SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2005
What a day! We left the dock at 4:45 a.m. with a party of local anglers. The ride out was nice, as we looked for the blue water. We headed towards the Point, a well-known fishing ground off of Oregon Inlet, about 36 miles out. When we reached the Point, the water was only 68 degrees, so we pushed on another 5 miles or so. There it was.... 73 degree water, a nice break, and scattered grass all over. This was a good starting point. The birds were flying. It was about 7:30 We put out about 8 lines and before you knew it, there was a fish on. This one was about a 25-pound yellow fin. The birds were working all around us. We trolled over a couple of flat spots that the birds were working, and I had a lot of marks on the fish finder, but nothing came down. I was suspicious, so I checked a few of my lines and found out that three of them had been short bitten, right behind the hook. We re-baited and continued to work that area for about an hour. No more bites. We checked the baits and everything was good, so we eased on out to the deep.
We were in over 1,000 feet of water and found a nice weed line to fish along. Then a pin popped after an hour or so, and we had a small dolphin on. We chummed up a few more, had two break our lines, and put 2 more dolphin in the boat. After I talked to a buddly on the radio who was catching a lot of what we call bailers, we started heading his way. This is when it happened. A magnificent blue marlin showed up in our spread and hit our short rigger! He hit it short and missed the hook. The pop sounded like a 22 going off. The water exploded around that bait! He was gone just as fast as he was there. I jumped up and started jigging my long rigger baits. And there he was again - on my long rigger!
This is where the fight began. Once we hooked the fish, I handed the rod down hollering, "Reel in all of the other lines. I have to start backing down or he's going to spool us." My mate, Chris, hollered, "Go faster - he is going to spool us!" Both motors in reverse, waves crashing over the stern, we backed down chasing that fish. I noted that the time was about 12:30. Before you knew it, we saw him come out of the water and start dancing for us. He was jumping and dancing about 600 yards behind us. With both motors going as fast as we could go in reverse, we started gaining on him. Then he disappeared, and went down to the deep.
He stayed down for about an hour and a half. We slowed down and continued in reverse, working him in a give-and-take tug-of -war. After another hour or so into the fight, he came to the surface where I had a glimpse of him and saw that he was a monster. One of the biggest blue marlins I've ever had on. (Two years ago we caught a 750-pounder and this one today was a lot bigger than that one.) I estimated this one to be 850 - 900 pounds. We thought he was going to jump, but he never did. He went back down and we went back to tug-of-war mode.
We kept hollering to Dusty, who was in the chair, to keep the line tight and reel! We could tell he was getting tired, having been in this fight over 3 and a half hours. I hollered down to my mate, "Tighten up on the drag to put more pressure on the fish." We did that for another 10 minutes without any results. We were in a stalemate. I told him to go full drag on the fish. When we did this, the fish felt more tension and he started sounding again. He ran out about another 600 yards. What a fish!! He went airborne, coming all the way out of the water, putting on another dance for us. We were backing down on him real fast and the mate hollered that he was going to spool us. I thought this fish was getting tired, but it seemed that he was getting his second wind..... Finally, we started gaining on him again, getting our line back for the second time. Dusty was doing a great job steadily reeling as we hollered at him to reel and keep the line tight! We finally got the marlin straight down below the boat. We looked down and saw the blue and white Sea Witch and the swivel of the leader. Wow! It was about time! Four hours into the fight. Chris looked over and saw this fine fish. He said it was lit up with beautiful colors. We didn't get to touch the leader this time because he took off again. So we kept up with the tug-of-war, steady backing down on that fish. Every few minutes the swivel would come up, but it would be just out of our reach and he would take off again. What a fish! About thirty minutes later, we finally got to the swivel and touched the leader. Once you touch the leader it is considered a caught fish. This put the time at about 5:15 p.m. Wow.! What a fight! Dusty was one heck of an angler. He stuck in there the whole time. Of course, he paid for it with sore arms and blistered hands......What a great group of guys to fish with. The weary, but happy, angler was Dusty Rhodes of Kitty Hawk. Thanks, Dusty. It was a job well done. (Whoever says fishing isn't physical, should just ask Dusty!)
Captain Robert Fitzwater
