If day one wasn’t exciting enough day two would end in an unforgettable bang. The action wasn’t as fierce as the day before but we still managed to catch two blues and a striped marlin before ten in the morning. Rob, the captain of the Lightspeed had joined us for the day to help out and film. Having two mates on board we decided to bait and switch. With a tank full of live Opelu( cigar minnow) we raised a nice fish on one of our teasers. As I teased the blue from the bridge Tracy quickly grabbed a bait and pitched it to the on coming marlin. The blue had chased my teaser all the way past the bait, but in one quick move she switched over and lopped the opelu from the side.Within ten minutes Martha had the leader in Tracy’s hand. He quickly wrapped the fish off on the starboard corner where Martha’s husband Larry put a tag in the fishes shoulder. Our normal routine with blues is to subdue them along the side where we can remove the hooks and release them, this fish had other intentions. After a quick spurt the blue lunged forward and Tracy let her go. Normally a fish will take off jumping away from the boat but this fish did a few jumps of our starboard side and within less than a second had veered her direction right into the side of the boat. After slamming into the boat at full speed she slid down the side and into our on-coming propeller. Unfortunately her side and top half of her tail were shredded on contact. We unwillingly pulled her aboard. She measured out with a 122 inch short with an impressive 68 inch girth. Using the standard calculation to get her estimated weight she would have been somewhere in the 750 pound range. We donated the meat to a friend where she will be used to make a whole lot of smoked marlin.
Watch video of blue marlin slamming into the Northern Lights
(Originally posted on February 18, 2009)