Lost 1000lb plus blue marlin at Richards Bay South Africa

[Awie]

We lost 1000lb plus blue marlin at Richards Bay South Africa 24th May 2008 on my boat "LADY ELS", boat Magnum 32 sportfisher with wife Elsa in the chair to fight her first marlin. Crew Awie Jnr son, Adriaan Fourie(kleiboet) brother, skipper Awie Snr. The marlin strike short left corner on large Big T custom made lure at low dead tide. Fight the marlin for 8 1/2hrs (11h30 – 20h30) on 80lb tackle with heave drag, the fish did not give up at all. After 2hrs fight the fish jumped only one time out the water and we notice the big fat belly stomach and it's a very big marlin 1000lb pound range. Did not peel off line very fast, slow paste take 200 - 300m of line and get the fish some times easy at the boat at least 10 times and take the windon leader, she swim about 2m - 3m below the boat with boat motors in gear and fight the fish down current 45 degree at stern and swim just to deep the get the flying gaff in and fish to strong to lift her head with the leader line with two crew members.Then she dive below the boat and take line again at slow steady paste, few times on the dacron back up line. One stage a large shipping vessel approach straight on our position line and refuse to change course and we manage to get the fish and boat out the way and the vessel passed us 200m apart. The fighting chair gumble broke during the fight and use the rod holder on the fighting chair, very difficult to fight and control the fish with the bend butt rods in the chair solid rod holder, not much control. To difficult for Elsa to continue fighting the big marlin due to the broken fighting chair, also exhausted and crew assist to make turns fighting the marlin. At 8.30pm the night we still fight the marlin under boat spreader lights and she still swim strong when come to the boat and still to deep to gaff, very nice blue colour come off the fish body to seen at night , could not change her strategy with all our tricks. The weather conditions start to change and wind start to blow strong with thunder lightning in the back ground and 22nm straight out at sea at 1350m depth water become unsafe and not worth to continue even if it could be a record fish for Lady Els, with no cell phone signal and radio signal we decided to end the fight and could not continue any longer then we kept the drag full at sunset and fight the fish for further 15min and she peeled off line again 200 – 300m out in the dark at slow paste with no stop and pulled the sampo swivel and snapped the crimp sleeve at the hook. Lost the monster after the very long fight, delighted to head back home, crew quiet and all exhausted we reach Richards Bay harbour before 12pm midnight, thanks for the good Furuno navigation system. Good news Novasmarine replaced the fighting chair base at no cost. Marlin lost and free swimming till next time. Strange how the big blues behaive, some fight for short times and die due to hart attack or exhausted and some don't give up easy or at all like our big TATA. I read one artickle the blue marlin fight continue for 37hrs. Hope and trust to tag or load a grander the next time...............ALHOA

Tight lines
Crew and skipper "Lady Els"

[Patudo01]

Great report... SA sure has some big fish and Big T lures have a great record of hooking into the big ones all over the world. Are you sure this was a blue or could it have been a black? Sorry the fish got away, but the memories never will. Very very brave effort by your wife. Fighting a big fish on heavy drag has broken the spirit of many a big strong bloke in much less time than eight hours. Big fish that pace themselves like that are the hardest to deal with. They just test your strength until the gear gives out or someone makes a mistake. From reading your report it looked like your best chance was when the fish was on the leader. Its easy to comment with the benefit of hindsight but if it was getting dark and you were worried about your angler, sometimes that's the situation to tell your crew to hold on to that leader and don't let go. You need to have crew that are strong and confident enough to do this though.

Better luck next time

Regards

P

[Awie]

Thank you for the info, we sure its been a blue marlin. Pale blue bar stripes could be seen along the body of the marlin.

Tight lines.
Awie Fourie

[Patudo01]

Hey Awie,

The colour alone doesn't necessarily rule out a black marlin. I was just wondering how common is it to hook into a big black vs a big blue in your area. I remember seeing two photos of 1000 lb class fish from SA - the 1,110 something 80 lb Pacific blue marlin record which was caught with a Williamson big blue cavitator in black/red (I think the same lure caught the 1200 lb fish from Rodrigues which replaced it) and another big one that was caught on what looked like a Big T or another Williamson - blue head with blue/silver skirt. Both of these were blues, but do any of the big blacks make it down from Mozambique?

Great fight anyway, regardless of species. Do most SA anglers prefer to use 80 lb like you or are there many that use 130 lb tackle?

Regards

P.