The Big One - 6th February 2001, Mauritius.

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She must have been prowling the periphery of the bonito shoal, waiting for her moment.  “She”, because at almost 600lbs in weight, the marlin had to be female. Males only grow to about 300lbs maximum. 

The small bonito flashed and darted before her. She didn’t notice that the reason it was swimming strangely was that it was connected to a line being systematically drawn towards the boat above.   

On that boat, we had been shadowing the bonito school for a while, stopping every so often to wind in the three or four small, bright tuna that had taken the lures on the 50lb test outfits. This was our second day’s fishing. 

Yesterday, we’d had a good day spoiled by a needless accident. We’d caught a big wahoo and a schoolie yellowfin before a marlin hit the right flat lure. It crashed through the surf on hook up and we were in. Within ten minutes of the fight, Bruno the mate was saying “He will die – look how he jumps!”  But I wasn’t buying it. I’d caught enough marlin by then to know this fish would be fine. I brought him to the boat and they leadered him, but couldn’t hold on and he cartwheeled around beside the boat for a while before charging off. The fish was green – he wasn’t going to die.

 “He’s hooked in the eye – you will see!” yelled Bruno. Now I wasn’t so sure. I don’t want to kill marlin, but it’s cruel and senseless to release a fish with a torn eye. “If that’s what has happened, ok – bring it on board” I said. With a palpable sense of relief Bruno and Jean Francois went for the gaffs. Butchers tools, I thought despondently.

 What happened next still baffles me. Bruno leadered the fish with help from Michel, the skipper. But instead of gaffing it, Jean Francois asked me to take a photo. They then tried to unhook the fish and this time I saw the hook in the fish’s mouth – right in the scissors where it should be. Bruno was shouting “Look, look – he will die!” and I was wondering what was going on since I had agreed to a humanitarian kill, but could see no hooks in it’s eye. Suddenly the marlin jumped and I saw Bruno’s glove torn off on a hook point. He stepped back and I could see the blood. His hand was badly torn. At last, they gaffed the poor creature and delivered the coup de grace.

I felt awful. My first marlin kill and the mate badly injured to boot. I didn’t feel as if I had been responsible though: I’ve fished with enough crews to know that it is possible for one skilled, confident man to leader, tag and then release even big fish unhurt and well. This was a display of inexperience leading to the death of a perfectly good fish and the severe injury of a crewman. “Lets go back” I said. It was only half way through the day, but I had had enough and Bruno needed a doctor.

He got three stitches in his hand and a course of anti-biotics to take for a week. He was lucky; a couple of inches further up and he would have had an artery severed. If the point of the hook had gone forward into his hand, he’d have been dragged overboard, impaled, like the crewman in “A Perfect Storm”.

Up until we saw the bonito school there had been no activity and the crew were quiet, with Bruno taking skippering duties because of his injury. The school was vast. The water shivered and flashed with the numbers of fish beneath it. Huge flocks of birds swooped to pick off the tiny baitfish driven to the surface by the feeding frenzy below. They were small bonitos – just the right size for predators to eat so it was worth sticking with them, even though we were catching them too often, having to stop the boat just to wind them in. Eventually, we didn’t even bother to use the rods and just hand-lined them aboard.

That was when she decided to make her move. That little bonito flashing so close, clearly acting like an injured fish, triggered her predatory instinct and she charged it, probably whacking it with her bill to stun it and then swallowing it whole.

I had just hand-lined a small tuna aboard when the right side 50 bucked over and the reel screamed. “Marlin!” said Michel and grabbed the rod. There was 700 mtrs of 50lb test on that reel and it was disappearing into the depths now at a frantic pace. We were all working to get the lines aboard when we saw that the centre pin of the spool was becoming visible. We were running out of line fast. Michel ran for the cabin and gunned the engine, turning the boat and chasing after her. The extra pressure on the line was clear to see and we all waited for the inevitable line break to occur. Sickeningly, it went all slack.

We shrugged and Jean Francois started to recover the line. Suddenly he shouted as the rod went over again. She was still on.

I got in the fighting chair and they handed the rod to me. It was too small to allow a harness so they clipped it to a safety line for me and I was on my own. “We fight her slow” said Bruno “The line will break so don’t pull hard”. I started to wind on the fish and she immediately tore off again. Michel  backed the boat into the waves to chase her and I started to gain line again. Recovering 800mtrs of line pulling against a near 50lb weight without a harness puts real demands on the arms and lower back, not to mention the fishing gear. This was a set-up best suited to small bonito tuna and dorados. The Penn reel couldn’t take the pressure. As I wound, I could feel the handle wobbling dangerously. Eventually, it came right off leaving me with no way of recovering the line. What to do.

Bruno and Jean Francois had a conversation in Creole and I did what I could to recover line. They got another reel, stripped it down and then they unscrewed the handle on the reel I was using to fit the salvaged part. During this, Michel backed the boat down on the fish as it took line or accelerated away as it charged to keep the line tight. Like a Formula 1 pitstop, the repair was completed in seconds and battle was rejoined.

After 45 minutes of backing down on the fish and cranking the reel, she finally came to the boat. The doubled leader was inside the rod rings when we finally saw her. Michel came out of the cockpit and looked down at the huge green and blue striped shape, glowing like neon in the water. “Beeg Feesh!” he said. There was some discussion in Creole and Bruno said “She is maybe not 600, but she is well over 500. She is green, what do you want to do?” First, I wanted a photo so sent him for the camera. “We cannot unhook her” said Bruno, clearly nervous after the previous days injury.

Just then, she decided she’d had enough of waiting around and tore off. She rose to the surface, her great bulk lunging out of the water in slow motion and crashing back in foaming spay. Not like the small marlin, that leap and thrash around energetically. She was more like a great whale, deliberately breaching. I was yelling at Bruno to take a photo “Just point and click, just point and click!” but he couldn’t understand and I knew in my heart that he’d missed the shot.

All I have of her on film

As I started to recover the line she had taken, Bruno started on his theme again. “She will die, she will die.” They wanted to kill her. I could sympathise. These guys get paid around 1000 rupees per week, but they also get 2 or 3 rupees per pound of fish landed. This fish was worth more than a week’s wages to them. But I could afford to pay them for her and she wasn’t going to die by my hand. This wasn’t the time to think about the money, and besides I was pretty sure that the charter company would pay them a release fee.

How to release her safely was all I was thinking of – the crew were becoming more agitated and it was crystal clear that the more I fought her, the more tired she would become and the more they’d demand her death. Also, they were not going to even attempt to unhook her for fear of personal injury. I worked the line furiously and recovered enough so that we could see the doubled leader again in the water.  “Cut it now!” I said.

Jean Francois looked at Bruno who shrugged resignedly. He cut the line.

She cruised off. 

When she had jumped earlier, I could see that the tuna had been disgorged, so she wouldn’t choke. The hook that was in her was tiny in comparison to her bulk and would be no more than an irritation until it worked its way out. As for the line, 20 yards of 50lb test wasn’t going to hold back a near 600lb marlin and her abrasive jaws would soon cut through it. 

I did the right thing.