Fishing Trip

Matt, Dave, Ben and I chartered a sportfishing boat yesterday. It was so much fun!!

The day started out early. We met Capt Eads at the dock at 545Am. His boat "Lucky Strike" was full of fuel, drinks and hope. We were going fishing for the big Marlin. It was going to be a long day.

By about 615, Ben and Dave were on there second MillerLite. That's way to early for me to start, unless I've been up all night already. A school of dolphin came out to play in the boat wake for awhile as we motored out. They were jumping the wake and flipping upside down. I think they were having a good time. Better than us at this early point in the day. Around 715, I decided it was late enough in the day to join the fun. I grabbed a MillerLite and one for Matt, too. We dropped the lines in the water as we trolled behind the boat, wondering who'd hit the fish first. The Captain gave us some instruction about the reels and the "fighting chair" in case we hit a large one.

Around 9 we had our first Marlin strike. It hit the rig and knocked it about 40feet forward and tangled the lines a little bit. It didn't appear as though it wanted the rig. It wanted the rig out of there. Some pilot whales and more dolphins came out to play. At least we were getting a whale watching tour.

At this point, the betting began and we broke off into 2 teams. Matt and I vs Ben and Dave. Bets were laid for first fish and total weight. Ben and Dave's side of the boat had a strong hit around 10Am, and the fish took the hook for a couple seconds, taking extra line out from the reel, but ultimately, spit the hook out and left us empty. I wasn't too upset at this point. At least Matt and I hadn't lost the bet yet.

Around 11Am, after 5 hrs of practically no excitement (except for shotgunning MillerLites and trying to push Ben overboard), Matt and I had our first strike. About 100 yards off the back of the boat, I saw the fish hit the bait and jump clear out of the water. I screamed "Marlin!!" as the line spun backwards out to sea. The fish jumped 5 or 6 times clear out of the water. We all jumped up to clear the other 4 lines out of the water to prevent tangling as the captain went into reverse prevent the fish from taking out more line that we'd have to get back. I jumped into the chair and Matt fought to get the rod over to me and anchored into the chair with me. I reeled hard for 10 mins or so and the fish was still taking line OUT. It is very disheartening to be working your butt off and look down at the reel to see line still going out. It is more disheartening to know that we were in 2000 feet of deep water as the fish went down.

Matt and I switched out and he popped into the chair to fight awhile. He started making some forward progress as the fish eventually began to grow tired. We swapped again and I reeled hard the last 5 minutes or so to get the fish to the side of the boat. We were all cheering and yelling as the fish gave a huge last ditch effort as the fight came to an end. The capt gaffed the fish as he, Ben and Dave hoisted the fish up into the boat. Dave and the capt humanely silenced the fish with a couple quick strikes. We dropped the lines back in the water to troll on our way back to shore to get the fish weighed and filleted. Covering the fish in ice and a wet blanket, we hooted and hollared all the way back. Matt and I had landed the biggest fish any of us had ever caught, and won all the day's bets in the process.

The excitement was huge and as we pulled into the dock, the Japanese tourists' cameras started flashing as the hoist pulled the fish off the boat. Matt and I worked great as a team and landed the fish in about 25 minutes (60 minutes is what it usually takes 1 person). We sold 92.5 lbs of meat to the store, and kept around 25 lbs for ourselves and cooked up some Marlin Steaks, invited over some friends for a fish grill, cut some for Sashimi (holy smokes....best sashimi I've ever had), and froze a dozen pounds or so. The pics on flickr are every bit as much fun as they look! More pics will be up shortly. There's 10 or so now. This was one of my best days out here in Guam. The feeling of fighting with a fish like that and feeling how powerful they are, watching him jump clear of the water from 100 yards out as he struck and hearing the reel back-spin out with such ferocity, was something I will never forget.