Water adventures galore

There has been so much happening in the past few weeks.

Brodie Scribberas came to town to catch himself a billfish or some sort of pelagic fish before Christmas and after pretty average weather he thought it wasn’t to be. On the last day he was here, he was due to fly out at 3pm and thought he might have a last-ditch effort for a few hours before leaving.

After he left the passage at Tantabiddi he was on to a nice Spaniard instantly.

He managed to beat the sharks and was very happy.

As he was deploying his lures again, he changed to a couple of Richter soft grassies and then he got a dollie and a wahoo on a double hook-up once again landing both fish.

Not long after that he turned around on the 40m line to come home after a good little two-hour session and his dream came true in the last hour, landing a 30kg black marlin.

After thinking it was a dud trip, he expects to return annually to chase the dream.

Odile May had a bit of a big night out, but managed to get a second wind when pulling in a fish from 70m depths north of the Muiron Islands.

To her surprise, she actually had two fish on one hook! Yes, she had a spangled emperor and a red emperor. Classic catch. Needless to say, she had smiles all round and is pictured this week with her red.

We had some windy days and some really calm days through the festive break, but no one would be more grateful for one particular calm day than Ross Chapman from the boat Poppa George.

Ross was fishing solo, as he has many times, for marlin in 500m water depths, 30nm northwest of Exmouth. At 830am Ross caught and released a large blue marlin estimated at 250kg.

Directly after the release he knocked his Go-Pro off the gunwale and while reaching for it he acidentally fell overboard.

The boat was in gear and Ross knew straight away his predicament. Trying to swim and catch a boat in gear is near impossible.

The quick-thinking Ross then grabbed a lure in the water at the stern. He slowly tried to pull himself in toward the boat and almost did, getting within a meter of the stern, but missing it.

Sadly, the line broke after some time and Ross was left to watch his boat slowly drive off. Meanwhile, he could see another vessel in the area and tried to get the attention of the anglers, to no avail.

Ross managed to stay calm, conserve energy and did a lot of praying, especially to his great-grandfather Poppa George. Ironically, another vessel had a guy fishing on it with a nickname of George, who was named after his great-grandadwho was also a salty seafarer.

This vessel, further north of where Ross’s boat was heading, hooked a large fish that dragged them directly to Ross’s boat and consequently dropped the hooks right at the boat. One of the other crew onboard noticed the vessel was in gear, but could not see anyone on aboard. George (Liam Hall) then jumped aboard and alerted other vessels and a full-scale search began.

It was at about 3.30pm that Ross was miraculously plucked from the water, alive.

As I write this report, I know Ross and Liam are sleeping soundly in preparation for a day fishing together tomorrow. One of many friendships that have been made in this life-changing experience.