Post by outtadblue on Jul 25, 2022 9:21:43 GMT -5
Forgive me in advance for a long post and not being on a Sailfish.
I had a guy from Missouri contact me a few weeks back to set up a charter for his son who was graduating high school. The plan was for a Bluewater trip to chase tuna. We had a father, son and uncle on board, all who have never been offshore. The son had never seen the ocean and the only fish he had ever caught was a catfish in a pond.
We left the dock at 5:30 am and stopped just south of the islands to catch bait. Met up with a buddy doing the same and after we both loaded the live well we pushed south for another 75 mile ride. Got to the oil rig we wanted to fish to find it looking like a parking lot. There were 13 sport fishers and about 30 big charter boats from Orange Beach, AL to Venice, LA. We knew we were in the right spot.
my buddy Zack pushed tight up in the middle of them but I stayed on the outside and put out a trolling spread. I wanted to pull lures for a bit and see what all the other boats were doing, and then make a plan for the tuna. On our second pass around the rig, the shotgun reel started screaming. Fish on!!! My nephew who is my mate grabbed the rod and got tight. The guest were getting the harness on the son and I started clearing lines. The fish was acting like a good yellowfin just slowly taking line. All the sudden, the line went slack and Gavin, my nephew said the hook pulled. I said to keep reeling just in case. I’m glad he did because the fish was still hooked but swimming towards the boat. A big blue marlin jumps behind us a couple times and I yelled marlin on! Gavin thought the boat next to us had one on and didn’t realize it was us. We finally got the harness and fighting belt on and the lines cleared just in time to turn the boat and start getting line back. The fish almost spoolled the 50 wide. I got on top of it and we had a tug of war for 50 minutes. The boy through in the towel and his uncle got a turn. He lasted about 30 minutes , then the dad tried his luck. He gave in after about 30 minutes also. We are 2 hours in now and I realize the fish is not fighting. I’m thinking we have it tail wrapped. Gavin gets in the rod and is putting some serious heat on the fish. He says it’s definitely dead weight. After about 40 minutes he has it about 50 foot from the boat and we put the kid back in it to finish the task. Sure enough she comes up belly up dead. It was not wrapped. She just died from the battle. I had the tag stick ready and definitely didn’t want to kill the fish, but we saw that it was a legal size marlin and we took her for a boat ride back to the marina.
We did try for tuna for about 30 minutes, but a big storm blew up and forced us to leave. They were super excited to have caught a fish of a lifetime and forgave us for not catching any tuna. The tuna were there as we saw them busting all around us. We just spent too much time with the marlin.
We did make the young man take a swim when we got back to the marina.
I had a guy from Missouri contact me a few weeks back to set up a charter for his son who was graduating high school. The plan was for a Bluewater trip to chase tuna. We had a father, son and uncle on board, all who have never been offshore. The son had never seen the ocean and the only fish he had ever caught was a catfish in a pond.
We left the dock at 5:30 am and stopped just south of the islands to catch bait. Met up with a buddy doing the same and after we both loaded the live well we pushed south for another 75 mile ride. Got to the oil rig we wanted to fish to find it looking like a parking lot. There were 13 sport fishers and about 30 big charter boats from Orange Beach, AL to Venice, LA. We knew we were in the right spot.
my buddy Zack pushed tight up in the middle of them but I stayed on the outside and put out a trolling spread. I wanted to pull lures for a bit and see what all the other boats were doing, and then make a plan for the tuna. On our second pass around the rig, the shotgun reel started screaming. Fish on!!! My nephew who is my mate grabbed the rod and got tight. The guest were getting the harness on the son and I started clearing lines. The fish was acting like a good yellowfin just slowly taking line. All the sudden, the line went slack and Gavin, my nephew said the hook pulled. I said to keep reeling just in case. I’m glad he did because the fish was still hooked but swimming towards the boat. A big blue marlin jumps behind us a couple times and I yelled marlin on! Gavin thought the boat next to us had one on and didn’t realize it was us. We finally got the harness and fighting belt on and the lines cleared just in time to turn the boat and start getting line back. The fish almost spoolled the 50 wide. I got on top of it and we had a tug of war for 50 minutes. The boy through in the towel and his uncle got a turn. He lasted about 30 minutes , then the dad tried his luck. He gave in after about 30 minutes also. We are 2 hours in now and I realize the fish is not fighting. I’m thinking we have it tail wrapped. Gavin gets in the rod and is putting some serious heat on the fish. He says it’s definitely dead weight. After about 40 minutes he has it about 50 foot from the boat and we put the kid back in it to finish the task. Sure enough she comes up belly up dead. It was not wrapped. She just died from the battle. I had the tag stick ready and definitely didn’t want to kill the fish, but we saw that it was a legal size marlin and we took her for a boat ride back to the marina.
We did try for tuna for about 30 minutes, but a big storm blew up and forced us to leave. They were super excited to have caught a fish of a lifetime and forgave us for not catching any tuna. The tuna were there as we saw them busting all around us. We just spent too much time with the marlin.
We did make the young man take a swim when we got back to the marina.