DAIWA FISHING TIPS: MARLIN FISHING WITH A THREADLINE By VICKI LEAR

This year has been an absolute fantastic year on the saltwater fishing front. We have seen warm water pushed down the coast and hang around bringing with it an array of Marlin. It has given us a lot of opportunity to experiment with different rods and rigs.

This year we wanted to achieve a marlin on the thread line rod and reel combo’s. Although they don’t hold as much line as your traditional marlin tackle we heard there was a run of small blacks and that this would be perfect to test out the gear.

We had both the 4000H saltist spooled with 40lb J braid with a demon blood rod and a saltiga 6500 loaded with 80lb J braid and a saltiga 57S rod. Catching our live bait consisting of yellowtail and slimy mackeral we trolled both behind the boat. The bait on the saltist was the first to be scoffed by a little black marlin about 30 kg. It jumped around and put on a show. It was brought boat side pretty quick on this combo before being released.

A few days later we were at it again. This time the saltiga screamed off. This fish was not as aerobatic but it had some blistering runs, we have never heard the saltiga scream this way. It was very exciting. It was estimated to be about a 40-50kg fish and a very stubborn one at that. We finally worked it to the boat side for a quick release.

It was a big difference using the thread line combo’s rather than traditional marlin tackle. For starters there was more bend/give in the rods that we were using, so you could feel every tail beat, twist and turn. The reels were not cumbersome to use, could lean them into your stomach for leverage without bruising or hurting your self from the rod but. If the fish decided to do a massive change in direction or perhaps launch under your boat engine you could follow it with ease with out trying to unclip harnesses. The combination is light so you don’t tire out as easily. Overall an enjoyable experience and one we will look forward to doing again. Fantastic for the smaller fish, unfortunately not enough line capacity on the smaller reels for the bigfish. Mmmm might have to get a larger thread line. Goodluck in your marlin pursuits.