04-25-2005, 05:07 PM
"Long time fishing report contributor CaptG was the author of this story and his name was inadvertantly left out when first published here".
At 7am I welcome aboard 10 passengers that have chartered the boat for an eight-hour trip on the Island Girl, a 42 foot custom built Sportfisherman powered by twin Cat. 3208T's and inspected for 32 passengers.
The head honcho is Dave, the general manager for Mobile Oil, Guam. He has also invited a few of the management people, the Pacific representatives for Caterpillar engines and the general manager for Hawaiian Rock products. Dave and two of the Cat people are repeat customers and have been out with me and my deckhand, Tony, a few times before. The last few trips with me, Dave and his group caught Skipjack tuna, Yellowfin tuna, Mahi-Mahi and Wahoo, but never a Pacific Blue Marlin. He has chartered this trip because I have told him that the best chances are three days before and three days after the full moon. Having told him this, and being the "Captain", there is absolutely no pressure on me what-so-ever! (Ha-Ha).
After introductions all around (and I can't remember anyone who is new as far as calling them by name, guess I'll never be a politician!) we are ready to begin this day's expedition. For the last two days, there have been large Skipjack tuna (15 lb.) and some nice Yellowfin tuna (50 lb.+) showing up at the number one buoy, approximately five miles from the Agana Boat Basin. After a 15 minute cruise we are putting lines in the water. Shortly thereafter, I spot about a dozen Fairy Terns (small white birds) working over some bait. Right away I tell Tony to put out a small tuna lure, as I want to start the trip off right with a fish in the boat. After the lure is placed in position I made my first pass on the birds. The rod and reel the tuna lure is on starts to scream and shortly afterwards the first fish of the day (18 lb. Skipjack) is in the fishbox. Things are looking promising as the birds that are usually working the Yellowfin tuna are with this school of fish. Well, fishing is a lot like gambling (as I often remind my customers this time of year) and for the next two hours all we manage to catch is about a dozen 5 lb. Skipjack tuna. No one has gotten seasick and Dave agrees with me that it is time to try some other areas. Now, I do have to say that I reminded him that the Marlin love to feed on these small tuna, AND we were pulling five 12inch marlin lures the whole time (that is the reason we only caught a dozen Skipjack) but the decision was made and it was time to go after "The Beast".
About all I can say about the next five hours is that I managed to learn everyone's name, what they did for a living and what kind of fishing experience they had had. For the entire time, we didn't see another flock of birds or any sign of fish. Thank goodness the day was a typical one for this time of year, bright sunshine, light (15mph) trade winds, and slight two foot swells. It was coming near the close of the day and we had still not sighted a Marlin. The next hour would be a downswell run with the wind. Everyone except Tony, Dave, myself and a guy named Jim were asleep.
I was looking ahead for signs of fish when the sound, which we had been waiting over seven hours for, happened. The short flat line took off in a steady, evenly paced scream. My automatic reaction on the flat-line strike is to gun the engines, as an attempt to place the fish past all the other lures in the pattern so there would not be any crossed lines or tangles. At the same time I am looking back at the pattern in order to see what is happening. As with any good deck hand, Tony is automatically clearing the other lines in preparation for the fight. Jim is jumping into the chair and Dave is on the way down from the flybridge in order to assist in clearing the lines.
For the next 30 seconds, I am awestruck and feel as if everything is in slow motion. An explosion occurs outside the long rigger position that throws saltspray as high as the flybridge on the boat. All I can see through the spray is the bill and head of the largest marlin I have ever seen on the end of one of my lines. The fish thrashes her head back and forth three times and then goes down. It may never have happened to you, but for me time slowed down, …way down. As I thought about it later, I don't think she felt the hook when she grabbed the lure. It was only when she stopped to let go of the lure after crushing it and attempted to swallow it head first that the hooks managed to lodge in her jaw. That initial scream of the reel was only the lure having been stopped and the boat continuing forward. Once she felt the hook, she shook her head in an attempt to get rid of the irritation.
