Yesterday, Saturday July 6th, Mr. Bob Hixson went out fishing on his “Team Galati” 80′ Viking Skybridge. Him and his wife Amanda headed up the Sea of Cortez side to Destiladeras area, about 35 miles from Cabo. They saw schools of tuna around 25 to 35 lbs, the water was 83 F and the weather was perfect. They had already had 4 Striped Marlin bites on their trolled ballyhoo but couldn’t land any of them. And then suddenly, something hit the ballyhoo again, really hard.
Captain Brad Richards explained, “We looked and there was a hole.” I asked, “A hole? What do you mean?” “There was literally a hole in the water where the fish took the bait. We had no idea what it was, and we were definitely not expecting this.” As the anglers and Captain looked back at this hole wondering what size fish could have done that, they had their answer. An approx 500 lbs or more, Blue Marlin, leaped through the air just meters from the boat. The fight was on, and boy was it on good. Mr. Hixson grabbed the reel, a 30 Wide Shimano Tyrnos on a custom Biscayne rod. This reel was in no way rigged for this size of a fish; it had 30 pound test line and a 60 pound leader.
Hixson and Captain Richards put their skills to the test. At 15 minutes of fighting the marlin and expertly maneuvering an 80′ boat to keep up with it, they had it at the leader. The mate grabbed the leader but the fish took off again.
Richards said, “It was almost as if the marlin didn’t even know it was hooked! It never dove down deep. Seemed like it was just thinking it had something stuck on its mouth and was trying to shake it loose. We only had 6 lbs of drag on it too. It’s amazing even to me that we managed to catch and release this fish like we did.”
Another 15 minutes and Hixon had the Blue back at the leader and this time they didn’t miss their chance. A perfect release and a fish of a lifetime.
See video of marlin at leader the first time here: