On the afternoon of Saturday 21st January 2012, Hansie, Divan, Chris and I launched “Mitsufishi” off Richards Bay to try broadbill fishing for the night. We left the harbour at 16:30 and headed north. There was a relatively big swell and a 10 know NE wind. The forecast was that the wind would drop and the sea would settle.
When we reached the 200m contour, Hansie slacked off the 
speed to assess the conditions. There was still a bit of daylight left so we put out 5 marlin lures and trolled north. While we trolled, I set about rigging the baits for the night. At 18:20 I was half way done with the first bait when Hansie shouted “Marlyn!”. This was followed by the crack of an elastic band and a short burst from the reel. The fish had missed the lure. Divan put another elastic on and as he was attaching it to the clip, the line was ripped from his hands. The reel ran for a bit but then stopped. By then we had all seen the fish and it looked to be a small striped marlin. We scanned the spread to see if the fish was still around. As luck would have it, the fish came up on the left long but picked up the leader on strike. After a few seconds, the lure slid off the bill and that was the end of it.
speed to assess the conditions. There was still a bit of daylight left so we put out 5 marlin lures and trolled north. While we trolled, I set about rigging the baits for the night. At 18:20 I was half way done with the first bait when Hansie shouted “Marlyn!”. This was followed by the crack of an elastic band and a short burst from the reel. The fish had missed the lure. Divan put another elastic on and as he was attaching it to the clip, the line was ripped from his hands. The reel ran for a bit but then stopped. By then we had all seen the fish and it looked to be a small striped marlin. We scanned the spread to see if the fish was still around. As luck would have it, the fish came up on the left long but picked up the leader on strike. After a few seconds, the lure slid off the bill and that was the end of it.I continued rigging the baits and just before the light was gone, we cleared the lures and set the broadbill spread. I had a big squid on the downrigger about 100ft down and then another squid on the surface off the right rigger. On the left rigger was a small superchugger with a stripbait. Everything looked good as the darkness surrounded us. The wind settled to nothing and the sea flattened so much that every star reflected off the surface. Beautiful.
We slow trolled between 200m and 550m for the whole night without a single touch. The only thing that kept us busy were the flashing squid, phosphorescence and the odd shooting star.
