Sammy Hitzke has crossed the solo blue marlin off his bucket list on the Gold Coast, running three heavy tackle outfits off the Han Solo, dropping the first fish on a Lumo C4 head and converting the second on a Fat Boy Lures 1431 for a one-from-two day estimated around the 100-kilo mark.
The Gold Coast game fisherman framed the trip on his Sammy Hitzke Fishing channel as a personal milestone that had eluded him since he upgraded boats roughly a year ago.
"We're going to put in a full day chasing a solo blue marlin. No one else on board. I'm on the Han Solo. I've got three heavy tackle outfits," Hitzke said in his pre-dawn opener. "I've had this boat for coming up or pretty much a year now, and I've had a few chances, but yet to tick the box. We've got black marlin, stripe marlin and I've caught blue marlin out of this boat, but I haven't done it solo. And that's one of my most favourite things to do. It's such a challenge."
The forecast was 10 to 15 knots of easterly, which Hitzke flagged as one of the reasons he had stepped up to a larger hull. The trip out was a slow grind through wind chop on top of swell, pushing his arrival on the shelf to nearly nine in the morning. He set three rods—a 12-inch Fat Boy 1431, an 11-inch flying-fish-pattern bullet and his old-faithful Lumo C4 tube.
The first take came on the Lumo C4 in the long-corner. The fish charged the boat first, then turned and started taking line.
"Pretty tame bite," Hitzke said. "I was just up the front. I was going to get a teaser out. The one time I haven't been sitting at the helm the whole day."
"Sean learned over in WA, Exmouth fishing with one of the greats over there, is go light on them and then once they try and dive down then give them all the drag," Hitzke explained mid-fight. "You give them the drag from the start, they get used to it. They just want to pull against you. But like a puppy dog, if you lead them along, and they do something wrong, you give them a kick up the bum."
The approach held until the tag pole came out. As Hitzke shifted his weight to drive the tag, the hook backed out clean.
"There's nothing wrong with that hook point. That is just unlucky," Hitzke said. "I was just putting that tag in the pole. It was taking line. Must have just been sitting on that exact right angle and then he turned. Holding the pressure in and then the hook has come out."
The second fish was a different animal entirely. It crushed the Fat Boy 1431 short-corner, ripped a long initial run and then settled into a deep stalemate around 70 metres that turned the fight into a winch and a chess game.
"That is a run. Holy. Well, that didn't take long, guys. That didn't take long at all," Hitzke said as the spool melted. "Got the leg shakes on. That is a serious amount of line out. Time to get to work."
He worked the fish with up-current pulls and angle changes through multiple deep cycles, eventually drawing the tail up onto the surface for the leader. The blue tagged out and released cleanly.
"That is a hell of a solo blue. Tails going. Right. Let's get this one done," Hitzke said as he secured the tag and unhooked what he estimated as a 100 to 120 kilo fish. "We did it. We ticked off the solo blue marlin, one from two. And I dare say the one that we did land was a darn sight bigger than that first one we hooked."
Hitzke pulled the spread for the run home, mindful of the building easterly behind him and the long ride back to the Gold Coast Seaway. PFD and PLB stayed on the entire trip in.
"Make sure you got your safety gear sorted because it's the easiest thing to sort," he said in his sign-off, "but I'll tell you what, if you end up in the drink, it's going to be the most valuable thing you got on you."