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Posted by Jon on 05:14:45 08/09/03
In Reply to: Marlin from a yak posted by Jeff
Jeff, it happened a couple of days ago. I was trolling with a panguero named Rene with my rental scarmbler xt yak stuffed in the front of the panga, and I got a jig strike. I was trolling for a big bull, the plan was to get in the yak if a strike occured and land it. I got hit, took the rod in hand, my panguero took my scrambler rental and threw it in the water, and I hopped in it. We had no idea what it was. It seemed to not move at first. Only when I got in my yak did it reveal itself- a blue marlin, greyhounding about 50 yards in front of me, and pulling real hard on the 6/0 beat up rental senator with the old roller guide boat rod.He towed me all over,at a serious clip, I put my feet over to increase the drag of the boat and tried to keep myself going in the direction of the fish. My panguero followed me and took mucho cool photos which I will scan and post in a week or so when I have time, and then I got him close to me. About 15 feet from me, he stood still for a moment or two in about 6 feet of clear deep blue water. with my polarized lenses, i could see him perfectly, just like in a movie.I could see that he was tail wrapped, and he was very large, and so to be cautious I let him go out more. He then dragged again, pulling line off that 6/0 and leaving me with a wake. Then he went deep, deep, deep, and I figured I better try to keep him up or he will die down there since he was tail wrapped, although I don't really know how that stuff works. When we started trolling,Rene had joked with me about if I would go into the yak if we hooked into a Marlin and I laughed, thinking that wasn't very probable. Sure enough after about 45 minutes or more, he is about 150 feet deep, maybe way more,and he stops pulling. Now what do I do, Rene? He shouts to me, he's probably dead, "Se muerte," porque el no esta moviendo ( he's dead, because he's not moving). So now what, Rene? "Pull him up." How do I do that? "Pull! Con mucho fuerca(or something like that)(with alot of force!) So I say you have to be kidding. But he wasn't. he offered tp let me in and let me do it from the panga but I declined, I figured that would defeat the whole purpose, so I pulled as hard as I could, and about 4 inches winds on the reel. It went like that, sometimes 6 ", sometimes none, for about 30 minutes(?), and in the middle, the line comes up covered in red jellyfish which were stinging the heck out of my hands and forearms. the only cool thing about the jellyfish was that it turned the line that was coming in red like spaghhetti with a light marinara sauce, so i had an idea as to how much line I was getting back on the reel by the amount of red stained line was accumulating.Finally I got it to my scrambler!!!! I couldn't believe it. So I sunk my gaff in him, which was kind of silly since he was dead as, well, something that is dead, took him by the "Pico" or bill, and tried to pull him onto my lap, but that wasn't going to happen, so I did my best,and got some wild shots, his head is in my lap and you can see his body in the water with the line and lure wrapped around his poor tail. Then I asked Rene, the panguero, for the camera, took some pics, put my hand down his mouth, which was scary even though he was dead since the mouth could have fit in, well, way more than my whole head, and I unhooked the lure, undid the drag, handed him the stick, and we boated the poor beast. We then drove over to where Jim Sammons, CEO of La Jolla Kayak Fishing,and his fine group of rooster fishing clients were, (they were based out of Punta Colorada)including the legendary Rod, who got a 70 # rooster(!), and the befabled Val, slayer of a 35 pound dorado,we showed them the fish, went in to the launch, took some pics, filleted the fish (it's a prized meat), I shared most of it with rene and my pals who work there, kept some, brought some up to the kitchen, and fell dead asleep in the hammock!!!!! Anywho it was very exciting but I was just lucky. I will scan the action pics and post them. If you go to Rancho Leonero's site there is a beach shot of the fish in the yak. It looks pretty silly. BTW, couldn't have done it without Spike's pioneering and tips. I definitely would never have gone to the east Cape were it not for seeing Spike with that sail on his lap! Spike is running a trip down there at Rancho in late August,around the 28 and 29, which is good because the moon will be gone. Jim runs trips out of Punta Colorada and has a great setup there. We had a great time with him.Take care!
Jon
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