Second Saturday in a Row With a Marlin (updated)

Hard to believe in HK waters, but with the same pattern and same lures we had another marlin on the short rigger with a chugger/rubber fish combo. This fish was not as acrobatic and was only in the air during the strike.

She hit, dropped the lure and then hit again as Curly reeled line in. The marlin then took off for parts unknown leaving Curly to watch the spool of line getting ever smaller. I gave chase with the boat and the fish turned to run straight at us allowing Curly to bring in some line.

I hopped down from the flybridge to fight the fish leaving a Chinese coxswain at the helm with no English skills. Unfortunately, he ran over the line early on and frayed a 10 foot section that ended around 50 feet away from the fish. I fought the fish for around thirty minutes and the Penn 80lbs rod ("made in USA") snapped below the top three eyes. Moments later the line parted in the frayed area with a "ping."

Unlike the fish we had on during the tournament, this fish was too strong to bring into the boat. We got her within 20 feet of the boat and around 6-8 feet below the surface twice during the fight. Big fish.

Also caught 13 fish Sunday while another boat that was out got NADA.