler/authors Zane Grey, who fished for black, striped and blue marlin in the Pacific, and Ernest Hemingway, who fished the Florida Keys, Bahamas and Cuba for Atlantic blue marlin and white marlin, wrote extensively about their pursuit and enthused about the sporting qualities of their quarry. These days, a lot of resources are committed to the construction of private and charter billfishing boats to participate in the billfishing tournament circuit. These are expensive purpose-built offshore vessels with powerfully driven deep sea hulls. They are often built to luxury standards and equipped with many technologies to ease the life of the deep sea recreational fisherman, including outriggers, flying bridges and fighting chairs, and state of the art fishfinders and navigation electronics.[1]

The blue marlin of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are more widely pursued by sport fishermen than any other marlin species. Their wide distribution in tropical oceanic waters and seasonally into temperate zones makes them available to many anglers, and their potential to reach great sizes and spectacular fighting ability makes them a highly desired catch to some anglers.[citation needed]

Blue marlin are one of the world's largest bony fish and although adult males seldom exceed 330 pounds (150 kg), females may reach far larger sizes well in excess of 1,000 pounds (450 kg). A Pacific blue weighing 1,805 pounds (819 kg) caught in 1970 by a party of anglers fishing out of Oahu, Hawaii, aboard the charter boat Coreene C skippered by Capt. Cornelius Choy (this fish often referred to as 'Choy's Monster') still stands as the largest marlin caught on rod and reel. This fish was found to have a yellowfin tuna of over 155 pounds (70 kg) in its belly. In the Atlantic, the heaviest sport-fishing capture is Paulo Amorim's 1,402-pound (636 kg) fish from Vitoria, Brazil. Commercial fishermen have boated far larger specimens, with the largest blue marlin brought into Tsukiji market in Tokyo supposedly weighing a massive 2,438 pounds (1,106 kg).[citation needed]

Large blue marlin have traditionally been amongst the most highly prized angling captures, and a fish weighing 1,000 pounds (450 kg), a "grander", has historically been regarded by blue and black marlin anglers as the benchmark for a truly outstanding catch. Today, much effort is still directed towards targeting big blue marlin, but smaller blues are also sought by anglers fishing lighter conventional tackle and big-game fly fishing gear.[citation needed]

Blue marlin occur widely in the tropical oceanic waters of the Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific, with many fish making seasonal migrations into the temperate waters of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres to take advantage of feeding opportunities as those waters in spring and summer. Warm currents such as the Gulf Stream in the western Atlantic and the Agulhas Current in the western Indian Ocean serve as oceanic highways for blue marlin migration, and have a major influence on their seasonal distribution. Blue marlin have a limited ability to thermoregulate, and the lower limit of their temperature tolerance is thought to be in the region of about 20 C (68 F) although individual fish have been caught in cooler temperatures. Larger individuals have the greatest temperature tolerance, and blue marlin encountered at the limits of their range tend to be large fish. This wide distribution brings blue marlin in contact with anglers in many parts of the world.[citation needed]

Blue marlin are eclectic feeders preying on a wide range of prey species and sizes. Scientific examination of blue marlin stomach contents has yielded organisms as small as miniature filefish. Common food items include tuna-like fishes, particularly skipjack tuna and frigate mackerel (also known as frigate tuna), squid, mackerel, and scad. Of more interest to sport fishermen is the upper range of blue marlin prey size. A 72-inch (1,800 mm) white marlin has been recorded as being found in the stomach of a 448 pounds (203 kg) blue marlin caught at Walker's Cay in the Bahamas, and more recently, during the 2005 White Marlin Open, a white marlin in the 70-pound (32 kg) class was found in the stomach of one of the money-winning blues. Shortbill spearfish of 30 to 40 pounds (14 to 18 kg) have been recorded as feed items by Kona blue marlin fishermen. Yellowfin and bigeye tuna of 100 pounds (45 kg) or more have also been found in the stomachs of large blue marlin.[citation needed]

Fishing styles and gear used in the pursuit of blue marlin vary, depending on the size of blue marlin common to the area, the size of fish being targeted, local sea conditions, and often local tradition. The main methods used by sport fishermen are fishing with artificial lures, rigged natural baits, or live bait.[citation needed]

The pioneers of blue marlin angling employed natural baits rigged to skip and swim. Today, rigged baits, particularly Spanish mackerel and horse ballyhoo continue to be widely used for blue marlin. Also, the American eel is considered to be one of the best rigged baits due to its natural swim tendencies when properly rigged. Trolling for blue marlin with rigged baits, sometimes combined with an artificial lure or skirt to make "skirted baits" or "bait/lure combinations", is still widely practiced, especially along the eastern seaboard of the United States and in the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and Venezuela. Rigged natural baits are also used as "pitch baits" that are deployed after fish are raised to hookless lures or "teasers".[citation needed]

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