Marlin Fishing

[chevin]

I'm sure I needed to be told that!!!

 

Jim Roper[/QB]

[chevin]

chevin:

I'm sure I needed to be told that!!!

 

Jim Roper

[/QB]

 

OOooops, sorry, I meant to suggest that you ought to thank Vagabond if you needed that information

[Norrie]

Excellent post Vagabond, Why dont you send it in as an article to the angling Press, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and the pictures were ace. Well done, and yes I am a wee bit jealous....next time I go to San Diego I am going to give it a proper try . :cool:

[DMCA]

Thanks Vagabond for that great description and thanks for putting the pictures in too...makes a big difference...and thanks Chevin too, though we only got a hint of what you get up to...1200 lb tiger sharks...can't we hear more about that?!?

 

I never get tired of reading about this sort of thing. A few years ago I gave up a good job to go live in New Zealand (just for the hell of it really)...marlin fishing wasn't the only reason but it was definitely part of it. I lived in the far north, so I was in the right area and once the season started I woudl go down to the wharf most evenings and see what came in...mainly striped marlin and makos...this was the first time I had actually seen fish like this after having a sort of vision of it for over 20 years..

You can imagine my excitement...unfortunately, I had very little money, as I was living on some meagre savings and couldn't work due to visa restrictions...still, all things come to he who waits...after some months someone who knew my situation (broke but desperate) alerted me to somehting of a chance of a lifetime...by a set of extraordinary circumstances there was a place going on a boat skippered by NZ's best skipper that was headed out for five days for (hang on) less than 50 quid a day. I didn't need telling twice.

 

It turned out we were not going after the area's prolific striped marlin, but instead into deeper water looking for the bigger blues. Blue marlin are not all that common in NZ - in some seasons the whole fleet only catches a handful - so this was a gamble. About an hour from shore I saw my first sea-going marlin..it came up behind the boat then raced past along the side, its tail cutting the water and so close that I could have touched it if I had been quick enough. But it ignored the lures and that night we moored up fishless. The following day saw some yellowfin tuna (a small variety - the ones we had were about 40lbs) but again no marlin. The tuna, as fresh as can be, were delicious though: in fact the best fish I've tasted.

 

We spent some of that night trying to catch the elusive broadbill swordfish..the hardest fighting fish in the sea, shaming the marlin for endurance and strength, an average fight being 4 or 5 hours. No luck though and, the weather turning a bit rough we headed in.

 

Another dawn start saw us plowing the pacific for several hours without success. Then at 2 in the afternoon a blue took one of the lures. It wasn;t my turn in the chair but I could watch the spectacle of seeing my first hooked marlin leaping and churning the water..a half hour fight brought the fish close enough to tag but it was so exhausted that it had to be held at the stern while the boat powered foward to revive the fish..after a time it was ready to go and swam slowly away, becoming a flash of blue and purple beneath the swell. This fish was about 400lbs.

 

Then half an hour later it was my turn: a wild and crazy fish first took one lure then spat it out and took another. I hooked myself to the rod and connected..450 pounds of fish tailwalked across the sea, utterly amazing, the line between me and it singing out over the water. The fish stayed on the surface for the rest of the fight, so that it was a fairly easy matter to bring it near to the boat in another short fight. But this one was not tired and nearly leaped into the boat. In the end, after the tag was in, it thrashed its bill against the hull, leaving a series of long scratches, then threw the hook, storming off contemptuously.

 

The rest of that day was quiet, with just some tuna hooking themselves on the lures. There was one other angler aboard and whatever came to the lures now was his. But the next day went by uneventfully as did the morning of the final day. We began to head home to port and things were looking bleak for the last man. Then , at about noon an enormous flat spot in the water signalled a take on one of the lures. Our man was in the harness and began to do battle, but this fish was having none of it...it didn't leap, or even come to the surface, but stayed deep refusing to play ball.

 

2 hours later there was no sign of the fish, just the taut line pointing ever more sharply into the depths. The skipper powered the boat forward to encourage the fish to surface, but without effect. Line would be gained then line lost again. Afetr about 3 hours though, miraculously the fish began to rise in the water and there seemed a chance that it would after all be brought to that boat. Eventually, it did indeed come right up and finally was playd alongsiode the boat. The choice of what to do with a fish belongs to the angler, and in the end it was decided to boat the fish and it was gaffed aboard, not without some difficulty. It was then wrapped in a space-age bag to retain its freshness, but there was hardly room for it on the deck. It's huge eye stared up at us all amd the fish gasped a last breath before the life went out of it.

