On Saturday 10th December 2011, my Dad, At, Hubert, Mike and I 
launched “AVANTI” at Cape Vidal. We were going to try marlin fishing and hopefully get Mike his first fish... ever! After negotiating the surf, we stopped on the backline to look for some small livies, just in case we found a few dorado. 20 mins later we had about 15 livies and headed for Oscar where we trolled halcos around looking for a small tuna. About 30 minutes later, we caught a 2kg bonito and put it in the Luna tube. We continued trolling and had 3 missed strikes. On our last turn, the long rod went off and Hubert took the strike. The fish took a lot of line and then went deep. Hubert battled the fish for close on 20 minutes before I put the gaff in. It was a beautiful yellowfin tuna of 24,9kg! Not bad on a bait stick.
After that we put out 5 konas and worked the 200 – 500m contours. Apart from a dorado that chased the lure but did not eat, it was quiet. At about 2pm, in front of the point, I saw a good size marlin come up and grab the short corner lure. It took a bit of 
line then pulled hooks. A few seconds later, it exploded on the Japan. It took some line then stuck its head out the water shaking violently. It was on for a few seconds then unfortunately pulled off. At made a turn and the long rigger came down. It was a dorado but it too pulled hook after a few jumps. At made another turn and again the long rigger came down. It was another dorado. Mike took the rod and after some coaching, brought a nice 11kg dorado to the boat ... not bad for his first ever fish.
That was the last of the action we had for the day so we headed for the beach and a cold drink.
