An Exmouth-based commercial fisherman who has spent the last month chasing the South Coast NSW striped marlin run reckons he has just witnessed a fishery that rivals anything in Cabo or on Mexico's Pacific coast. Lee Mitchell, who joined The Fishing Podcast for an extended interview, posted 100 billfish in 10 days from his trailer boat — and he was far from alone.
"Both of them got 20 stripes and one I got a black and the other one I got a blue," he said of two of his standout days. The Greckis crew, he added, had multiple 20-plus days, while gamefisher Joel Oliver fronted up with consecutive 25-fish days that Mitchell believes constitute an Australian single-day striped marlin record.
For Mitchell, the most striking part of the bite was not just the numbers but the size and density of the fish. "These are 100 kilo fish, like near on all of them," he said, arguing the fishery's average compares more to the Bay of Islands or Cape Verde than to the smaller stripes he is used to off WA. He landed about half a dozen fish over 140 kg in the run.
The bite, he stressed, has been a trailer-boat fishery. The schools have been moving 200 km in a day along the coast, and the lighter, faster hulls have outperformed traditional sportfishers. "The bike can move so quickly up and down the coast, and the guys over here have got it so dialed in on rip charts and the networking side of it." Social media intel between crews, in his view, has mattered more than the rip charts themselves.
Mitchell ran the bite out of a custom Edencraft Formula 233 with a tower-style upper helm station. He praised the cold-water performance of the stripes — "any fish in that 22 degree water, they just don't roll over" — and confirmed he has retired his 15 kg gear after the run. "It's just not that much fun on the angler. At least with 24 plus you can hit them with sunset and sort of trick them into it."
He also paid tribute to WA gamefishing pioneer Eddie Lawler, whose work out of Exmouth turned blue marlin from a bycatch into a defined fishery with a known season. "Anyone in Xmouth or near on WA that knows how to catch marlin can accredit it to Eddie, I would think to a degree."
His advice for anglers chasing the same bite: pay attention to whether marlin are tailing or working a bait ball before committing to a chase. Tailing fish, he said, often appear to be using the pressure wave to free-swim with the current and are notoriously difficult to convert. Bait-ball fish, by contrast, are the showpiece of the South Coast run. "I reckon one of the greatest sights on earth is a bait ball with marlin swimming around feeding, coming up and looking at the boat — doesn't matter how many you've seen, you still can't help but go, did you see that?"