Honeymoon Fishing Report - A Triple Header

**chumtini** · 09-03-2005 09:50 AM

What a great 3 weeks!!! The vacation maybe be over, but not the honeymoon. Spent a week out on Chatham, MA, a week on the big island and a week on Maui. Just got back yesterday (Sat). Over the 3 weeks I managed a triple header on blues, BLUE fish, BLUE fin tuna and a BLUE marlin!!

A first for me on any vacation. 3 weeks and 12K miles helps!

Started out of Chatham for BFTs and ran into a huge school of monster blue fish busting. Plopped the boat right in the middle of the school and starting hooking up immediately on spinning tackle and fly. Good fun and got the skunk off the boat. Here's Jeff from Minnesota on his first s/w fish ever. Does this guy look happy or what?

**chumtini** · 09-03-2005 09:53 AM

A SBFT off crab ledge. That's me, the very happy groom now that I have a BFT on board

**chumtini** · 09-03-2005 10:22 AM

The bride left me on the dock to take care of business. Not a good idea. I immediately starting talking with the charter boat guys and no sooner can you say "let's got fishing", I had a charter booked (hehe) aboard Start Me Up, out of Lahina, Maui.

Met Captn Ryan (Ryno) at 4:45AM. He asked what I'd like to do, and I said let's go marlin fishing, man!! He had a big smile on and we hit it off immediately.

Cruised out SSW to a place called "the shoal" and fished along the bank of a canyon. Within 20 minutes the long center went off briefly. We could see the marlin hammer the plastic, then back off. Ryno quickly pulled in line then free spooled trying to drop the lure into the fishes mouth. After a few tries, it worked and we were hooked up. The fish peeled line off for about 5 minutes and the battle began with several jumps and greyhounding across the surface. Took about 45 minutes to get the fish boatside.

Until now, I've always released marlin. But these guys wanted it boated with just the 3 of us onboard. Larry was on the wire, I was in the chair and Ryno top deck. Let me tell you, this was something else. Ryno came down from the bridge and took the first gaff shot. Larry took the 2nd gaff shot, handed me the rope and pole and ran up to the bridge. This fish went postal!! I would too! After about 15-20 minutes and me nearly going overboard, we got the fish thru the door and subdued. But it took all three of us. Turned about to be a male tipping the scales and a little over 200 #s. One tough little *******!