Josh Binney and his mate, Corban Thrupp, still cannot believe they had a striped marlin on their tiny soft bait set up.

The pair were competing in the OJI Fibre Solutions work fishing competition recently and with an 8-kilogram softbait rig were hoping to hook a 1kg gurnard to earn themselves a prize.

However, they hooked something a whole lot bigger while fishing off Kohi Point.

“We went into 25 metres of water, and I flicked out my softbait. I hooked a fish and first thought it was a kahawai, but it started running more, so then we suspected it was a good kingfish,” Binney said. “About 10 minutes into the fight, it poked its head up and we realised it was a marlin.”

Binney still cannot believe a marlin ended up on the end of his rod.

“So close to shore and with our rod, catching anything like that is virtually impossible. We’re gutted that we didn’t quite get it on the boat because we’d have broken a heap of records if we managed to get it to land.

“But it’s still a bloody cool story to be able to tell and we got it on video, so it’s not something we’re making up.”

The pair battled with the fish for about three hours before it managed to break the line.

“About half an hour into fighting it, the fish jumped out even more and that’s when we realised it was a striped marlin. It took us all the way down to Ōhope and out past Whale Island before breaking free.

“We don’t know if we were taking it for a walk, or if it was taking us for a walk. The line was only 8kg and we estimated it to be about 80-90 kg, so that is a lot of extra weight for that little line. It was always going to be a hard battle. We did see it about 10 times.

“It gave us a hell of a fright when we saw it, but man it was exciting.”

Binney said there was plenty of adrenaline running.

“Corban did incredibly well driving the boat following it and keeping the line out of the way. It was super exciting. I had never even seen a marlin in my life or even been game fishing, so it was a massive thrill for us.”

“We passed another boat, and they were laughing at us, not believing we had a marlin on the end of our rod. It was one of those times where you had to get it on footage and thankfully, we did.”

Catching a marlin so close to shore is rare and Binney said he hadn’t heard of any others snaring such a catch.

He is an eager fisherman and this is his best experience so far.

“I think the biggest fish I have caught is about a 5kg snapper, so that would have been much bigger and a pretty cool story to tell. It still is, even without the fish.”

Once the marlin broke free, Binney said they didn’t have a lot of luck.

“We were rubbish after that, we only got two snapper all day. We didn’t even get a prize for the best story either.”