Blue marlin is a perfect sportfishing species to target

Sportfishing is a hero or zero game. Catch and release the target species and you are a hero. Fail to catch and release the target species and you are a zero. A big fat zero.  

 

Recently, my target species has been the blue marlin. They are the perfect sportfishing species. Large. Powerful. Beautiful. A big challenge to catch and release.  

 

For Elliott (my son), Brody (our Carolina Dog), and me, blue marlin have been occasional surprises when targeting mahi, wahoo, and tuna.  

 

This year, we decided to flip the script. Target blue marlin and be pleasantly surprised when mahi, wahoo or tuna crash the party. This is easier said than done. It requires larger tackle, larger lures, and a significantly larger budget. My fishing account is also going from hero to zero!

 

On Saturday, Elliott, Brody, and I set out to be heroes. Our plan was to target blue marlin with magnum size lures and hope to accidentally catch a mahi, wahoo, or tuna. Seemed like a good plan.  

 

Unfortunately, no one told the blue marlin, mahi, wahoo or tuna. After several hours without a strike, Elliott and I debated switching our trolling spread to smaller lures. However, we agreed to stay focused on blue marlin and continue pulling a spread of magnum size lures.  

 

After nine hours of trolling, zero blue marlin. A big fat zero! 

 

We were a bit dejected on the long ride home. Not heroes, zeroes once again. To break the silence on the boat, I turned up the VHF radio. A couple of the professional fishing teams that were in Charleston fishing a marlin tournament started chatting on the radio. From their conversations, most of the professional fishing teams also had zeros.

 

Elliott said these are the best blue marlin fishing teams on earth and we caught just as many as they did! This got us laughing. 

 

Suddenly, being zeros did not seem so bad.

 

Contact Captain Greg Peralta at captgregp@gmail.com or call (843) 224-0099.