We had a full day today.
Same people as on yesterdays charter. The weather has gotten much better for the fishermen, but the fishing hasn’t. The seas were very calm and the sun is getting hot, too hot for early June if you ask me. We didn’t have a lot of bites and I went a long way for the few we did. Most were small dolphin, but one was “the fish of a lifetime”. We hooked a Blue Marlin and unfortunately, it ended up being the big one that got away.
Blue Marlin are not common fish to hook.
Just hooking one in these waters is special. Blue Marlin are not easy to catch. Most of them get away. The odds are in their favor. These days, we fish with mostly 30lb tackle. That is a bit light for a big fish like marlin, but it makes catching all the other fish much more fun. We did have a 50lb setup out, but naturally, the marlin ate the smallest bait we had out.
This was not a particularly large Blue Marlin.
Over 100 lbs, but probably less than 200lbs. But all Blue Marlin are powerful. Usually, billfish, Marlin and Sailfish, put on an awesome display when hooked. Jumping and tailwalking. Most people only see it on a youtube video or TV show. it is an amazing sight to see with your own eyes. When they jump, it tires them out, which is good. but there is also a chance that they will get slack line or land on the line or even get tangled up in the line when they jump. None of these are good. So you are always nervous. This fish didn’t do much of that. It jumped once, which was good. We all saw the bite, and I thought it was a blue marlin. but once it jumped, we got a good luck at it and we were sure.
Unfortunately, that jump
was the last time we saw the fish. If sound, diving down toward the bottom of the ocean. We were in about 850 ft of water, so it had room to go deep and it did. There was nothing the angler or I could do. The line was almost straight down. We had half a spool out and the fish was still going. Somewhere in the depths of the ocean, he chewed through the leader and was gone.
Nobody did anything wrong,
the fish just did something right. That’s why they are so special. I’m feeling a bit “snake bit” when it comes to Blue Marlin this year. On the positive side, this was the 3rd, we’ve hooked on the Southbound this year. On the negative, we haven’t landed one yet. This was our best shot. A clean hookup, a reasonable sized fish, good sea conditions for fighting “the man in the Blue Suit” as he’s called. We just didn’t get it done. It bothered me the rest of the day and all evening. We don’t get enough chances at Blue Marlin, to keep losing them. Unfortunately, I have to live with it for now and keep trying.
At the end of the day,
we only came in with a few “keeper” dolphin. Fishing was slow, but we had our shot to make it an amazing day, just didn’t work out. We are offshore again tomorrow, Maybe we will get another shot.