MARLIN CAUGHT OFF CALI!

Like everybody else who enjoys marlin fishing here in Southern California, I've been kinda holdin' my breath about the marlin season. I know earlier I said that it was gonna be more of a normal season as far as the billfish went, and we'd have to wait and see. Well, right now it looks like it could shape up ok.

Lately I've been doing more boat work than fishing, but we got a chance to get out there and almost landed the first marlin of the season. Before we had the Rybovich in Kona, Hawaii, Anthony Hsieh had a 55-foot Hatteras over there that we nicknamed Betsy. Well, Betsy had been sittin' for about three years at the Crow's Nest brokerage in San Diego for sale. In this economy that's a pretty tough boat to sell, and it's a shame because this is one really nice boat. We've caught fish over 800 pounds and saw several granders come up behind Betsy.

So we thought we should take Betsy out on a demo run and about two weeks ago we made the decision to go. There wasn't anything on board. Not a plate, fork, hook, rod, reel, gaff, towel or tool — absolutely nothing. So I went all out getting the girl ready to head out for a couple of days. Boats hate to sit and I got the vibe that she was just as anxious to get fishing again as I was. So after about a week of all-out work and trying to think of anything we might need, we were finally ready… Sorta.

The trip was supposed to be a full day and a morning, but we stretched it out a little and turned the trip into two full days. Jimmy showed up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday to help out and I was stoked to have him. I haven't fished locally for a couple of years and felt a little rusty. I studied all the sea-surface temperature charts the night before and Lance had told me where he had seen a couple of marlin above the A Bank on a recent trip. The shot of the water that I looked at showed a better piece of water about six miles east of there, so that's where we started.

First we ran up to Newport, got live squid and caught about 20 macks. The bait capacity on this boat is a bit less than what we're used to, so we were a little limited (we just ordered a new tank for her). We ran to my favorite corner outside the rigs and put em in. We tacked around looking for the break and found it in about 40 minutes. I set up a tack just barely on the hot-water side and we started sliding towards the island. I went down to bag up the fresh dead and began to put it in the freezer.

I had been off the bridge maybe two minutes when I heard Jimmy whistle — the marlin whistle!

I ran up to the bridge but the fish had sunk out. We stopped the boat and after several minutes I picked up two marlin. They were just scratchin, I mean like one-inch of a fin showing, then down. Back up again, then down. They were swimming so close together and one had a screwed up tail (the big one) and I thought for a second that it might be a sword. Then they popped up about six inches.