Big Bend Sportsman Guide Fishing Stories

"Stories from the Caribbean"
From a Series of Short Stories

By: Capt. "Tato"  Reyes

 "Now, This is a Long Fish"

Blue marlins are like people, they come in all shapes or forms. I think, that I have seen them all. Some of them, are very athletic, and some of them aren’t.  Some of them are heavy built and some of them are skinny. Some of them are short and fat and some are long and slim.  Sometimes you look at a fish and you say,” two hundreds pounds, no doubt about it…” and it will weight 140#, almost as if, it was filled with feathers. 

They also differ in the way they fight.   I have seen huge fish give up in no time and small fish fight like champions.  Even the IGFA recognizes that that is a factor, that can't be appreciated, when assigning a world record. My biggest fish, ever, was a 602 pound Blue Marlin, that could have been caught on 30 pound test line, with no problem.  I also fought, a 133# fish on 80 pound test line, that fought like a monster, and wore out two young fishermen. 

As you have seen in some of the pictures, my dad built me a weighting tower, equipped with a pulley system.  He installed it in my boat driveway.  It simplified the unloading of fish off the boat and the weighing.  This was especially helpful, when I was alone. That tower was 16 feet tall, and cleared the boat’s garage roof by four feet. This meant that I could hang a 15 feet fish with no problem. Off course, a 15 feet long fish would probably weight in the 700-800 pounds range or better. 

Don Jimmy came to me on a Tuesday night and said, he felt we should go fishing the next day. He had that feeling of a big fish in his bones. I had planned to play golf that day, with some people with whom, I was about to close a real estate deal.  They did not like fishing.  You need to understand that, when Don Jimmy says we must go, we must go!  He has never failed in his prognosis.

I managed to set up a tee time for 8:00 AM and to have them agree to my early departure, after the first nine holes.  It all worked out just fine, I closed the deal, played just nine holes, and was ready at the dock at 10:45AM.  Don Jimmy had everything ready for me.

It was close to 11:30AM, when I was in position to really start fishing.  I was probably 3 miles offshore and due north of our Club House. It had rained for several days, so we had a lot of green water, due to the runoff of the rivers. I was in a good area, the water was not what I wanted, but the area has always produced fish at this time of the year.

My set up was no different than so many other times, two rods and two teasers. Both rods on the chair one to the middle outrigger at the back of the spread and the other on the transom clip just behind the teasers. My baits were two mullets (my favorite bait). They had been cleaned, de-boned and treated with the needed reverence. Both were swimmers with an occasional skip, but mainly swimmers.

We had baits in the water for at least one hour when Don Jimmy called the fish.  She was coming from behind the back mullet.  Her dorsal fin was all the way out of the water and the dorsal lobe of her tail was steering her forward. She passed the back mullet without looking at it and went straight for the short one. It was amazing how long the fish was.  I thought, that we had a monster fish in the 700 pounds class. She gave the left teaser a hit and turned around to jump over the flat line. I gave her just enough time to change her face and I set the hook.  I fell on my ass as she pulled on my 19 pounds of drag like nothing. She went straight back and deep. The line was going out right in between the two engines so we started backing down on her. In a boat, like my 24 foot Aquasport, with transom mounted engines, this is not a great practice, as you can fill up your boat with water in no time.  We quickly had six inches of water in the cockpit and Don Jimmy said, “self-bailing my ass, I am going forward no matter what you say”.  At that same time, the fish jumped at a 90 degree angle to our port side.  Don Jimmy immediately steered the boat into position where  I could recover line, as he moved the boat at an angle with the line but in a forward motion.  I was able to be on top of the fish within ten minutes and I could now apply straight pressure on her.  I had 80 pound tackle in my hands, so I was able to inflict some damage to her energy supply.  Anytime she tried to rest,  I would jump on her and provoke another run.

The fight went on without incident and within the hour she was showing color.  We gaffed her with little effort, at the side of the boat.  She was so long!!! And Skinny!!! We could not get her into the boat.  We had to tow her on her side back to the dock.  We then had to tie her to the boat and put it onto the trailer.  We then towed her to our house, where we lifted her, with the block and tackle, onto my weigh station.

It was amazing how long she was, her bill touched the floor and the tail went over the garage roof, at least another two feet.  We never measured her, although we did weigh her at 366 pounds. That fish, in better days, would have weighed at least 700 pounds.

Here is a picture of it, so you can see the length of this animal.

From a series of fishing stories submitted by Capt Tato Reyes

copyright Capt Tato Reyes