Prized game fish, and dream catch of Anglers around the world, the Striped Marlin is probably number one on the ‘must catch’ list. But when this guy hooked a 147kg monster off the NSW coast, he wasn’t expecting to reel in his whole line…

“Few people get the chance to catch a striped marlin of that size, and since it was my girlfriend's first sight of such a beautiful fish, I thought she should get the experience of hanging a marlin at a gantry just as everyone else has had.” Says the guy who caught this monster, 22yr old Ed O’Brien from Manly.

After posting a pic of his catch (adjacent) earlier this month, Ed O’Brien copped a flogging in the comments about his unethical catch of such a monster Marlin. But rightly so, Ed justified the catch to the naysayers.

“Some marlin fight themselves to death, particularly in the case of a bigger fish that dives 1000m straight down. I'd be surprised if those opposed to landing a marlin would prefer to let it sink to the bottom. Every gram of this marlin was used. Cryovaced and froze all the meat immediately, gave the bill and tail to the girl in the photo, and used the frame as burley. 1 death for months worth of food? Sounds good to me.”

Striped Marlin quite often grow to the 150kg range, with the record catch being almost 200kg back in 1982. They are considered ‘near threatened’ by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, but that’s only one step away from ‘Least Concern’ on the scale. They feed off sardines and usually swim around in the upper 100m layer of water, so they’re frequently landed by game fishng boats offshore. Quite often when caught however, they run hard, diving straight down in this case, spooling the entire line and providing a lengthy fight…

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