Since the head shaking didn't work, she tried to escape the area. As Tony and Dave frantically cleared the lines, she made four greyhounding leaps from the port stern towards the port bow. At this point, I gave up the attempt to clear the stinger line run from the flybridge as it was the farthest out and at this point was in no danger of fouling the line that was speedily disappearing from the short corner reel. Quickly shifting transmissions to the neutral position, I yelled to Jim to reel as fast as he could, as I was about to go into full reverse. Jim was already strapped into the fighting harness and ready for the fight of his lifetime. Tony and Jim had managed to clear all the lines except for the stinger. I'm not sure how the stinger got cleared, because about that time I got tunnel vision as well as time warp. Placing the boat in reverse, I increased the throttle until we were gaining line, although slowly. Verrrrry slllllooooly. And doing 7 knots!
Now let me make a few comments about this fish. At this point I never saw the "Beast" again. After the four greyhounding leaps she continued to run (according to everyone else, who had woken by this time) for another three or four seconds with her head and bill out of the water, apparently on her side, as everyone described it as looking like a jet-ski taking off. When she made her greyhound jumps, I thought at first she was making U-Turns in the air, then I realized that her belly, head and tail were in a straight line, and that what made me think of the U-Turn was the fact that her head was so small in comparison to the rest of her body, and her shoulders were so much higher that she appeared bent in a permanent arch. Since then I've been asked how much I think she weighed, and I still refuse to guess, although she was definitely larger than 1000lb fish I have seen.
Remember that we are doing approximately 7 knots in reverse at this time. The "Beast" has now stopped the jet-ski action and is beginning to sound, going down at a slight angle. Jim has reached the point of no gain of line on the reel and the fish starts her second run. I throttle down, go to neutral, go to forward, throttle up, turn the boat, Tony turns the fighting chair towards the bow and we begin to chase the fish in an attempt to gain line. The fight is at a stalemate with no line being either gained or lost as the angle from the tip of the rod to where it enters the water becomes more acute. Jim is doing the best he can to stop the fish, but she is still taking line straight down. Tony yells to me that he can see the color of the spool arbor showing through the remainder of the line and I know that we are down to the last 75 yards of line. Jim does as I tell him and places the drag lever above the stop button. Thankfully the fish stops, and after about five minutes of a stalemate, Jim begins to gain about six inches at a time using very short pumping strokes. The objective is to keep the fish coming without giving her a chance to get her head turned away.
Now we get down to the nitty-gritty of a big fish fight. Sometimes you get lucky. A big fish will often jump itself into exhaustion and the angler wins in a very short time (403lbs in 25 minutes) but most of the time she will sound and the angler has to spend the next umpteen hours slowly bringing her up from the depths. Well, this fish was typical of most big fish (although I never fought one this size before), and the next hour and fifteen minutes was an attempt to keep Jim's enthusiasm up and energy level maintained. It occurred to me several times that it might be a good idea to change anglers in order to get someone fresh in the chair, but Jim was into the rhythm and had the technique down to perfection. Sloooowly, the depth of line on the reel arbor increased and after an hour and 15 minutes Jim had regained about 500 yards of line, a few inches at a time. There was still about 200 yards of line out when the situation changed again.
I believe that at this point the "Beast" was starting to come back up through the thermocline, which here is at an average depth of 100 fathoms, or, at 200 yards. There is a temperature change of about 15 degrees farenheight at this depth and I think this was enough to really scare the fish. She immediately began another run towards the depths, taking line at a rapid pace for about 300 yards. As the line peeled off the reel, Jim began cussing at the fish and asking what he was doing wrong. It is really hard to explain to someone who has just expended the effort Jim had, that there is nothing he can do except go through it all again. You could see the depression settle in, but there was also the attitude "It's only a fish, and I'm a man" macho thing going for him. This was the biggest fish of his life (and mine), and there was no way she was going to beat him.
After the rapid run for 300 yards, the angle of the line entering the water had changed to a slightly less acute angle, and we thought that the fish was going to come to the surface. At least that is what I told everyone the fish was going to do. Well, predicting what a fish is going to do is a lot like any prediction, it's just a guess. As we were to learn very soon, my guess was wrong.
After the 300 yard run, the pace the line was leaving the reel slowed way down. Soon, the line was leaving the reel at about a foot a second and the angle had changed to almost vertical. Tony, Dave, myself and everyone else on board had been giving Jim all the moral support we could, but at this point, I felt my heart begin to break, as I knew the "Beast" had made the last move in the chess game for her life. She had put her last bit of energy into that run of 300 yards, and had finally met her defeat, as her body could not keep pace with her will. She had finally died and the line slowly leaving the reel was only the weight of her enormous body sinking to the bottom in 3,600 feet of water.
