Birthday marlin!

wrote this for another forum Im on, thought you guys would enjoy as well

It was my bday yesterday and i took a charter trip out in the Sea of Cortez with a few of my buds from our town here in Loreto. Original plan was to hook up with some big jurel (yellowtail amberjack) but the bite was off. Instead of focusing on jurel the captain decided to go hunt for marilin, cool with me, ive never caught one before and it would be badass to get a birthday marlin!

Loaded up the boat with beers and started out hitting up the bait man to pick up about 20 live mackerels, $15




dumped em in the live well and headed out

the bay in front of my town here in Mexico is actually a protected marine national park, there are HUGE pods of dolphins that are easily 100+ dolphins deep that live out here, we came across a smaller pod of about 30 on the way, they escorted us past the barrier islands towards the deeper water fishing grounds, about 10 miles from the marina






We hit the spot and I thought we were going to drop some baits and start trolling, but the captain busted out some binoculars and started looking around, he told me he was looking for marlin, i had never fished for marlin so he taught me that the marlin will come to the surface to rest for a bit, while they are up there you can see their big bills and sails poking out of the water

We bobbed around for a few hours not seeing a damn thing, but we were at least getting a good buzz on slamming Tecates, smoking some of Mexicos finest and bullchitting, was a beautiful day out on the water




Eventually the capitan yelled, MARLIN! we looked around and sure enough i saw this stick poking out of the water about 50 yards off our bow, i thought it was some random floating garbage at first


We idled up pretty close and capitan rigged up a mackerel and handed me the rod, I was supposed to gently cast it up stream of the marlin, but instead I friggin whiffed it and the bait slammed loud as hell into the water like 2ft from the boat

the marlin got spooked and dove away, DOH!

Capitan got a few more rods rigged up and we were live lining 2 mackerel about 15-20ft back of the boat and looking around for our little friend, after about 5 minutes I saw a blue streak hauling ass towards the boat, it went right by me and I saw it go towards the Mac, she grabbed the bait, I picked up the rod and let her take more line, wanting to make sure she got that flocker swallowed, after a few seconds i started tightening up the drag with my fingers crossed, sure enough, we were hooked, FISH ON!!!

the second she realized she was hooked she hit like a friggin freight train and started hauling ass, peeling line off the heavy drag like it was nothing, gosh darnn! this is a big fish!!

soon I felt her let up, I could see the line coming towards the surface, and BOOM! shes jumping like crazy!! Im bowing and taking up the slack like a sunnab-tch praying to fish gods that she wont spit the hook



after a helluva dance show of at least 10 more jumps she dove DEEP! deeper and deeper, just kept diving, again stripping all the line I had gained during her surface shennagins, this is gonna be a long fight!!


this process repeated itself about 4 or 5 more times, me running all around the boat trying to keep the line clear of everything and keep tension on that hook! I was worn the heck out. After about 40 minutes of fighting she finally came up to the surface, exhausted, beautiful fish




I worked her over to the boat and the captain was able to get a grab on the bill, and me on the tail, we hoisted her up into the boat as you can see I was pretty ecstatic that we actually landed her!!




My mexican buddy wanted to keep the marlin, but I just cant kill something this beautiful, so I told captain I wanted to release it, so we set her back in the water and idled the boat along for about 10 minutes pushing water past her gills until she had enough energy to kick off and swim away. See ya next time old girl!!

Headed back to the marina and hit up our favorite taco spot for some fish tacos since we threw back our fish!



SUCCESSFUL 35th BIRTHDAY TO ME!





[Edited on 6-23-2019 by BajaNomad]

Quote: Originally posted by Bajazly

Sternly worded letter from the fishing police in 5...4...3... Nice job tho.

Quote: Originally posted by Maderita

Defrag, Thanks for this outstanding trip report! One of the best I've seen. Great narrative, matching the photos. Almost living vicariously from my armchair. This is what BajaNomad should be about. Hoping none of the crotchety folks throw shade on this thread.

Quote: Originally posted by JZ

Very good pics.

Quote: Originally posted by defrag4

happy to share bud, i love fishing

Sounds like a good day out on the chuck....sunny day, friends, some suds, and a guy "happy to share a bud".....

Hope it was really some of the finest, cuz the usual cartel crap isn't.

Fishing is just an excuse for the above related activities

Quote: Originally posted by defrag4

Quote: Originally posted by Bajazly   Sternly worded letter from the fishing police in 5...4...3... Nice job tho. Lol which rule did I break now :-p

Quote: Originally posted by mtgoat666

If you exhaust a big marlin such that it is so spent you can grab it and lift it for pics, the fish is close to dead. 1 hour of heavy pressure on hook had probably severely damaged its mouth or throat. Throwing the fish back was probably good way to feed the sharks I suppose...

Quote: Originally posted by Bajazly

Quote: Originally posted by mtgoat666   If you exhaust a big marlin such that it is so spent you can grab it and lift it for pics, the fish is close to dead. 1 hour of heavy pressure on hook had probably severely damaged its mouth or throat. Throwing the fish back was probably good way to feed the sharks I suppose... And there's your sign!

Happy birthday amigo!
Thankyou for sharing

Quote: Originally posted by defrag4

Quote: Originally posted by Bajazly   Quote: Originally posted by mtgoat666   If you exhaust a big marlin such that it is so spent you can grab it and lift it for pics, the fish is close to dead. 1 hour of heavy pressure on hook had probably severely damaged its mouth or throat. Throwing the fish back was probably good way to feed the sharks I suppose... And there's your sign! ahh i see, guess she missed the part where we revived the fish for 10 minutes until she swam away! oh well