 

It was 12 feet long and 650 pounds: not a monster of legend and not by any means the biggest fish landed by the boat we were on (they had had the first NZ grander for 30 years) but as far as I was concenrned this was almost impossibly huge, almost bigger than I could take in. We went back, as Vagabond says, full of ourselves, with flags flying, and I found myself on the other side of the crowd, pretending to be an old hand, as if coming in to port laden with 650 pound fish happened to me every week.

 

Oddly, despite all the excitement of catching the fish, what is clearest in my mind from that time is the other stuff I saw: whales passing by the boat, shoals of dolphin hundreds of yards wide, looking down into the clear water of the pacific and seeing giant sunfish drifting by. Still, the crack of the outrigger clip and the noise of the line being ripped from the reel is really something else. Blue marlin can travel at 80 mph and weigh more than 1500lb...think of that!

[DMCA]

By the way, Chevin, I don't know which part of Australia you are in, but have you been to the Sydney aquarium? Goddamn, what a place! I spent hours and hours in there.

 

[ 15 July 2002, 02:24 AM: Message edited by: DMCA ]

[DCB]

Vagabond - Nice one and a good read as well.

I've yet to land a big marlin. Lost black marlin around 600lb after 2 hours on stand up 50lb class kit in South Africa. Orgasmic.

DCB

[chevin]

DMCA:

By the way, Chevin, I don't know which part of Australia you are in, but have you been to the Sydney aquarium? Goddamn, what a place! I spent hours and hours in there.

Hi, Sadly I haven't been to the aquarium in Sydney, I live in Perth which, as you will know, is a long way from Sydney. (For those who are not familiar with the size of Oz, the distance between Perth and Sydney is comparible to the distance between London and Moscow).

[chevin]

Originally posted by DMCA:

It's huge eye stared up at us all amd the fish gasped a last breath before the life went out of it.

 

You just described one of the worst moments in my angling life there. I had caught my first, "Big" fish, a skate that weighed in at 156lbs off Valencia Island. The boat crew knew that it was an Irish specimen, and they covered it with wet sacks to prevent it from drying out. It laid on the boat deck for a number of hours and was obviously still alive, and as time passed, I felt worse and worse about what I was doing. As we set off to return to harbour the fish seemed to make a huge sigh, and the colour went from it's eyes. We took it to harbour and it was craned up to the wharf and weighed. I then expected it to be taken to a fishmonger, but it was hung out over the water, pushed off the crane hook and dumped. Hoping against hope that it had survived, I was back at the harbour at dawn the next morning, but I saw the fish just laying on the bottom. A total waste. When that fish died, something died in me too, and I resolved that in future I would only kill fish if I or friends were going to eat them. I have no problem with others killing fish for trophies, what ever they chose to do with the fish they have caught is entirely up to them. In the main, trophy fish are probably not an important element in the breeding cycle anyway. However, I know that I feel much happier about seeing my fish swim away at the end of a fight if they are not something that can be "done up brown and noshed back". (apologies to a Great Ouse eel angler circa 1966)

[Alan Taylor]

Vagabond:

"

Nice one Vagabond and well done Mrs Vagabond, it really is nice to see women anglers doing as well as if not better than men.

As previously mentioned, it would have been nice if you had done it as an article for Anglers Net, they are few and far between sadely. If you have this on video it would be nice to see.

Well done.

 

Alan(nl)

[Jim Roper]

chevin:

I then expected it to be taken to a fishmonger, but it was hung out over the water, pushed off the crane hook and dumped

In the late 50s/early 60s the Irish Tourist Board wanted to start promoting the sea angling in Ireland. They invited a contingent of anglers from Weymouth Angling Society over as part of the scheme, that club having an enviable reputation at that time. They motored out of Dingle and started feathering for mackerel for bait. The two young deck hands on the old commercial fishing boat had never seen this method of catching fish before and decided to try themselves. They made up a string of 15 feathers and threw it over the side on the end of a piece of stout cord. Within a few minutes there was a lot of shouting and exitement. They finally managed to retrieve the feathers with a pollack of about 10lb on every hook. The rest of the party had a hell of a day with their rods. They returned to port with over 2,000lb of fish. The catch was photographed for publicity purposes, then taken out to sea and dumped the next day. Apparently, there was only a local market for plaice. I suppose it's different today with freezers and the trade with mainland Europe.

 

Jim Roper

 

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