Tony yelled that he could see gold (the color of the reel) through the line once again, and still the line slipped slowly off the tip of the rod toward the ocean and the "Beast" below. I asked Tony if he could see the pin on the arbor above the level of the line and he said "YES!". We had now come to the point I had read about many times, but had yet to experience myself. Many times I had read the expression "Pop Em or Stop Em" and I knew that that time had arrived for us. Jim no longer had the energy to place the pressure required on the spool flanges with his thumbs, so I instructed Tony to slowly apply pressure until the fish stopped. Amazingly, as the rod bent with the additional 5lbs of pressure, the line stopped. I was sure this was it and we had won the battle. From this point on it was only a matter of time until we had used the boat and the current to their full advantage, and had managed to plane the fish up from it's watery grave and into the boat. With the fish stopped, it was time to begin the pumping required to gain line. Jim could not manage the effort of both using thumb pressure and normal pumping and cranking, so I instructed Tony to hold the spool with one hand, back off the drag lever with the other and increase the fine drag adjust by six clicks (about 3 pounds) then slowly return the drag lever to it's full forward position. He did as I instructed and as Jim lifted the rod on the first pump, the increase in drag caused the rod to arc further over and the line touched the rod between the first and second guides. With the amount of pressure being applied, it was not surprising, although definitely startling, to hear the line pop with the sound of a 22 caliber rifle going off.
Looking back on it now, it suprised me how quickly everyone else was to recover from the loss. Dave said "Que. Sera, Que. Sera", Jim saying how great it would have been to get the fish in and how tired he was. Everyone else was just wondering what had happened. I was so depressed….. Tony and I did the Monday Quarterback thing for the next three or four days, and we have decided that there are a few changes to our techniques that will occur on the next "Beast", should we ever again get the chance. The first change we implemented immediately. No longer will we run all 50lb test line. Both corners, (where all our larger fish have struck), will be 80lb class reels.
[signature]
At 7am I welcome aboard 10 passengers that have chartered the boat for an eight-hour trip on the Island Girl, a 42 foot custom built Sportfisherman powered by twin Cat. 3208T's and inspected for 32 passengers.
The head honcho is Dave, the general manager for Mobile Oil, Guam. He has also invited a few of the management people, the Pacific representatives for Caterpillar engines and the general manager for Hawaiian Rock products. Dave and two of the Cat people are repeat customers and have been out with me and my deckhand, Tony, a few times before. The last few trips with me, Dave and his group caught Skipjack tuna, Yellowfin tuna, Mahi-Mahi and Wahoo, but never a Pacific Blue Marlin. He has chartered this trip because I have told him that the best chances are three days before and three days after the full moon. Having told him this, and being the "Captain", there is absolutely no pressure on me what-so-ever! (Ha-Ha).
After introductions all around (and I can't remember anyone who is new as far as calling them by name, guess I'll never be a politician!) we are ready to begin this day's expedition. For the last two days, there have been large Skipjack tuna (15 lb.) and some nice Yellowfin tuna (50 lb.+) showing up at the number one buoy, approximately five miles from the Agana Boat Basin. After a 15 minute cruise we are putting lines in the water. Shortly thereafter, I spot about a dozen Fairy Terns (small white birds) working over some bait. Right away I tell Tony to put out a small tuna lure, as I want to start the trip off right with a fish in the boat. After the lure is placed in position I made my first pass on the birds. The rod and reel the tuna lure is on starts to scream and shortly afterwards the first fish of the day (18 lb. Skipjack) is in the fishbox. Things are looking promising as the birds that are usually working the Yellowfin tuna are with this school of fish. Well, fishing is a lot like gambling (as I often remind my customers this time of year) and for the next two hours all we manage to catch is about a dozen 5 lb. Skipjack tuna. No one has gotten seasick and Dave agrees with me that it is time to try some other areas. Now, I do have to say that I reminded him that the Marlin love to feed on these small tuna, AND we were pulling five 12inch marlin lures the whole time (that is the reason we only caught a dozen Skipjack) but the decision was made and it was time to go after "The Beast".
