Grander in Mako 22

[merry marlin]

This is an old picture but thought that Wahoonbox would enjoy it....
I was born in South Africa but lived 12 years in Sénégal where the big fish passion crawled under my skin...
We did a lot of marlin Fishing and called this mako 22 the "Merry Marlin". The first outing we had our first Marlin after 15 mins of trawling a moldcraft hooker. She was baptised well!
On october 12, 1997 which is towards the end of the season I went out with a buddy Guy Herman which only fishes for marlin with his wife in a 22 Yamaha (Panga) with twin 40 yamaha's, they put some BIG fish in that tub. He had fished 13 days in a row and called it quit for the season so he came on with me for a day. 20 mins in our magic spot and we were on. A 500 lbs blue marlin that did not revive and we put it in the boat. We trawled lures all day and released one sailfish. Around 5.00pm we started clearing lines at the magic spot aiming for the cliffs of Dakar and his wife Annie screamed Shark. The tail and dorsal was swinging so much behind that lure that it looked like some of the big sharks we'd seen in the area.
It hit the lure twice and finally hooked up on a 50 Penn Int. with 80 pound test with a hooker chugger. It peeled almost all the line by the time we had two rods in the boat. Chased him @ 15kts for a while and he finally jumped after about 15 mins. It was such a sight that now it wasn't a problem if we lost him. Guy was sitting on a cooler cussing at me for not having a fighting chair in this frickin' boat.... All this in French of course ! He threw up all he had as he was hurting so much. After 30 mins. it jumped again bouncing on the water for what seemed like 10 seconds and that must have tired the beast. Steve another buddy who caught all his first big fish on my boat was in charge of gaffing and he had done a big mistake a few months earlier breaking 3 of my teeth with a gaff trying to pull a 250 lbs Big eye on the boat so he was stressed by the job...
When it got close to the boat it circled 7 times and that light mako just spun around perfectely as usual. It took a last run and we brought it back to the boat almost flat. Steve missed the gaffing while I had the leader it almost pulled me over but I held tight. Annie jumped on the gaff and stuck him well we were 12 miles from where we hooked up. At the same time I roped the tail and he slung my glasses in for a deep swim...
We thought we could put him in the boat on the starboard but couldn't get him over the gunnel. We swung to the other side with the 500lbs and he came in just easy.... so did the Water !!! Annie took the picture as we dashed towards the front...
Another friend on a big boat was a few miles away lucky for us because in Senegal not more than 5 boats were usually offshore at one time.
We planned to just bring him back tied to the side of the Merry Marlin but after the flooded engine would not start we transfered him on the other boat as it was getting dark.
Finally we got the second engine started and made it back as a bigger scale arrived at our fishing club. Ended up at 461.5 kgs about 1017lbs.
Lost all the negatives of that film but will scan a couple more pics and post them later.
Conclusion : Verify your knots and be sure of your line for when that big one hits. You want to be ready! I'm sold on Yamaha engines as I never had a problem for 4 more years at 1000 hours per year...

Merry Marlin

[SeaBiscuit]

Outstanding stuff! We want more. Big fish out of small boats in far away places. Long before pastel fishing shirts and anatomically correct fishing sneakers!
We'll take all of this kind of stuff you got merry marlin. Stories, pictures, whatever! Hell, make it up if you have to, but keep it coming!
SeaBiscuit

[hamer31]

WOW that is a crazy story with an equally crazy photo!!! keep these coming!!

[TROPHY SPORTFISHING]

SWEET........ that's what i'm talkin about how bout 1500 lbs of blue ones on the deck. Ain't to often you catch 2 fish 1/2 the wieght of your boat nice going there merry marlin.

[POON MAN]

MM that is some good stuff !!!! keep it coming

You guy's could be considered nut's !!!!

[Gusman]

Unbelivable story! One of those once in a lifetime days for sure!

[shoefish]

That damn thing is so big the flying gaff looks like a sattelite tag. Nice job!

[TunaTeaser1]

WOW that is awesome stuff right there, thanks for sharing the story with us.

[babalaza]

great stuff mate, about the yammies, no doubt about that, the 85/90s are the most abused series and they are up to the task!

[#1Gaffman]

Now that is SICK!!!!



Do you guys pull alot of artificials over there?