Episode 66: NSW South Coast Striped Marlin With Lee Rayner

Lee’s Top Tips For Striped Marlin On Lures

• Striped Marlin can be caught along the NSW South Coast and Victorian East Coast year round, but the warmer are the prime time in Southern NSW.
• The best striped marlin grounds are out along the inside edge of the continental shelf, before it drops off. Bottom structure can help hold bait fish and attract marlin, but often a fairly innocuous rubble bottom can fish really well too. Just find the bait.
• The old theory that the current needs to be running strongly from north to south is a myth. Areas where the current forms slower moving eddies are favoured by baitfish, and striped marlin usually aren’t too far behind.
• Fishing smaller, lighter lures with relatively small hooks and lighter drags results in fish freely eating the lure with much better conversion of strikes to hookups. These lures, rigged correctly with the right hooks, typically result in more fish hooked and more fish landed than baits or large lures.
• Keep an eye on sea surface temperature charts. Striped marlin can be found in warm water of 26 C or more and in cooler waters of less than 17 C. However, they seem to be more active and aggressive at temperatures of around 21-23 C.
• When fishing 15kg tackle, Lee uses a drag pressure of 4-5kg. When a fish is hooked he’ll often turn the boat and follow it, even before the other lines have been cleared. This keeps the line out to a minimum. He also recommends backing the throttle off when following fish so they they have to work against the drag.

Lee’s Preferred Tackle For Striped Marlin

• Lee prefers to fish lighter 15 kg gear, rather than the standard 24 kg used by many anglers for striped marlin.In recent years there has been a trend away from roller guided rods, with many anglers option for rods with high quality fixed guides. These overcome the issue of rollers becoming seized and are less problematic when there are multiple simultaneous hookups, allowing a rod or two to be left in the rod holder when there i a fish on.
• Lee’s preferred reel for this style of fishing is the Shimano Tiagra. He loads this with 15 kg line, preferring mono for most tuna and billfish fishing due to it’s shock absorbing stretch. Sometimes if he needs more line capacity he’ll load a reel with braid and top-shot with 200m or 15kg mono (Black Magic IGFA or Momoi are his preference).
• 200lb breaking strain leaders are usually adequate for striped marlin. Going heavier with leader is only likely to upset the lure action and result in fish bill slapping the leader with less fish hooked.

Lee’s Best Striped Marlin Lures

• A Marlin Magic Baby Hardhead in Lumo colour is a great fish catcher run off the long rigger. Lee finds that fish rarely bill whack this lure, but generally engulf it with a solid hook set.
• Bullet lures are among his favourites and can be run off the corners, on a shotgun or long rigger Marlin Magic Infant Blue or Baby Blue.
• A Black Bart 8″ Pelagic Breakfast in Petro colour is a great lure because it resembles the squid that striped marlin feed on extensively offshore.