How to catch marlin on the flats

There is only one place I know of where you can genuinely chase marlin on the flats and that is Queensland’s K’gari (Fraser Island). While no one knows exactly why they congregate on the flats inside K’gari, I suspect that the Breaksea Spit, which juts out to the north of the island, acts as a natural obstacle.

The marlin range in size from 10kg through to around 30kg. Being juveniles means they can be caught on relatively light spin tackle – something like a Shimano Spheros 6000 size reel. Loaded with 50lb braid, this is the most inexpensive marlin outfit you’ll ever use.

The only problem with light tackle is getting the hooks to stick when trolling lures. Even at this size, marlin have tough boney mouths that are incredibly hard to penetrate. Super fine gauge hooks are the best option and with the help of a stiff graphite rod you can really load up and get the hooks to find their mark.

One trick I employ is to cup my hand around the spool or thumb an overhead, as this will increase pressure just enough to get the hooks in. It can only be really brief, otherwise you risk snapping the line.

The easiest technique is to troll small skirted lures across the flats. At the same time, you need to be up on the side searching for tailing fish or dark shapes on the flats. This is an incredibly visual style of fishing and with a sandy back drop the fish are easy to spot.

It’s difficult for hardcore marlin fishers to focus in the shallows and not out in the blue water. I constantly went wider searching the deeper water but never caught a single fish. Every marlin we caught (and were talking dozens) were all in less than 10m of water.

The lure spread is nothing fancy. In fact, it’s a pretty stock-standard trolling pattern of four lures, except they’re all only 6 to 8in. If the fish are thick as we found them it’s actually easier to reduce down to three or even two rods.

Fishing the lures further back and out of the propwash also saw an increase in bites. The fish were anything but leader shy and there was little need for super light leaders. There was also no difference between fluorocarbon and normal monofilament leaders, but I suspect this would change when fishing pressure is increased. Trolling the edge will result in a steady stream of bites. 

The fish are so aggressive they will attack a hard-bodied lure continuously, and even when they get stung with a hook they will often keep going. This also goes for fly fishing, and local fishing guide Andrew Chorley has notched cricket score numbers of micro blacks on fly.

The one thing I’d recommend is to run single hooks as they will give you a much better hook-up rate and it’s way better for the fish to compared to those horrible treble hooks. If there was ever a place to catch multiple marlin on surface lures then K’gari is it.

You need to remember these marlin are young and tire very quickly so they need extra care. If they’re tired you must swim them for a while and get the water running over their gills. There is also the ever-increasing issue of shark predation. So, you need to get the marlin fast and be very careful.

This is a one-of-a-kind location and the fish are just too valuable so it’s imperative that anglers act as true custodians to ensure we have fish forever.