A blue marlin puts up a fight!
Wed, 07/12/2023 - 8:45am
admin
By:
Greg Peralta, captgregp@gmail.com
Sometimes fishing is a contact sport. Especially when fishing for blue marlin.
Last week, Elliott (my son), Brody (the amazing fish-finding and stock-trading dog) and I were targeting marlin offshore. The bite was slow but we stayed committed to trolling large lures for marlin.
Every 30 minutes or so, Elliott would change a lure in our trolling spread to one with different color or action. After hours of trolling (without a strike), we were running out of lures to try. It was hot. We were bored. To tell the truth, I was ready to go home.
About then, Elliott said let’s try one more lure. He selected a large angle face lure with a bright blue and pink skirt. It was so bright, it hurt my eyes to look at it.
He deployed the lure short, about 20 feet behind the boat. I was about to tell Elliott to drop the lure back a few more feet when a blue marlin rose up from the depths and attacked the lure.
The marlin’s bill looked like a windshield wiper as it swatted at the lure.
Brody began barking. I let out a loud hoot of exhilaration. Elliott turned on the video camera. We held our breath as the marlin faded back. The boat got really quiet. Then, it raced forward and engulfed the lure.
The initial run was a scorcher. It jumped a lot and dumped approximately 600 yards of line before we could clear the other rods and give chase.
When the marlin came to the boat, it was hooked in the base of its bill, a tough place to remove the hook. I reached out to grab the bill so Elliott could remove the hook.
The marlin swung its bill and hit me on the hand. Elliott quickly grabbed the bill and told me to remove the hook. As I reached for the hook remover, the fish went wild. It thrashed its head violently, but Elliott managed to hang on.
When the marlin settled down, we removed the hook and revived the fish for a successful release.
On the ride back, I told Elliott my hand hurt. He laughed and said his shoulder hurt. I replied, fishing is a contact sport!
Contact Captain Greg Peralta at captgregp@gmail.com or call (843) 224-0099.