My First Marlin

I have been traveling to Cabo during the summer with the Passy family for the past six years. Part of the excitement of our vacations is the luxury of going sport fishing on Austin’s dad’s yacht, The Great Escape. It seems like every year I try and I hope to catch an amazing fish. In the past I have caught small tuna, eight-ten pounds, I had yet to catch the much sought after marlin. Although, there were fishing expeditions where other people on the boat had the opportunity to battle a large beast, I was not so fortunate; until this year!

My first fishing trip this summer started a little rough, well rough when you are use to relaxing on a million dollar fishing yacht. Before we had reached our destination the generator on the yacht went out, meaning no electricity inside the cabin; more importantly no air conditioning. After taking a much needed nap, I woke up refreshed a ready to conquer the day. The fish of the Sea of Cortez had another idea. We spent hours with nothing, not even a nibble. When out of now where we had a hook up on line from the bridge.

There was the usual commotion; someone needed to set the fish, someone had to reel in all the other lines and someone needed to get their butt in the fighting chair and prepare for battle!

When all was said and done it was my butt in the fighting chair! There was so much to concentrate on; when to reel, when not too, how to hold the pole, be aware of the deck hand, most important was getting the fish to the boat!

After a very exhausting fifteen-twenty minutes, my arms and hands were shaking and the young, fighting, hundrend-twenty pound stripe marlin was at the boat. I was attempting to concentrate on what Steve, Austin’s dad, was telling me to do. “Keep the pole up, let a little line out, turn the chair.” However, the only think I could think of was how in the world one deck hand was going to get this massive and very determined fish on board.

While attempting to bring the fish aboard the marlin spit the hook and took off into the deep blue sea. Although, we had no intentions of keeping the fish (The Great Escape practices catch and release for billfish) I was momentarily disappointed because I did not get a photo with my prized catch, but relieved that the short lived adventure had not harmed the fish.