About all I can say about the next five hours is that I managed to learn everyone's name, what they did for a living and what kind of fishing experience they had had. For the entire time, we didn't see another flock of birds or any sign of fish. Thank goodness the day was a typical one for this time of year, bright sunshine, light (15mph) trade winds, and slight two foot swells. It was coming near the close of the day and we had still not sighted a Marlin. The next hour would be a downswell run with the wind. Everyone except Tony, Dave, myself and a guy named Jim were asleep.
I was looking ahead for signs of fish when the sound, which we had been waiting over seven hours for, happened. The short flat line took off in a steady, evenly paced scream. My automatic reaction on the flat-line strike is to gun the engines, as an attempt to place the fish past all the other lures in the pattern so there would not be any crossed lines or tangles. At the same time I am looking back at the pattern in order to see what is happening. As with any good deck hand, Tony is automatically clearing the other lines in preparation for the fight. Jim is jumping into the chair and Dave is on the way down from the flybridge in order to assist in clearing the lines.
For the next 30 seconds, I am awestruck and feel as if everything is in slow motion. An explosion occurs outside the long rigger position that throws saltspray as high as the flybridge on the boat. All I can see through the spray is the bill and head of the largest marlin I have ever seen on the end of one of my lines. The fish thrashes her head back and forth three times and then goes down. It may never have happened to you, but for me time slowed down, …way down. As I thought about it later, I don't think she felt the hook when she grabbed the lure. It was only when she stopped to let go of the lure after crushing it and attempted to swallow it head first that the hooks managed to lodge in her jaw. That initial scream of the reel was only the lure having been stopped and the boat continuing forward. Once she felt the hook, she shook her head in an attempt to get rid of the irritation.
Since the head shaking didn't work, she tried to escape the area. As Tony and Dave frantically cleared the lines, she made four greyhounding leaps from the port stern towards the port bow. At this point, I gave up the attempt to clear the stinger line run from the flybridge as it was the farthest out and at this point was in no danger of fouling the line that was speedily disappearing from the short corner reel. Quickly shifting transmissions to the neutral position, I yelled to Jim to reel as fast as he could, as I was about to go into full reverse. Jim was already strapped into the fighting harness and ready for the fight of his lifetime. Tony and Jim had managed to clear all the lines except for the stinger. I'm not sure how the stinger got cleared, because about that time I got tunnel vision as well as time warp. Placing the boat in reverse, I increased the throttle until we were gaining line, although slowly. Verrrrry slllllooooly. And doing 7 knots!
Now let me make a few comments about this fish. At this point I never saw the "Beast" again. After the four greyhounding leaps she continued to run (according to everyone else, who had woken by this time) for another three or four seconds with her head and bill out of the water, apparently on her side, as everyone described it as looking like a jet-ski taking off. When she made her greyhound jumps, I thought at first she was making U-Turns in the air, then I realized that her belly, head and tail were in a straight line, and that what made me think of the U-Turn was the fact that her head was so small in comparison to the rest of her body, and her shoulders were so much higher that she appeared bent in a permanent arch. Since then I've been asked how much I think she weighed, and I still refuse to guess, although she was definitely larger than 1000lb fish I have seen.
Remember that we are doing approximately 7 knots in reverse at this time. The "Beast" has now stopped the jet-ski action and is beginning to sound, going down at a slight angle. Jim has reached the point of no gain of line on the reel and the fish starts her second run. I throttle down, go to neutral, go to forward, throttle up, turn the boat, Tony turns the fighting chair towards the bow and we begin to chase the fish in an attempt to gain line. The fight is at a stalemate with no line being either gained or lost as the angle from the tip of the rod to where it enters the water becomes more acute. Jim is doing the best he can to stop the fish, but she is still taking line straight down. Tony yells to me that he can see the color of the spool arbor showing through the remainder of the line and I know that we are down to the last 75 yards of line. Jim does as I tell him and places the drag lever above the stop button. Thankfully the fish stops, and after about five minutes of a stalemate, Jim begins to gain about six inches at a time using very short pumping strokes. The objective is to keep the fish coming without giving her a chance to get her head turned away.
