Big Blue Marlin

We have a group of very nice Kiwi divers here at the moment enjoying diving on the Great Astrolabe Reef in front of Matava Eco-Adventure Resort.

Yesterday, after a morning of diving and snorkeling with a Whale shark, we took four lucky divers out for a spot of afternoon gamefishing aboard Bite Me.

Although we were just looking for some wahoo or mahi mahi for dinner, I took a couple of 50lb class stand-up rods as well as some 15kg line class tackle. The weather was glorious and I thought a little swing out wide of the reef could produce a marlin or two.

At about 1.30 I spotted some small skipjack tuna working bait so swung round with the two 50lb rods out on the riggers. One trolling a Hollowpoint Cabo Killa and the other a Black Bart Hot Breakfast. Half way round the school the Hot Breakfast got inhaled by a big blue marlin that shook her head for a second and then went balistic with a flick of her enormous tail.

Oh-oh, now we have a blue of easily 500lbs hooked up and heading for New Zealand on stand-up 50lb class gear....

(Beadlam in the cockpit as 3 rods and a teaser are franticly cleared as the big blue greyhounds towards the horizon like a bat out of hell.

Line screams off the 50 and I hit the throttles hard chasing after her. Of to my Starboard side a big belly of line cuts through the water as the marlin forges ahead and I try to chase her down alongside. Finally she slows down to a cruise on the surface, I spin us round and start backing down hard as the angler starts to make some line back. Cameras flash but the blue is done jumping. For half an hour we start to put a little line back on an almost empty spool.

Then the big blue does the one thing I dread on (relatively) light tackle.....she sounds..... and we are in the impossible position of being overhead with a mostly empty spool. Normally we would change the angle, move off to one side, anything...to get her to change her mind and do something other than sound... but we just don't have the line left to manoever.

A 500lb blue, underwater, weights about 50lbs. The same weight as our line breaking strain. At full drag on sunset we were applying about 35lbs of drag and on a mostly empty spool, more like 40-45lbs of drag. If she decides to head straight down, there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop her....
We were screwed. At about the 45 minute mark at full sunset drag and about 10 turns of line left on the reel....the line parted....

A Big Blue Marlin will show you who's the Boss

I hate busting off a fish, especially as the lure is still in its mouth. Only a single hook rig so hopefully with the pressure off, the marlin will just spit it out.

I'm almost annoyed....

Still, we went home with priceless memories of a spectacular jumping big blue marlin. We also saw a Humpback whale breaching and came across two huge Sunfish basking on the surface. Very cool...

Oh, and a nice wahoo for dinner...