Now we get down to the nitty-gritty of a big fish fight. Sometimes you get lucky. A big fish will often jump itself into exhaustion and the angler wins in a very short time (403lbs in 25 minutes) but most of the time she will sound and the angler has to spend the next umpteen hours slowly bringing her up from the depths. Well, this fish was typical of most big fish (although I never fought one this size before), and the next hour and fifteen minutes was an attempt to keep Jim's enthusiasm up and energy level maintained. It occurred to me several times that it might be a good idea to change anglers in order to get someone fresh in the chair, but Jim was into the rhythm and had the technique down to perfection. Sloooowly, the depth of line on the reel arbor increased and after an hour and 15 minutes Jim had regained about 500 yards of line, a few inches at a time. There was still about 200 yards of line out when the situation changed again.
I believe that at this point the "Beast" was starting to come back up through the thermocline, which here is at an average depth of 100 fathoms, or, at 200 yards. There is a temperature change of about 15 degrees farenheight at this depth and I think this was enough to really scare the fish. She immediately began another run towards the depths, taking line at a rapid pace for about 300 yards. As the line peeled off the reel, Jim began cussing at the fish and asking what he was doing wrong. It is really hard to explain to someone who has just expended the effort Jim had, that there is nothing he can do except go through it all again. You could see the depression settle in, but there was also the attitude "It's only a fish, and I'm a man" macho thing going for him. This was the biggest fish of his life (and mine), and there was no way she was going to beat him.
After the rapid run for 300 yards, the angle of the line entering the water had changed to a slightly less acute angle, and we thought that the fish was going to come to the surface. At least that is what I told everyone the fish was going to do. Well, predicting what a fish is going to do is a lot like any prediction, it's just a guess. As we were to learn very soon, my guess was wrong.
After the 300 yard run, the pace the line was leaving the reel slowed way down. Soon, the line was leaving the reel at about a foot a second and the angle had changed to almost vertical. Tony, Dave, myself and everyone else on board had been giving Jim all the moral support we could, but at this point, I felt my heart begin to break, as I knew the "Beast" had made the last move in the chess game for her life. She had put her last bit of energy into that run of 300 yards, and had finally met her defeat, as her body could not keep pace with her will. She had finally died and the line slowly leaving the reel was only the weight of her enormous body sinking to the bottom in 3,600 feet of water.
Tony yelled that he could see gold (the color of the reel) through the line once again, and still the line slipped slowly off the tip of the rod toward the ocean and the "Beast" below. I asked Tony if he could see the pin on the arbor above the level of the line and he said "YES!". We had now come to the point I had read about many times, but had yet to experience myself. Many times I had read the expression "Pop Em or Stop Em" and I knew that that time had arrived for us. Jim no longer had the energy to place the pressure required on the spool flanges with his thumbs, so I instructed Tony to slowly apply pressure until the fish stopped. Amazingly, as the rod bent with the additional 5lbs of pressure, the line stopped. I was sure this was it and we had won the battle. From this point on it was only a matter of time until we had used the boat and the current to their full advantage, and had managed to plane the fish up from it's watery grave and into the boat. With the fish stopped, it was time to begin the pumping required to gain line. Jim could not manage the effort of both using thumb pressure and normal pumping and cranking, so I instructed Tony to hold the spool with one hand, back off the drag lever with the other and increase the fine drag adjust by six clicks (about 3 pounds) then slowly return the drag lever to it's full forward position. He did as I instructed and as Jim lifted the rod on the first pump, the increase in drag caused the rod to arc further over and the line touched the rod between the first and second guides. With the amount of pressure being applied, it was not surprising, although definitely startling, to hear the line pop with the sound of a 22 caliber rifle going off.
Looking back on it now, it suprised me how quickly everyone else was to recover from the loss. Dave said "Que. Sera, Que. Sera", Jim saying how great it would have been to get the fish in and how tired he was. Everyone else was just wondering what had happened. I was so depressed….. Tony and I did the Monday Quarterback thing for the next three or four days, and we have decided that there are a few changes to our techniques that will occur on the next "Beast", should we ever again get the chance. The first change we implemented immediately. No longer will we run all 50lb test line. Both corners, (where all our larger fish have struck), will be 80lb class reels.
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